DATABASE: What's for Dinner?
Science · 2002
Despite their reputation for gluttony, caterpillars can be as finicky about their meals as a 3-year-old child. The eating preferences of these ravenous larvae intrigue ecologists, taxonomists, foresters, and other experts. Learn what's on the menu for some 22,000 moth and butterfly species at HOSTS, a collection of caterpillar dietary data from the Natural History Museum in London. Information culled from 1600 papers and unpublished manuscripts matches bugs from around the world with their host plants, and you can search the data taxonomically or by country.