Re: Do caterpillars have teeth?

Well, yea and no..Only vertebrates have teeth as we know them, but insects, including caterpillars, do have structures called "teeth".

Caterpillar mouthparts are mandibles, which are the mouthparts of all the arthropods - by far the largest and most successful animal group, which includes insects, crustaceans, spiders and relatives, millipedes, centipedes and a few more slightly obscure groups of things.

The only picture of a caterpillar's head was at a site about the Monarch Butterfly, which also has some more information about caterpillar anatomy.

Mandibles swing side to side, cutting and crushing food in most insects, but they are modified to do other jobs in some organisms. Biting and Chewing insects, like caterpillars, have mandibles with small, sharp projections, called teeth that work against each other similarly to mammalian teeth do, to bite and chew. You can just about see the teeth on the mandibles of some of these Costa Rican ants, especially on this page.

A bit more about insect jaws (ants, again).

Hope this helps. Thanks for asking, Yours, James

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James Cotton Div. of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences University of Glasgow Graham Kerr Building Glasgow G12 8QQ

Telephone: 0141 330 5346 Fax: 0141 330 2792 http://taxonomy.zoology.g la.ac.uk/~jcotton