The Maculinea butterfly larvae are parasites of red ants. It is brought into the nest by the ants thinking it is one of its own. Once in, the caterpillar is fed and protected by these red ants.
The Maculinea caterpillar was found to mimic acoustic signals emitted by the queen ant to fool worker ants into being adopted, protected, and cared for by the ant colony.
A group of researchers from the University of Turin in Italy released a paper on this behavior in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
