Carnivorous UNDERCOVER caterpillar 🐛😎 | Wild Isles - BBC 

"Hey, anyone noticed that our Queen's put on a lot of weight recently? ...And has started eating our babies?" "Shut it, the pheromones don't lie."

You find a woman alone in the woods. She offers you your favorite fruit. She’s familiar. She tells you she’s weary and hurt and asks for shelter. As you lead her home, you realize why she’s familiar. She’s an old relative of the family! Of course! Got lost on her way to visit. And when you bring her home, everyone greets her after just a moment of confusion. Yes, yes, of course she’s remembered! She’s part of the family. She’s welcome. Months pass. Family members go missing. Gone, without a trace. You seek comfort in each other. Your relative is larger now, but that just makes it more comforting when she hugs. She’s grown so much since she came home. She’s always lived here. One day, you find yourself alone in the house. Everyone is gone. All that remains is some growth stuck to the floor. Like some kind of coffin. You feel like you should leave but you have nowhere to go. The growth is too large and heavy to move. You live around it. You long for your loved ones. Where have they gone? Then one day the growth splits. And out crawls the woman, one of your relatives! Except, no. She’s different now. Inhuman. With fuzz and wings and she looks at you like an insect, towering above you. “Thank you for the hospitality, cousin.” And she flies away. Leaving you alone in an empty nest.

Soldier ant : you are not our queen Caterpillar: 'croaks' once Soldier ant : long live the queen 👑

Nature beats any Steven King horror novel hands down!

I remember seeing these little blue butterflies flying around in Germany. Never thought they would have such an interesting, extraordinary cycle of life…

Holy, that's a risky game! It's crazy that they not only learned to puff up, but, the actual sounds a queen makes????

This caterpillar bring the term “hiding in a plain sight” to the whole new level

Takes 'evil stepmother' to a WHOLE new level! 😳😬

Mother nature is a sight to behold.

Ant: "Excuse me. Why are you eating our babies.?" Caterpillar: "Er....I'm your Queen " Ant: "Oh right...carry on."

Conan O'Brian was right all along when he wrote for The Simpsons... "No one ever suspects a butterfly".

I love the joyful melody playing while the narrator gleefully exclaims that these nightmare creatures, once thought extinct, are now among us in dense population.

I like how she leaves during spring, safe during winter and no need to fight her way out.

The more I learn about the different creatures in our planet the more I get amazed. Every creature has a unique role to play and its wonderful to know.

Props to the camera man such dedication and bravery to shrink your self down to ant size

I understand that the caterpillar fools the ants into thinking it's one of them, but I am surprised that they don't notice the destruction of their own larvae.

I always thought that Hawaii is the only place in the world to find carnivorous caterpillars until now.

While I am not a fan of bugs for sure, this little video really mesmerised me and it's just made me think of the tiniest little bugs and a role that they play in our world. Simply amazing😮

This is AMAZING! All BBC footage is great but this one just stuck out to me today, WOW! The trickery of this caterpillar. I cannot believe it!

What amazes me is that the ants also seem not confused by having an "additional queen". They're like "yep, another queen, nothing silly going around here"

You see this video once and it never leaves your memory! What a lesson on trust!

It's amazing that it could bypass so many ant defenses. (Considering ants come in so many shapes and sizes, it makes some sense that they have wide acceptance criteria for 'family') I wonder if they trick one species or several species of ants?

Truly remarkable. I’m at awe to know something evolved like this. Ingenious yet utterly chilling at the same time.

The large "trickery" blue. New addition to its name. Amazing nature.

It's krazy how something horrible can turn into something beautiful 🦋

Nefarious as it could be, nature is the ultimate teacher.

When I see videos like this, it makes me grateful to nature that bugs are very small.

Caterpillars never fails to amaze us. One of the best in world in evolution. Birds, small mammals feed on them everyday and they exists!!!!

Even Attenborough is in shock!

The ant who brought a caterpillar is so in big trouble.

Just amazing and strange. Science is really cool

Nature is amazing. And incredible to think this is happening here in the UK!

Caterpillar: literally look like this 🐛 Ant: Queen is that you your highness?

The miracle of nature. Absolutely amazing.

It's so good to hear sir David Attenborough voice

One of the most amazing life cycle of any insects or animals. What an amazing evolution of an caterpillar.

Amazing. Glad I’m not a larvae.

A real life cycle of an insect more scarier than any alien or sci fi movies...

How they got a tiny camera (and a camera man) down that anthole boggles my mind.

This is just incredible. And the final form is breathtakingly beautiful.

Second carnivorous caterpillar I've heard of outside of those Hawaiian ones. But the ones in Hawaii are still scarier since they’re complete ambush predators.

who wouldve thought those beautiful moths grow up like this

I used to catch these little guys often when I lived on a farm for vacation, good times.

Wow i really miss mr David ! It makes the video even more entertain to watch ❤️

The “Eco-friendly Ant control” at its finest.

