Caterpillers do a great deal of chewing on new vegetation in the spring. A friend once told me she could hear them chewing on her trees. This was during one of those cyclic biblical army worm swarms. Just wondering if anyone knows if these critters have teeth!
137161
Well, yea and no..Only vertebrates have teeth as we know them, but insects, including caterpillars, do have structures called "teeth". \n\nCaterpillar mouthparts are mandibles, which are the mouthparts of all the arthropods - by far the largest and most successful animal group, which includes insects, crustaceans, spiders and relatives, millipedes, centipedes and a few more slightly obscure groups of things.
438301
They can't know, just like we can't.  \n\nThey may be able to read cues and clues like we do, but they are not prognosticators.  \n\nGenerally plants and animals are adapted to the area they live in, and know how to prepare either from experience or even genetic cues.  Also, they always seem to prepare for the worst.  I've seen trees in warm California lose there leaves because they thought winter was coming.  It was, but they could have easily grown through the mild winter.  They were a species adapted to a different climate.\n\nGood question.  It shows you're thinking about your world!
496603
It is molting... they will grow back.\n\nHowever, it could just be reaching the end of its lifespan... they usually die at the end of fall...\n\nHere's a link for you\nhttp://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2060.html
50527
>>>if chloropyll is implanted in to an animal cell,would it\n>>>>> become auto trophic\n\nNo. \n\nAs Masyhur points out chlorphyll is just a tiny part of an incredibly complex system of pigments and enzymes needed to harvest light.  It is really akin to asking whether you could glue a carburettor to the side of a cardborad box and turn it into an airplane. \n\nA more plausible route would be to implant entire chlorplasts into an animal cell line. That has potential, but only for narrow range of animals.\n\nSee, the thing about chloroplasts is they need light to work. And the thing about most animals is that they have evolved pigments to stop light penetrating their cells. The two conditions are mutually exclsuive. You could implant or the chlorplasts you like into a human or cockroach and they won't do anyhting because they will be permanently in the dark.\n\nWith transparent animals like jellyfish or glass fish or similar you probably could achieve some level of autotrophic activity. \n\nIn the case of a highly active animal like a fish the payoff wouldn't be worth the cost. Chlorplasts require energy to build and maintain and active animals can't afford to laze around int he sun all day. That's why the ancestors of animals abandoned their chlorophyll in the first place (did you know that all animals are descended from photosyntheic organisms?)\n\nBut with slow moving animals like jellyfish it becomes more plausible. Some jellyfish already utilise symbiotic algae to harvest sunlight, so for those species the addition of inherent chlorpplasts could be a major boon.\n\n>>>>IS IT POSSIBLE \n\nNot with todays technology. However it is entirely possible we could have the technology to implant chlorplasts within our liftimes. I dont; quite see why we would bother, but still.....
473831
I think we consider the idea of these researchers:\n\nGeochemist Christopher Romanek of UGA's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) can determine the telltale composition of elements he finds in a feather through stable isotope analysis.\n\n"He can analyze a feather and tell us if that bird came from either a coastal colony or an inland colony by the carbon, because the salt marsh ecosystems utilize a different carbon than do the inland systems," said Larry Bryan, research coordinator of SREL's wood stork program.\n\nThe type of nitrogen Romanek finds indicates whether a wood stork is eating top-level wetland predators, such as large bullheads and catfish, or creatures farther down the food chain, including minnows, bluegill, crayfish and tadpoles.\n\n"That's interesting because the higher you get up the food chain, typically, the higher mercury concentrations you're going to have in these aquatic organisms," Bryan said.\n\nFor more than 15 years now, SREL researchers have studied the endangered wood stork (Research Reporter, Winter/Spring 1996). During the past three years, Bryan has recorded mercury concentrations in wood stork nestlings. The concentrations amount to less than a millionth of a gram, but they are high enough for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider them potentially harmful. "Some of the nestlings could be at risk," Bryan said.
223800
I saw that someone answered that tarantulas are omnivores (meaning that they eat both animal and plant matter).  This is incorrect.  Most tarantulas are insectivores (they eat insects).  Some are considered carniverous however because they are large enough and do attack small mamals and birds.  Tarantulas really couldn't be omnivores because of their mouth structure.  It would be implausible for them to eat plant matter.  They are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs.  They lay the eggs in a cacoon-like egg sack which the female will carry with her in most species.  The eggs usually hatch in 4-6 weeks, depending on the species.  Hope this answered your question.
