Re: Not Eating

From: TTrotsky_at_aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:49:21 EST


Simon Hibbs:

<<(is there an earthly analogue for a species that never eats? I vaguely recall there is).

Butterflies for one>>

     True, but they usually drink nutritious liquids, such as nectar, so they are eating after a fashion - its not as if they're subsisting purely on water, say. Having said which:

Andrew Barton:

<< Aren't there some species of insects which cannot eat after they emerge from their chrysalis stage? I read this about silkworms, but since it was in a historical novel it may just have been a wrong belief at the time.>>  

     Certainly, although Dave D was asking specifically about creatures which *never* eat. However, the insects that do this pull the trick off by living for only a short time after they metamorphose - mayflies don't eat anything once they sprout their wings for example. I don't know about silkworms specifically, but there are some butterflies which don't even drink nectar (some of them even lack mouths) so its quite possible.

Forward the glorious Red Army!

    Trotsky


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