Bone collector caterpillar adorns itself in body parts in insects

But then the team started to find more of these caterpillars, all covered with the body parts of other insects and shoulder spider skins, and all near spider webs. “We started to realize that these things are only hanging around where there are spiders,” said Rubinoff, who spent a few years verifying that this was indeed a rare new species. “It is the kind of things that you really want to be sure of, because it is not only incredible, it is unimaginable.”

A genomic analysis confirmed the suspicions of the researchers and sheds some light on the possible evolutionary route of the bone collector. The bone ring villar may have just been discovered by people, but it is at least 5 million years old and possibly as old as 12 million years, dates from before the island of O’ahu on which it now lives exclusively in an area of ​​approximately 15 square kilometers in the Waitaee Mountains. No other well -known member of the same line has been found, which suggests that the species comes from an early island in a chain that has since disappeared.

Dressed for success

Why do the caterpillars do this? “It’s a decoration or situation,” said Rubinoff. “In the evolutionary history, those who do not decorate their affairs were probably removed from the Genenpool fairly quickly. But a few of them started to record and survived in their fallen bug and spider -bits. Selection would cause them to have the sensory capacity to detect that Bits’s lair, you can eagle.”

Bot collector larva in web.

Rubinoff Lab/University of Hawaii, Manoa

Bot collector larva in web.

Rubinoff Lab/University of Hawaii, Manoa

Defined adult female (left) of the bone collector caterpillar and portable housing (right) in which the larva is located, decorated with body parts of ants, bark beetles, beetles and flies.

D. Rubinoff et al., 2025

Defined adult female (left) of the bone collector caterpillar and portable housing (right) in which the larva is located, decorated with body parts of ants, bark beetles, beetles and flies.

D. Rubinoff et al., 2025

Bone collector.

Rubinoff Lab/University of Hawaii, Manoa

Bone collector.

Rubinoff Lab/University of Hawaii, Manoa

Defined adult female (left) of the bone collector caterpillar and portable housing (right) in which the larva is located, decorated with body parts of ants, bark beetles, beetles and flies.

D. Rubinoff et al., 2025

Bone collector.

Rubinoff Lab/University of Hawaii, Manoa

It is a mixed, messy kind of treasure, because controlling the body parts in a too orderly fashion would defeat the goal of camouflage while crawling around the three -dimensional spider webs that they favor. “They are not going to walk between two trees; they hide in a small hole in a tree trunk where there are spider webs,” said Rubinoff. “A spider detects vibrations in the web, rushes out to get his prey, smells itself and is already chasing it and assumes that there is nothing new to eat.”