Warning: see brutal footage of rare carnivorous caterpillar in Gloucestershire that has a gruesome survival strategy

There are plenty of carnivorous animals found throughout the world – but there's one in the UK that employs a particularly deceptive survival strategy.

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The large blue butterfly, while in its caterpillar stage, spends the best part of a year tricking red ants – as shown in the David Attenborough-narrated series Wild Isles.

By imitating specific sounds and smells, the caterpillar acts as a Trojan horse and is brought into the ant nest, after tricking the worker ants into thinking it's a queen ant.

Once in the nest, the caterpillar becomes carnivorous and unleashes havoc, eating the ant larvae over the next six months until its a hundred times its original size.

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The large blue was declared extinct in Britain in 1979, but it has been reintroduced from European populations as part of a large-scale reintroduction at Rodborough Common in Gloucestershire.

While it remains endangered, the project has shown success so far.

Main image: a caterpillar of the large blue butterfly surrounded by red ants that have 'adopted' it into their colony. Credit: BBC/Silverback Films/Alastair MacEwen)

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