Nature never ceases to amaze me. If you want to see some of the weirdest, most fantastically odd things Evolution has produced (for example, dancing spiders with multi-colored 'capes' that pop up), I highly recommend this blog: http://wtfevolution.tumblr.com
After all, he's got the quick movements with the stops in between, and he wears some pretty colorful locking outfit. Since I can't find any evidence for Campbell inheriting this behavior from the spider or the other way round, I say it co-evolved.
I thought the same, but they already discussed that in the comments [1] as the first serious contender, only to ultimately dismiss it as something else entirely.
Instead of hiding, the caterpillar builds an open-air net-like structure which hangs by a thread from the bottom of a leaf. The video hypothesizes that the structure both protects the pupa from ants and allows rain to flow through it (both of which seem like critical features in the Amazonian rainforest).
Alternative, admittedly uninformed hypothesis: the structure makes it lighter, which means the chord suspending it can be thinner, which makes it harder for ants to crawl down it.
Any search engine experts here? How do people try to find the answer to this question if they know nothing about the subject?
My approach is to bang in various words and do image searches, forcing some and not others, and then try similar words. [weird cocoon] or [weird egg sac peru] and then sometimes including a subject word. (Entomology).
Then I do a TinEye search, or a GoogleImage search to see if I can find other pages talkng about it.
I'm not sure if you have much of a chance of finding the answer if you know nothing about the subject - unless someone else already blogged about it somewhere. I'm sure that many of the people that are confused about it in the comments actually do have a background in biology, and they're having a tough time.
There's another possibility. Because of where this was discovered, it's more than possible that it's a new species. There are plenty of undiscovered species in the tropics, especially in the insecta class.
Absolutely. It's not a "the first person who can tell me what this is a picture of gets a prize" thing, it's an "I'm a biologist and I'm genuinely confused about what this is, please help" thing.
I'm guessing that it evolved the fence to prevent crawling predators from feasting on the cocoon while the bug is pupating. That said, its a really interesting example.
The next time the guy is out in the jungle and sees one the thing to do is to take it home, put it in a jar, and wait to see what pops out. I learned about mosquito eggs that way, as a youth I thought they were tadpole eggs, put them in my jar and waited for frogs. Instead I got mosquito larvae and then a jar of dead mosquitos (I didn't take the top off once I recognized the larval form.)
Or maybe set up a camera to take pictures every couple of minutes. Sometimes removing these things from their environment may prevent them from hatching.
Incredible. I looks the organism erected a fence to protect whatever it is in the center. If this turns out not to be a hoax it will be truly amazing. It is part of the "Endless Forms" of life.
> I looks the organism erected a fence to protect whatever it is in the center.
It does look like that, but it doesn't make sense, since if the flimsy fence is strong enough to keep something out, the cocoon should also be strong enough.
A few months ago a friend told me he felt hn had jumped the shark. This frontpage discussion about a blog post about a reddit thread pretty much settles any debate there was to be had on that topic!
"I'll miss the sea, but a person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."
