In this post, I would like to share another oddly weird caterpillar phenomenon which I came across online. Destin, who is a content creator for his YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay, posted a video about caterpillars moving in a lump swarm. He explains that it may be actually more efficient for these caterpillars to move around in a group, rather than crawling around alone. Check out his video here:
(All right, after some digging around, I found out that these creatures are apparently called Perreyia flavipes. They resemble caterpillars but are actually larvae. The adult insect look like wasps and they do not grow into moths or butterflies. However, I am posting this up in case there are actually some species of caterpillars that exhibit similar behavior. Who knows what Mother Nature has in store for us? xD)
It took me a couple of seconds staring at Destin's lego demonstration before it actually clicked in my head that these larvae are actually stepping on each other to move ahead faster than they would have if they moved alone!
Imagine that you are standing on a travelator. The moving belt underneath your feet helps to transport you from one point to another. However, if you start to walk on the travelator, your speed doubles up and you end up moving faster.
This is exactly the same case for these larvae! Interestingly, the larvae climb on top of each other to take advantage of the movement of the bottom most larvae, which functions just like the travelator. When the top most larva reaches the front of the horde, it goes back onto the ground and lets other larvae crawl over him. When it finds itself at the end of the crowd, it then tries to climb back up onto others in front of it.
However, unlike the Pine Pocessionary Caterpillars, they aren't quite organised and do not move in a straight line. Hence, this is probably why you get a lump or creepy crawly mess trying to move in the same direction.
If you are the type of person who likes geeky math, you can check out Aatish Bhatia's post on Empirical Zeal where he analyzed Destin's video and calculated how much faster each layer of 'caterpillars' were moving. He calls it a "rolling swarm", and even built a game for it!
Or if you simply want to see more of these crazy stuff, here are some other footage of creatures that agglomerate on the ground:
Weird & Wilder is a mini series dedicated to exploring the strangest facts about moths and butterflies. Who would ever again think that moths are boring? Check out the entire series here!
Cheers,
Night
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