648105
It's probably the exudate of insects feeding on the oak leaves. Aphids feed on plant sap by inserting their piercing-sucking mouthparts into leaves and stems. The pressure in the plant's sap stream is enough to to force too much fluid into the insects stomachs. To avoid blowing up from too much sap, aphids have 2 "spigots" on their tail end. Excess sap is secreted out of these and drips below. This is a very common thing.\n\nThe secretion - called honeydew - is favored by ants who avidly collect it. Honeydew dripping on leaves tends to grow a black fungus known as sooty-mold. The drips that make it to your car will last as long as the aphids are active - and that depends on what species of aphid is living in your oak tree.
91316
Yes, lion will eat leaves to aid in the digestion of their kill.\nAdditionally, they may need to purge themselves if they feel unwell, just as dogs do ocassionally.\n\nRead from the following site.
412870
That doesn't sound right, if they're talking about critters that have sexual intercourse at all (as opposed to procreating other ways).\n\nI would think that most females have, as males aren't all that choosy about where they donate their sperm.\n\nToo bad you don't say where you got this. I mean, besides "the net" -- oh, THERE, that tiny place.\n\n;-)\n\nUnless it's more a comment on life expectancy, saying that most critters die before they have a chance to, well, you know.\n\nSo, where'd you come across this tidbit, what animals are included in the statistic, and why would this be?\n\n(I'll check back in hopes you respond.)\n\nEdit: You may (if you're interested enough) want to troll around newscientist.com and similar sites. New Scientist is the UK's version of Scientific American -- the site has science news, and search facility (though you have to pay to access everything, they do have a lot available for non-subscribers).\n\nI may give it a go next time I'm there.\n\nTrouble is, coming from a non-expert (that is, a psychologist), I wonder if this is one of those non-facts that gets picked up and repeated and is completely wrong.\n\nThough, if you include all animals, including insects, then maybe. Relatively few bees and ants, for example, have sex, and they'd account for a big proportion of "all animals."\n\nIn which case it's completely irrelevant to a discussion of human sexuality.
220440
Doctors hate them and kids want to eat them??????  Why?  Why would doctors hate earthworms?  Is there something I'm missing?
590168
They are eaten. If not by carnivores then by bacteria, fungi, and invertabrates. Think "circle of life" from the lion king.Then they go to that big perch in the sky.
108614
It is the dawn of a new season for the sasquatch.I think now thru around mid june is a good time to set eyes on one based on the thing coming down to feed.I found a picture of hair samples from last season's sightings that can not be explained that I know of.Also a couple lawmen sighted one they claimed in I think it was colorodo.
476492
If the pedals were plastic, then squirrels could eat them.\n\nGround squirrels eat certain vegetables and field crops at seedling stage. Squirrels damage young shrubs, vines, and trees by gnawing bark, girdling trunks, eating twigs and leaves, and burrowing around roots. Squirrels even gnaw surface-type plastic irrigation pipe.\n--> http://cecalaveras.ucdavis.edu/ground.htm
438423
Many different types of tree-leaf feeding caterpillars do this; there are at least two reasons. As forex says - if a predator, like a spider, approaches, some species drop on a line of silk to avoid getting eaten. At other times and with other types of caterpillars, they dangle on a line because they're ready to turn into moths. They need a safer place to make a cocoon and pupate so they dangle until it feels right and then, hopefully, the wind will blow them into a lower, warmer and safer place to spend the winter in their cocoon. In the spring, they turn into moths and lay eggs on the leaves of the same type of tree that they grew up on. They’re usually small moths that nobody ever sees - unless they look. They spin silk from modified salivary glands which secrete a strong, elastic thread through spinnerets right next to their mouths; it’s similar to spider silk but their own recipe.
578929
yes I did know that, nature is    fascinating isn't it? the female of the species  are often the dangerous ones, the black widow spider  eats her mate after wards, the female lions are the ones that hunt  and kill...    etc.... watch out for us females ! lol...
166635
Since you put this in the religious section.\nGod created caterpillars.
412271
Moths cannot bite. They have long tongues which they use to suck nectar. They are totally incapable of doing you any harm.