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Caterpillars are often black or red, and feed on compatible plants of the genus Aristolochia. They are known for sequestering acids from the plants they feed on in order to defend themselves from predators by being poisonous when consumed. The adults feed on the nectar of a variety of flowers.
Caterpillars of most species eat plant material (often leaves), but not all; some (about 1%) eat insects, and some are even cannibalistic. Some feed on other animal products. For example, clothes moths feed on wool, and horn moths feed on the hooves and horns of dead ungulates.
Cutworms are moth larvae that hide under litter or soil during the day, coming out in the dark to feed on plants. A larva typically attacks the first part of the plant it encounters, namely the stem, often of a seedling, and consequently cuts it down; hence the name cutworm. Cutworms are not worms, biologically speaking, but caterpillars.
Its consumption of toxic plants makes it distasteful to most predators. An exception is the smooth-billed ani (Crotophaga ani), which tears the caterpillar apart to eat it, avoiding the gut containing the plant material. The caterpillar is also coated in barbed urticating hairs, which stick deeply in skin and cause irritation. If caught, the ...
The caterpillars stay in these nests during the day between feeding periods, and later in the summer they remain in the nests to pupate into adult moths. [1] The caterpillars are mostly found in oak trees or on the ground under them in late spring and early summer, and do not live on fences, walls, etc. as other caterpillars do.
One such species is the shivering pinion (Lithophane querquera), whose larvae commonly feed on other lepidopteran larvae. [20] Moreover, many noctuid larvae, such as those of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) and of genera such as Heliothis and Helicoverpa, aggressively eat their siblings and often other species of caterpillar. [21]
The tree in which a female deposits the eggs is where the larvae will choose to feed. The most common host plants that caterpillars feed on are leaves from stonefruit trees. However, larvae will feed on many other types of tree foliage. Adult moths do not eat and live for 1–4 days. [7]
The caterpillars of the gray hairstreak butterfly consume a wide range of food plants. [3] However, they do mainly use mallows and legumes as their preferred host plant. They commonly use clovers as their food plant as well, eating rabbit-foot clover (Trifolium arvense), white clover (T. repens), bush clover (Lespedeza capitata), white sweet-clover (Melilotis alba), and Malva neglecta.