442 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



In India, Mr. de Nic^ille has found as many as four species of 

 ants attendinf; one species of larva. Not only do the ants attend the 

 larvae from their very first stages until they are fuUj'^ grown, but 

 they often cause the larvae to change to pupae within their nests, 

 sometimes taking them deep under ground, in this manner protect- 

 ing them from the time they emerge from the egg to the hour they 

 assume the perfect form and fly away. One ant even goes so far as to 

 surround each separate caterpillar and the leaf on which it has been 

 feeding with a few sti-ands of its silken web, protecting it jealously 

 and attacking most fiercely any living thing intruding upon it. In 

 the case of tlie larvae of a Ceylonese species {Aphnwus lohita) 

 which frequent the nests of Cremasto garter on Acacia and Gre- 

 vUlea trees, on the foliage of which they feed, the caterpillars are 

 herded in special shelters built by the ants and are driven out at 

 night to feed and brought back home to their shelters in the morn- 

 ing. There are many other interesting types of association between 

 lycaenid caterpillars and various ants. 



Mr. de Niceville and others have remarked that ant-tended 

 lyceenid caterpillars are most easily found by looking for the ants. 

 The caterpillars are usually colored like the leaves, buds, flowers, 

 or seed pods upon which they feed, and are for other reasons not 

 easy to detect; but the restless black, brown, or red ants are very 

 conspicuous. 



THE SIGNAL TOWERS OF LYC.l^NID LARA'iE 



On the twelfth segment, the next behind the one bearing the oval 

 opening from which the honey is exuded, are two other organs, one 

 on either side in the subdorsal region, each- of which looks like a 

 stigma, but is a little larger. From each of these the caterpillar can 

 extrude at will a membranous cylinder or tall pillar with a crown of 

 tentacles about the summit. Mr. W. H. Edwards has suggested 

 that these curious organs when extruded serve as signals for the 

 ants, inviting them to come and examine the mouthlike opening on 

 the eleventh segment. It has been supposed, and with good reason, 

 that from these processes an odor is given oif attractive to the ants. 

 They are at once withdrawn if an ant approaches, and the ants are 

 never allowed to touch them. 



THE WHIRLING BRUSHES OF CURETI8 CATERPILLARS 



In the oriental genus Cu7'etis, which in the larval stage does not 

 possess the mouthlike organ on the eleventh segment and is not at- 

 tended and protected by the ants, these two organs arc of very great 

 size. Each organ consists of a tall "' pillar " from which, when the 

 larva is touched or frightened, is instantly protruded a long tentacle 



