578: Web-Spinning Caterpillar Stalks Snails -- Rubinoff and Haines 309 (5734): 575 -- Science

Web-Spinning Caterpillar Stalks Snails -- Rubinoff and Haines 309 (5734): 575 -- Science:

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.

An important principle of evolution is that you work with what you've got. In a low diversity area, normal traits get co-opted to unexpected uses.