Adorned in their macabre attire, the caterpillars can safely navigate spiderwebs undetected. They use their camouflage to feed on trapped prey: both living and freshly dead. Bone collectors will target and kill weakened or slow-moving insects, even hunting and cannibalizing their own kind. In each spiderweb, there can only be one.

There are other meat-eating caterpillars that "do lots of crazy things, but this takes the cake," the study's author said.