...Daniel P. Caron; Martha Rimniceanu; Anthony E. Scibelli; Barry A. Trimmer ABSTRACT The caterpillar Manduca sexta produces a highly stereotyped strike behavior in response to noxious thermal or mechanical stimuli to the abdomen. This rapid movement is targeted to the site of the stimulus...

...Ritwika Mukherjee; Samuel Vaughn; Barry A. Trimmer ABSTRACT Because soft animals are deformable, their locomotion is particularly affected by external forces and they are expected to face challenges controlling movements in different environments and orientations. We have used the caterpillar...

...Kendra J. Greenlee; John J. Socha; Haleigh B. Eubanks; Paul Pedersen; Wah-Keat Lee; Scott D. Kirkton SUMMARY Abdominal pumping in caterpillars has only been documented during molting. Using synchrotron X-ray imaging in conjunction with high-speed flow-through respirometry, we show that Manduca...

...Veronica L. Bura; Vanya G. Rohwer; Paul R. Martin; Jayne E. Yack SUMMARY Caterpillar defenses have been researched extensively, and, although most studies focus on visually communicated signals, little is known about the role that sounds play in defense. We report on whistling, a novel form...

... for climbing in complex branched structures and on a variety of surfaces. Caterpillars therefore are excellent for examining the relationship between soft body deformation and substrate reaction forces during locomotion. In this study, we devised a method to measure the ground reaction forces (GRFs...

... segment three) in caterpillars crawling horizontally (points at the left) or vertically (points on the right). Each line joins data points for an individual caterpillar. The boxplots show quartile 1 (Q1), median and quartile 3 (Q3) for all caterpillars( N =25). Outliers, indicated by closed dots, are 1.5...

...William A. Woods, Jr; Steven J. Fusillo; Barry A. Trimmer SUMMARY Caterpillars are soft-bodied terrestrial climbers that perform a wide variety of complex movements with several hundred muscles and a relatively small number of neurons. Control of movements is therefore expected to place unusual...

..., final-instar caterpillars of generalist-feeding African cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) were confined to one of 20 diets varying in protein:carbohydrate (P:C) ratio (35:7, 28:14, 21:21,14:28 and 7:35) and in the quality of dietary protein (0%, 20%, 50% and 80...

...Sarah G. Brown; George H. Boettner; Jayne E. Yack SUMMARY Acoustic signals produced by caterpillars have been documented for over 100 years, but in the majority of cases their significance is unknown. This study is the first to experimentally examine the phenomenon of audible sound production...

...Kwang Pum Lee; Spencer T. Behmer,; Stephen J. Simpson, SUMMARY We examined the nutritional correlates of diet breadth in insect herbivores by comparing patterns of diet selection, nutrient balancing, post-ingestive utilization and development in two sister species of caterpillar and a hybrid...

...Sheri Mezoff; Nicole Papastathis; Anne Takesian; Barry A. Trimmer SUMMARY Caterpillars are ecologically successful soft-bodied climbers. They are able to grip tightly to foliage using cuticular hooks at the tips of specialized abdominal limbs called prolegs. The neural control of proleg retraction...

...E. A. Bernays; D. Rodrigues; R. F. Chapman; M. S. Singer; T. Hartmann SUMMARY Electrophysiological recordings from taste sensilla of the caterpillar Estigmene acrea with the pyrrolizidine alkaloid (PA) seneciphylline N -oxide demonstrated that extensive feeding on plants rich in PAs caused a loss...

...John I. Glendinning; Sonya Ensslen; Michal E. Eisenberg; Phoebe Weiskopf ABSTRACT We studied exposure-induced sensitivity changes in an identified taste cell from Manduca sexta , a herbivorous caterpillar. This taste cell occurs within the lateral styloconic sensillum and responds selectively...

...Valerie A. Bennett; Olga Kukal; Richard E. Lee, Jr ABSTRACT Arctic woollybear caterpillars, Gynaephora groenlandica , had the capacity to rapidly and dramatically increase respiration rates up to fourfold within 12–24 h of feeding and exhibited similar decreases in respiration of 60–85...

...Stanley Caveney; Heather McLean; David Surry ABSTRACT Many leaf-rolling caterpillars have a rigid anal comb attached to the lower surface of the anal plate (or shield) situated above the anus. This comb is widely assumed to be a lever used to ‘flick’ away frass pellets. An alternative mechanism...

..., NY 10027-6598, USA. 28 03 1996 ©The Company of Biologists Limited 1996 food rejection toxic response chemoreception taste caterpillar Manduca sexta Sphingidae Plant-feeding insects often rapidly reject foods containing toxic plant compounds (e.g. Blaney...