{"id":2191251,"date":"2026-06-02T06:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2191251"},"modified":"2026-05-30T09:10:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:10:29","slug":"over-the-next-6-months-it-will-prey-on-the-defenceless-larvae-until-its-100-times-its-original-size-this-undercover-carnivore-may-look-harmless-but-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/over-the-next-6-months-it-will-prey-on-the-defenceless-larvae-until-its-100-times-its-original-size-this-undercover-carnivore-may-look-harmless-but-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cOver the next 6 months, it will prey on the defenceless larvae until it\u2019s 100 times its original size.\u201d This undercover carnivore may look harmless \u2013 but don\u2019t be fooled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The large blue butterfly (<em>Phengaris arion<\/em>), the largest and rarest of the UK\u2019s blue butterflies, has a remarkable lifecycle. It relies entirely on a single species of red\u00a0ant\u00a0(<em>Myrmica sabuleti)\u00a0<\/em>to survive.<\/p>\n<p>In the\u00a0third episode of the BBC TV series\u00a0<em>Wild Isles<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Grasslands<\/em>,\u00a0David Attenborough\u00a0narrates a chilling chain of events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis caterpillar is one of the very few in the world that becomes carnivorous,\u201d he says.\u00a0Less than 1% of the nearly 200,000\u00a0moth and butterfly\u00a0species\u00a0are carnivores.<\/p>\n<p>The first trick up this caterpillar\u2019s sleeve is a droplet of honeydew which it releases to lure a worker ant to tend to it. Next, it inflates its body to then release the air, making a sound resembling a distress call of a queen ant. During this, it also douses the ant in intoxicating pheromones.<\/p>\n<p>The worker ant picks up the caterpillar and carries it back to the nest, as if rescuing it from whatever distress it could be experiencing. The other ants accept this new arrival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce inside the nest, the caterpillar can go wherever she likes,\u201d continues Attenborough.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next six months, the caterpillar will prey on the defenceless ant larvae until it\u2019s 100 times its original size. Then, it\u2019ll become a chrysalis, to emerge as an adult large blue butterfly \u2013 nearly a year later.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe id=\"356855763\" title=\"Carnivorous UNDERCOVER caterpillar &#x1f41b;&#x1f60e; | Wild Isles - BBC\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4JoEWdV7tpQ?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discoverwildlife.com\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-129157385_7=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-18=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The large blue butterfly became extinct in Britain in 1979, but it has since been\u00a0reintroduced\u00a0from Europe \u2013 now, the UK has one of the densest populations in the world.<\/p>\n<p><em>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/tv\/large-blue-butterfly-carnivore-bbc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article<\/a> Magda Patynska was first published by Discover Wildlife on 29 May 2026. Lead Image: Large blue butterfly upper side. Credit: PJC&amp;Co, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Help to protect wildlife<\/h2>\n<p><em>Protect wildlife by making a monthly donation as little as $5.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/install-popup-button.js\" id=\"donorbox-popup-button-installer\"> <\/script><a id=\"preview_inline_popup_button\" class=\"dbox-donation-button\" style=\"background: #0dc5dc; color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; display: flex; gap: 8px; width: fit-content; font-size: 16px; border-radius: 5px; line-height: 24px; padding: 8px 24px;\" href=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/focusing-on-wildlife-needs-your-support?default_interval=m&amp;amount=25\" data-reminder-widget-enabled=\"true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">PROTECT WILDLIFE<\/a><script type=\"module\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/widgets.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It only takes a minute!<\/p>\n<hr style=\"border-top: 1px solid white;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The large blue butterfly (Phengaris arion), the largest and rarest of the UK\u2019s blue butterflies, has a remarkable lifecycle. It relies entirely on a single species of red\u00a0ant\u00a0(Myrmica sabuleti)\u00a0to survive. In the\u00a0third episode of the BBC TV series\u00a0Wild Isles,\u00a0Grasslands,\u00a0David Attenborough\u00a0narrates a chilling chain of events. \u201cThis caterpillar is one of the very few in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2206180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/05\/Maculinea_arion_Large_Blue_Upperside_SFrance_2009-07-18.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[61,3635,12649,4846,12812],"class_list":["post-2191251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-butterflies","tag-carnivores","tag-david-attenborough","tag-grasslands","tag-larvae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2191251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2191251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2191251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2191251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}