On hatching, the larvae immediately eat the egg shell before feeding on the host plant. The larvae eat the seeds, developing seed pods and flower-heads.
Almost all caterpillars eat the leaves of plants, and a few can eat enough to damage trees or crops. They have evolved along with their foodplants. Most foodplants don’t want to be eaten, so they have chemicals in their leaves to discourage caterpillars. Often these chemicals make them useful to humans as herbs and spices — basil, for example, or peppermint. While a butterfly or moth will take nectar from almost any kind of flower, their caterpillars often will only eat one kind of plant. Some caterpillars do eat other insects, but very few.
Caterpillars have small but strong jaws that bite like pincers. They get the edge of a leaf between those jaws and just start biting. The tiny bites go into the caterpillar’s gut where they’re dissolved and turned into energy or fat. Eventually the waste material is ejected as poo (which look like little hand-grenades!).
Caterpillar mouth parts are really tiny and designed to eat leaves. Some caterpillars will try to scare you by acting like they’re about to bite — they rear up on their hind feet and might even make a faint clicking sound, but it’s all for show. Since moth caterpillars are often larger than butterfly caterpillars, they are often the ones that try to appear scary.
There is one caterpillar, however, that has been known to nip people with its jaws. It’s the huge striped caterpillar of a tropical hawkmoth (family Sphingidae). I have found these caterpillars in Panama, and they do look like they could give you a pretty good pinch!
Credit : Owlcation
Picture Credit : Google
