Nature is Full of Tricks

From Zoologger:

In a grassy field on the edge of a patch of woodland, some ants are escorting a pink caterpillar to their home. Once it has been guided into the depths of their nest, the caterpillar begins feeding the ants with sweet fluids.

It may sound like a touching story of interspecies love, but it ain't. Over the following year, the caterpillar will eat its way through hundreds of ants, eggs and larvae. So voracious is the intruding caterpillar, there is a good chance that the ant colony will be wiped out.

This deceitful ant-muncher is the caterpillar of the large blue butterfly – in adult form, a strikingly beautiful creature with iridescent, spotted wings. But in order to reach adulthood, the caterpillars must infiltrate the ants' homes, and they have an arsenal of less than beautiful tricks for that purpose. . . .

So how does a large blue caterpillar sneak its way into the ants' nests? It doesn't have to: the worker ants escort it in.

They do this because the waxy coat on the caterpillar's skin mimics the ants' own chemical make-up. As far as the ants are concerned, the caterpillar smells like an ant larva and is not a threat.