Abstract
The canopies of tropical lowland rainforests host some of the most diverse arthropod communities on Earth. But whereas the crowns of boreal trees usually teem with free-feeding and slow-moving lepidopteran caterpillars, such creatures are all but lacking from many canopies in the lowland tropics. In their absence, the quick-moving nymphs of Hemiptera (bugs) or Orthoptera (katydids, crickets and grasshoppers) dominate the youth scene. Why this difference? Some studies have emphasized the fact that fogging samples from lowland rainforest canopies often abound with ants. If these animals all had a taste for insect flesh, they would certainly exert a high predation pressure on any caterpillars slow enough for them to catch.
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