Miracle Caterpillar

Another spot I go to for encounters with wildlife is a quiet country lane near the village of Barkby, Leicestershire. The long silent road has hedges both sides and beyond that fields full of crops. Here and there old trees stand and sometimes congregating to form little islands of wilderness. I went down there the other night looking for any crepuscular species, such as foxes, badgers or owls. Though I could hear a lot of wildlife, I couldn't really see any. I was on my way back to the car in the dark when I came across what is ultimately my worst nightmare. A huge silk web stretched out over metres of the plants at the field boundary. All at once I was filled with revulsion and fear and very nearly bolted for safety. In the nightime conditions I barely dared to look at the seething mass of web and movement in case I should see some horrible thing. But just as I did I noticed that the whole bush was swarming in a pulsation kind of movement. What was it? I went back in the daylight and strangely felt significantly less afraid of the thing. It was a huge web swarming with creatures. Just, not spiders as my over zealous imagination had depicted. It was caterpillars. Thousands of them. Black and hairy and all twitching and throbbing on some giant web. What on Earth was going on? When Peacock Butterflies or Inachis Io lay a good number of eggs on stinging nettle leaves the caterpillars work together to bridge plants with a silk web they produce. The Caterpillars then have a highway that allows them to change bush. Check out this video to see some close up action with the bigascope.

This was interesting indeed. By working together in a colony the caterpillars were increasing their chance of survival. Greater numbers could be supported if they just all worked together. Cooperation by evolution. This is something that human beings do. The fields surrounding the caterpillars was evidence of this. The farmer does not live by his crop alone but cooperates with others of his species. We share a common survival strategy with this insect.

My interest in this grew when I spotted the caterpillar above. Amongst all the brownish black caterpillars was one with a greener head and whiter spikes. Amongst this seething mass of caterpillars one was different. Here are my three hypothesis.

1) Its a different species

2) Its the same species after shedding its skin

3) Its a mutant

Firstly, I don't think it is a different species. It has too many commonalities with the other caterpillars. It could be a newly shed version, but its spines actually look longer near its head compared to the others. Finally the idea that this one caterpillar is displaying variation within the species is not so far fetched. It by such individuals that evolution happens. What the answer is I don't know. Neither do my friends over at Wild About Britain. What is for sure is that doing a Google image search for Peacock Caterpillar does not bring up a single image of a caterpillar with white spikes. Whatever little miracle we are witnessing here, it is extremely rare.