The Pipevine Caterpillar Thrives in a Toxic Love Triangle
From Deep Look
5 min3rd4th5th6thScience
Summary
The pipevine caterpillar eats a poisonous plant and stores the poison in its own body, turning a deadly meal into a shield. Deep Look shows how one trait keeps this caterpillar safe from predators.
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Talk about it
Pipevine plants make toxins to avoid being eaten, but the pipevine caterpillar can eat them anyway and keep the poison inside itself. That makes the caterpillar taste bad to birds -- so the trait of tolerating a toxic food gives it a strong survival advantage.
- How does eating a poisonous plant protect the caterpillar?
- Why do birds learn to leave this caterpillar alone?
- How does this trait give the caterpillar an advantage?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: toxin, defense, trait, advantage.
Try it: Draw a caterpillar eating a pipevine and a bird turning away. Write how storing poison keeps the caterpillar safe.