Caterpillars use the substrate as their external skeleton: A behavior confirmation

Abstract

Animals that lack rigid structures often employ pressurization to maintain body form and posture. Structural stability is then provided by incompressible fluids or tissues and the inflated morphology is called a hydrostatic skeleton. However, new ground reaction force data from the caterpillar, Manduca sexta suggest an alternate strategy for large soft animals moving in complex three dimensional structures. When crawling, Manduca can keep its body primarily in tension and transmit compressive deformation using the substrate. This effectively allows the caterpillar to minimize reliance on a hydrostatic skeleton and helps it conform to the environment. We call this alternative strategy an “environmental skeleton”