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Caterpillars crack ants’ rhythmic code to sneak into their colonies

Ellsworth Toohey
Feb 27, 2026
∙ Paid

frank60/shutterstock.com

Some caterpillars have cracked the password to an ant colony — what Rachelle Adams, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University, calls “well-defended fortresses.” Species in the butterfly family Lycaenidae drum out vibrations that match the beat patterns of their host colonies, fooling the ants into carrying them inside an…

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