Butterfly eggs and caterpillar survival - Life in the Undergrowth - BBC Attenborough

Watch this amazing animal video showing the clever survival techniques of the caterpillar as it disguises itself as ant larvae, and the deceptive techniques of the wasp as it invades the same ants nest to lay its eggs inside the butterfly larvae. Brilliant images in this video from BBC animal and wildlife show 'Life in the Undergrowth' with Sir David Attenborough.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• BBC
• Attenborough
• David
• Wildlife
• Nature
• Animal
• Animals
• Insect
• Life
• Undergrowth
• Slug
• Ant
• Butterfly
• Wasp
• free
• video

[Roy4brawl]

Your metapod just evolved into a ... Beedrill?

[xjavex]

These insects are quite complex. Although their life is simply a cycle of producing babies and growing into adulthood, their unique way of doing so is quite amazing. These insects are quite bizarre and very amusing. It is quite beautiful how nature makes these adaptations.

[CityLights452]

Haha it'd be funny if bugs had soap operas... Mr. Wasp tries to get with Ms. Blue Butterfly and then after they have sex they flip thru their old photo albums and find out they were both in the same AntHill nursey... they're half siblings! Dun dun dun! Can love conquer? . . . Ya I've got too much time on my hands :/

[sharartie]

so how does the wasp knows which ant nest is the butterfly catterpillars?

Indeed it is God who commands it.

[Skorpi00007]

@x3IceJubei They either set build the nest them self with cameras and than add an ant colony in there or they used tiny cameras and pushed them into the nest for clear view. However they did definitely put the larvae in front of the ant colony to pick it up and also released a wasp nearby to invade the nest

[persephoneo]

wasps are mean!

[brysonp62]

@ungertron its not by chance, evolution is guided by a process known as natural selection. sort of like an invisible hand guiding which mutations are kept and which are not. just wanted to say it isnt by chance, this isnt meant to be disrespectful or aggressive in anyway.

[x3IceJubei]

One question, How did these people film those ants in their nest?!

[ungertron]

OMG how can evolution step by step do these things - so did the Blue Butterfly have eggs that by chance have a sent that was identical to ant eggs, ok that seems possible then, by chance, the larva smelled like the ants - yea if the egg smells like an ant egg the larva would smell like an ant yes - but how the hell did the wasp step by step evolve the mind altering chemical to make the ants fight each other and how could it evolve to find the victim larva in a red ant nest by chance??

[chantimothy]

At the end the wasp goes: sup bitches... Gonna steal all yo larvae

[tiapon]

in the end the wasp like raising his eyeborws 'wacha think?? huh? u like that?'

[sumantirukovela]

so the ants take care of the lava , clean them , feed them and on fine day a butterfly and a wasp comes out of it , ants like r we being deceived wtf just happened amazing nature