See, almost 80 posts on a thread of snails and caterpillars. Of course only Ichy really talked about the science of the thing, but what do you expect?
Ichy: I appreciate your view especailly with the personal observations. Since we don't know how they eat in the wild and whether they are exclusively meat eaters and whether they only like certain snails, much is speculative.
But I think there is much more to this phenomenon than eating the same thing that eats your food. The fact that these caterpillars appear to hunt snails. And how would they develop the ability to nail them down with silk before eating? If the snails just smelled right and got chawed as a result, the immobilization does not make as much sense. What we need is for someone to find an intermediate species. WHY ARE THERE NO TRANSITIONAL FORMS!
This is one of those things that will sit in the literature for a long time before anything new will happen.
There was an earlier mutation where the caterpillars attempted to use a lasso to catch the snails, but due to the caterpillars' unfortunate lack of arms and hands, it wasn't successful, so those mutants went extinct.