Researchers have located a virus in caterpillars that controls a gene dominating its activity.

The caterpillars tainted with the virus creeps to the top most edge of the tree, where it liquefies and drops down onto the ground. The virus keep on affecting the activity of the gene as it is back on the ground.

The study, published in the September 9 issue of journal ‘Science’, proclaimed that it is this virus that induces the caterpillars to make this deadly effort of climbing. Thankfully this virus only influences the gene of invertebrates and not the other living beings.

Researcher Kelli Hoover stated, “It ends up using just about the entire caterpillar to make more virus and then there are other genes in the virus that then make the caterpillar melt".

Hoover added that it is the combination of a large number of virus elements that drops down on the flora and infect the moths that eat those contaminated foliage. The virus can be transmitted in other similar creatures, if they happen to eat those caterpillars.

This study reveals that the virus gets transmitted when a bird eats the caterpillars, and its remains are dropped down on the ground and the virus gets back to the moths that eat the contaminated foliage.