{"id":715532,"date":"2026-06-04T21:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/715532\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T21:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:27:10","slug":"it-carefully-measures-insect-body-parts-for-size-chewing-down-the-ones-that-dont-fit-this-carnivore-decorates-its-home-in-bones-of-its-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/715532\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt carefully measures insect body parts for size, chewing down the ones that don\u2019t fit…\u201d This carnivore decorates its home in bones of its prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many geographically-isolated locations, Hawai’i is an extraordinary evolutionary site that contains many unusual invertebrates. In 2025, a\u00a0research article led by Daniel Rubinoff<\/a> in the journal\u00a0Science\u00a0described an unusual caterpillar, referring to it as a \u2018bone collector\u2019 (Hyposmocoma\u00a0sp.). <\/p>\n

The \u2018bone collector\u2019 caterpillar<\/a> earned its moniker from its rather macabre home-decor tendencies. It lives in spider webs and constructs portable cocoons with inedible parts of the spider\u2019s prey \u2013 potentially to camouflage<\/a> itself against its \u2018landlord\u2019. An ant\u2019s<\/a> head here, or a fly<\/a> wing there \u2013 a perfect home for the bone collector caterpillar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The caterpillar is quite particular about its decorating, carefully measuring insect body parts for size, rotating, probing and chewing down the ones that don\u2019t fit. It specifically uses corpses \u2013 researchers have found that when in captivity, these caterpillars do not accept other bits of organic matter, which suggests this decoration is crucial for their survival.<\/p>\n

\"plateThis plate has six bone collector caterpillar cases that show the variety of insect parts that are attached to the cases. The parts include beetle wings, ant heads, fly wings and legs, and spider legs and other body parts. The silken case itself is visible with the greyish material (a mix of caterpillar saliva and silk). The insect body parts are then attached with silk to ‘hide’ the case and the caterpillar living inside it. Credit: Daniel Rubinoff<\/p>\n

This carnivorous caterpillar is the only known caterpillar lineage to cohabitate with spiders<\/a>. It crawls through the jumble of web and dead organic matter and eats any weakened or recently-killed insects it comes across. It\u2019s also an adaptable predator and will even cannibalise<\/a> its own kind if needed.<\/p>\n

This is remarkable given that the\u00a0Lepidoptera\u00a0order is the most herbivorous of all insect orders: only 0.13 per cent of the nearly 200,000 moth and butterfly<\/a> species<\/a> are carnivores. A lot of these insect-eaters reside in Hawai’i, with 18 of the 20 native species there having evolved into predators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u2018bone collector\u2019 caterpillar has been recorded on the webs of at least four different species of spider, none of which are native to Hawai’i.<\/p>\n

It belongs to the genus\u00a0Hyposmocoma\u00a0\u2013 one of Hawai’i\u2019s oldest, at 14 million years old. The bone collector lineage itself is at least six million years old, making it three million years older than the island it now calls home, O\u2019ahu.<\/p>\n

This suggests that the bone collector lineage once occurred on older Hawai’ian islands, from which an ancestor moved to O\u2019ahu. <\/p>\n

Despite over a century of research, it\u2019s only been found in a 15km2\u00a0area on O\u2019ahu, and over two decades of fieldwork have yielded only 62 individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout conservation attention, it is likely that the last living representative of this lineage of carnivorous, body-part collecting caterpillars that has adapted to a precarious existence among spider webs will disappear,\u201d explain the study\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n

Read the full findings here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Top image: after taking the bark of this rotting log, the scientists found a cobweb with a non-native spider and its eggsac, right next to a bone collector larva. The cobweb is covered in frass (excrement) from insects like beetles and termites that are eating the wood. Credit: Daniel Rubinoff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many geographically-isolated locations, Hawai’i is an extraordinary evolutionary site that contains many unusual invertebrates. In 2025, a\u00a0research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-715532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}