Parasitic butterflies dupe hosts with ant music

the infant forms of blue butterflies can belt out a convincing cover version of a tune favoured by red ants - which show their appreciation by protecting and feeding the butterfly larvae.

though threatened with extinction - impersonate red ants so faithfully that worker ants worship them as if they were queens, caring for the developing caterpillar even at the expense of their own lives.

the caterpillars descend to the forest floor and secrete ant-like chemicals

colony, workers sacrificed their own kin to save the butterfly larvae - much as they would if a queen ant were threatened. "There must be some form of communication by the butterflies that make the ants think they're royal, and at the same time we were pretty damn sure they weren't by chemicals

Using miniature microphones

captured the tunes made by queen and worker ants

Auditory analysis showed similarities in key acoustic features of the ant and butterfly sound

attraction