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Plants contain toxins which protect them from herbivores, but some caterpillars have evolved countermeasures which enable them to eat the leaves of such toxic plants. In addition to being unaffected by the poison, the caterpillars sequester it in their body, making them highly toxic to predators. The chemicals are also carried on into the adult ...
Butterfly larvae, or caterpillars, consume plant leaves and spend practically all of their time searching for and eating food. Although most caterpillars are herbivorous, a few species are predators: Spalgis epius eats scale insects, [48] while lycaenids such as Liphyra brassolis are myrmecophilous, eating ant larvae. [49]
Herbivory is of extreme ecological importance and prevalence among insects.Perhaps one third (or 500,000) of all described species are herbivores. [4] Herbivorous insects are by far the most important animal pollinators, and constitute significant prey items for predatory animals, as well as acting as major parasites and predators of plants; parasitic species often induce the formation of galls.
In nature, pests are a severe problem to plant communities as well, leading to the co-evolution of plant chemical defenses and herbivore metabolic strategies to detoxify their plant food. [25] [14] A variety of invertebrates consume plants, but insects have received a majority of the attention. Insects are pervasive agricultural pests and ...
Western tent caterpillar larvae are generalist herbivores, feeding on leaves. However, diet preference is heavily dependent on geographical location. 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.
Some plants are thought to employ aposematism to warn herbivores of unpalatable chemicals or physical defences such as prickled leaves or thorns. [26] Many insects, such as cinnabar moth caterpillars, acquire toxic chemicals from their host plants. [27]
A last-ditch defence is for the animal's flesh itself to be toxic, as in the puffer fish, danaid butterflies and burnet moths. Many insects acquire toxins from their food plants; Danaus caterpillars accumulate toxic cardenolides from milkweeds (Asclepiadaceae). [56] Some prey animals are able to eject noxious materials to deter predators actively.
An example is the koala, because it feeds only on eucalyptus leaves. Primary consumers that feed on many kinds of plants are called generalists. Secondary consumers are small/medium-sized carnivores that prey on herbivorous animals. Omnivores, which feed on both plants and animals, can be considered as being both primary and secondary consumers.