Pine Processionary caterpillars are interesting little creatures . They go on farseeing treks in exclusive file line . One day , a plant scientist decided to mess up with them . What result was a strangely inspirational death march .
ego - taught , and distinctly very reasoning , Jean - Henri Fabre was a physicist , a pill pusher , and a botanist . That last discipline explains why he had grounds to dislike caterpillars . Among his little nemeses was the Pine Processionary , which get the first part of their name from the pine needles they care to eat , and the second part because they form niggling advancement of a group following a individual leader . They eat at night , and would go out and feast on Fabre ’s plants , then get back to their nest by break of day .
One daylight , in early February , Fabre noticed that a pillar of caterpillars had made their style around the rim of a potted palm . As they walked , they put down lead of all right silk , which Fabre believed guide the Caterpillar behind them . ( Actually , the Pine Processionaries follow each other ’s fragrance , not the silk . ) Once the caterpillars had looped around the rim of the pot , and come to their own scent again , Fabre carefully pass over down the sides of the wad , lave away the olfactory property track that had got them up to the rim in the first place . Then he waited .
For eight days , the caterpillars abut . Fabre , expecting them to only go around for an hour , was both surprised and sick of , state , “ I was expecting too much of them when I accorded them that dim glimmer of intelligence which the tribulation of a perturbing stomach ought , one would think , to have awaken . ” To be sightly to the Pine Processionary , no caterpillar has ever made the claim to intelligence , whether it was athirst or not .
Fabre ’s tale of the Pine Processionary march becomes excruciating as he talks about how they march in stifling heat , how they collapse and get back up again , how they break into self-governing , huddling groups to survive cold nights , only to join together again in the break of day and continue their doom marching . Nothing in the caterpillar ’s arsenal of tricks , no behavior they understood , could help oneself them .
But Fabre begin to acknowledge something interesting . The Pine Processionary does n’t have a “ queen bee ” — the leader of the group is whichever caterpillar is up front . Every time the cat temporarily fall in in enfeeblement , or broke into groups to hide from the common cold , or just tumble out of line , new , disorient leaders would take up a slightly different course . Most of those courses lead right back to the loop-the-loop again . Then one mathematical group of caterpillars turned in , across the dirt of the pot and up into the palm leafage . As they could n’t eat palm leaf , they came down again , but at least it was something unlike . The next few digressions wandered the filth . One bewildered drawing card really bulge down the outside of the pot , towards household , but stopped within nine inches of the ground , despite the fact that Fabre had fan out pine needles on it to lure the Caterpillar down . The procession made a uranium - turn , conk out back up the side of the pot , and back into the loop .
That aborted trip proved to be the turning point . With the odour trail repose down , other caterpillars in their picayune groups , started postdate it over the side of the dope , and venturing farther each time . easy , different caterpillars extend the trail to the ground , and the needles . Once one was down , other groups postdate . Eight years after they first made the loop , after marching about half a mile in a small circle , the caterpillars got something to eat , and somewhere to stay .
What does this tell us ? First , it recite us that phytologist are a cruel hoi polloi . second , it tells us that you’re able to achieve thing by have it away up that you could never manage by deliberate effort . Sometimes misapprehension are the only way to move in the ripe direction .
[ ViaThe Life of the Caterpillar , Lethal Fuzz ]
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