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Science 22 July 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5734, p. 575
DOI: 10.1126/science.1110397
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Brevia

Web-Spinning Caterpillar Stalks Snails

Daniel Rubinoff* and William P. Haines

Moths and butterflies compose one of the most diverse insect orders, but they are overwhelmingly herbivorous. Less than 0.2% are specialized predators, indicating that lepidopteran feeding habits are highly constrained. We report a Hawaiian caterpillar that specializes on snails, a unique food source requiring an unusual feeding strategy. The caterpillar uses silk to restrain live prey. All caterpillars have silk glands, but none are known to use silk in this spiderlike fashion. Considering the canalization of caterpillar diets, evolution to attack and feed on snails is an anomaly. Hawaii s isolation and consequently disharmonic biota likely promote evolutionary experiments that occur nowhere else.

310 Gilmore Hall, Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences, 3050 Maile Way, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rubinoff{at}hawaii.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Phylogeography and ecology of an endemic radiation of Hawaiian aquatic case-bearing moths (Hyposmocoma: Cosmopterigidae).
D. Rubinoff (2008)
Phil Trans R Soc B 363, 3459-3465
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Using a theoretical ecospace to quantify the ecological diversity of Paleozoic and modern marine biotas.
P. M. Novack-Gottshall (2007)
Paleobiology 33, 273-294
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