April Cover

The photo on the April cover was taken by Michael Singer, one of the authors to the paper: "The struggle for safety: effectiveness of caterpillar defenses against bird predation" by Lichter-Marck et al. 

"The photo was taken in the field. I came across the caterpillar on a black cherry sapling at one of the field sites where we did the study. In the final instar, P. glaucus resembles the head of a snake, which is an unusual warning-signal defense among caterpillars. As I approached it closely and called to my students to come look at it, it everted its osmeterium, which looks somewhat like the forked tongue of a snake, but also emits an unpleasantly sweet odor. This somewhat elaborate defensive strategy represents the importance of anti-predator defenses in the lives of caterpillars."