Swarming Caterpillars ! (or so i thought - see comments)
Wikipedia lists five types of Caterpillar social behaviour: Collective and cooperative foraging, group defence against predators, shelter building, thermoregulation and lastly substrate silking.
This clump were totally static while I photographed them. So maybe it's thermoregulation (i.e. collectively preserving heat/energy) or group defence.
If group defence (which was my theory) I'd prefer to be on the inside, thank you. Come to think of it, it's very cold tonight, so both ways, better to be on the inside.
Interestingly I learned elsewhere that caterpillars have been recorded walking in layers, three or four deep. In other words, they're able to create their own airport travelator effect. Two layers, and the average speed will be around 1.5x of a single head-to-tail layer. Three layers can yield an average speed of around double that of a single layer.
Hope they all become beautiful butterflies soon.
Swarming Caterpillars ! (or so i thought - see comments)
Wikipedia lists five types of Caterpillar social behaviour: Collective and cooperative foraging, group defence against predators, shelter building, thermoregulation and lastly substrate silking.
This clump were totally static while I photographed them. So maybe it's thermoregulation (i.e. collectively preserving heat/energy) or group defence.
If group defence (which was my theory) I'd prefer to be on the inside, thank you. Come to think of it, it's very cold tonight, so both ways, better to be on the inside.
Interestingly I learned elsewhere that caterpillars have been recorded walking in layers, three or four deep. In other words, they're able to create their own airport travelator effect. Two layers, and the average speed will be around 1.5x of a single head-to-tail layer. Three layers can yield an average speed of around double that of a single layer.
Hope they all become beautiful butterflies soon.