Hyposmocoma molluscivora

Hyposmocoma molluscivora is a Hawaiian moth whose larvae are predators that capture snails in silk, much like a hunting spider web, and then crawl inside the snail shell to eat the snail alive. The larvae have been called snail-eating or flesh-eating caterpillars, though no common name is widely used. They are case-bearing, spinning a loose shell of their own that they carry for protection like bagworms, and they sometimes decorate it with real snail shells, perhaps as camouflage. The caterpillars live only on the islands of Maui and Molokai, are about 8 millimetres (0.3 inches) long, and feed on snails of the genus Tornatellides. Only about 200 of the roughly 150,000 known species of Lepidoptera have predatory larvae, and this is one of just four known to eat snails. The feeding behaviour was reported in the journal Science in 2005 by Rubinoff and Haines.