Gives a new twist to "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" story

This creature just made number one of my all time favs chart

The things I've learned about bugs makes me more terrified of the concept of aliens 👽

That's absolutely amazing.

“OH MY GOD THE YOUNGLINGS WHAT ARE YOU-oh, your majesty! I hardly recognized you, carry on.”

I thought that noise the ant was doing was my stomach bubbling

Nature something increadible

This is absolutely amazing

Ive watched alot of mimicking animals in nature but this is top level

That is one of the coolest and craziest things I have watched.

Never seen a Large Blue butterfly, and now I know why. I'm glad it's been reintroduced.

Wow that's amazing! Nature is amazing 💕

I never realized there were Carnivorous Caterpillars outside of Hawaii, amazing

The amount of work put in to this video is insane

TROLLING the ANTS 😂😂

Equal parts beautiful and terrifying

"Here's a lesson in trickery, this is going down in history..."

"Carnivorous Undercover Caterpillar" makes for an excellent band name.

How can they record this??? This is so amazing!

Nature is incredible 🤔

What a fascinating creature

The ant that takes the caterpillar inside was named worker of the year!!!!

Nature is always surprising us.

Amazing! The good thing is that it's virtually impossible to bring down any ant population that way😂

That got more intense than I expected.

Once again nature comes up with such an insanely convoluted and crazy method of survival you wonder how it possibly came about. Major props to the ones who discovered these facts and of course the incredible cinematography.

This reminds me of another nature documentary I saw many years ago, but would like to find again. if I remember right, it was another kind of caterpillar that would invade an ant colony, but it had extremely tough skin that was impervious to the ants' stings and bites. It would eat as many larva as it could find until the ants would panic and start to evacuate them from their birthing chamber. When the caterpillar had its fill, it would climb to the top of the anthill and pupate - its skin too tough for the ants to pierce, and I believe it secured itself to the mound so the ants couldn't lift it. When it came time to emerge, the ants pounced, figuring they could finally kill it, but the moth had one last trick up its sleeve... it was covered in many sticky hairs that clogged the ants' mandibles and irritated them so much they had to retreat to clean themselves. After a few minutes of drying its new wings, the moth flew away. Does anyone else remember that one? I'd love to see that clip again...

"It was the butterfly I tell you. The butterfly!" Simpsons was spot on. No one would've suspected it was the butterfly.

The person who noticed it 😲😲😲😳😳. Great respect bruv

Wow seemingly harmless beautiful butterfly.

This reminds me of liphyra brassolis, or “moth butterfly”. Another carnivorous caterpillar, ot has a hard and heavy outer shell that allows it to just walk into an ant colony and start eating larvae. Pupates without incident, then emerges as a butterfly with slippery, irritating scales to disorient the ants while it escapes

This caterpillar for sure caused some serious massacre. But I can see some resemblance, the butterfly has some ant looks haha

That's some brutal stuff.

Magnificent creature.

Even though the caterpillar is carnivores it still needs to be worried of wasps

wow.. In Australia they have such a problem with Ants.... WOuld much prefere nice looking Blue butterflies

Simply incredible

When insects learn by watching you through you're window playing Among Us.

So....What happened to that ant colony with most of its larva eaten??

That is amazing! How the hell do the caterpillars know how to do that? I wonder if they can use those butterflies to control fire ants? They are many invasive species of ants around the world.

Nature is really fascinating

And , this is it Beautiful Moth 🦋

If I recall correctly, conservationists were worried by declining Large Blue butterfly may be caused by grazing of the land, so they decided to purchase the sites where they found the butterflies and wall them off from cattle This backfired immensely and the Large Blue soon became extinct Apparently the grazed pasture habitat is perfect for the specific red ants (mainly due to turf height modifying soil temperature) the butterfly tricks and by stopping grazing from cattle -and rabbit populations had an epidemic that killed them- the wrong ants colonised the site and killed off the Large Blue

Cool!

Evolution is fascinating.

What an incredible creature wow

Amazing! How is the butterfly not attacked by ants as it leaves the nest? Did it kill the colony by eating all their larvae before pupating?

Fascinating. I never know certain species of caterpillars can do such thing. It really like real life imposter of among us game.

Great job to the species savers

Naturaleza perfecta 😍

Considering the queen's chamber is tended to actively, I just imagine the scenario playing like a long game of TES: Oblivion, complete with the game's hilarious AI. Caterpillar: *devours another ant larva* Ant guard: The body's still warm, there's a killer about. *Finds another body* Ant guard: May you rest in peace. Caterpillar: *devours another ant larva just behind the guard*

Nature is so amazing...

Narrator: "She was re-introduced" Ants: "wtf!?"

OMG Yaaaaas Fake Queen!😭👸

I wonder what happens if the real queen ant finds the larva? Unlike a worker ant, the queen will not respond to another queen's distress call, and in fact would likely attack, and if she did, who would the workers side with?