Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1902 — What Caterpillars Taste Like. [ARTICLE]

What Caterpillars Taste Like.

In some cases an Insect —as the caterpillar of the magpie moth —is conspicuously colored because, as it is harmful food for birds, frogs or lizards, they must be warned to avoid it, says the London Daily News. This has been long asserted, but some naturalists have hesitated to accept the theory. Professor ( Plateau went out one day Jknd . ate part of one of these so-called “distasteful” Insects. He reported that the flavor, if somewhat insipid, was sweetish, containing a suggestion of almond, and was on the whole not unpleasant Afterward Professor Wheeler, of Texas, was induced to repeat this gastronomic adventure. His report concerning the Insect he devoured was slightly sweet and distinctly “nutty,” and he earnestly invited naturalists to eat Insects indiscriminately on all their expeditions. That, Professor Wheeler declared, would be the best way te dispose of the theory that some Insects were harmful to birds, lizards and frogs, and that their colors were selfprotective In warning those creatures to abstain from gobbling them up. But Mr. Guy Marshall, the distinguished naturalist of Mashohaland, after proving that, as a matter of fact, frogs, birds and lizards do abstain from eating the highly colored caterpillars, pointed out that the personal tests made by his brother entomologists wefe of no worth, inasmuch as man was not naturally an Insect eating animal, and what was food to him might be poison, or at any rate highly unpalatable, to a frog.