What Eats Cocoons?
Many animals that root for bugs and larvae under logs, rocks, and tree roots will also eat cocoons. These include skunks, raccoons, opossums, and even some bears. Some birds that scratch around on the forest floor looking for food will also find them tasty. Woodpeckers will eat cocoons as they search for insects in dead trees. Some snails eat small earthworm cocoons. The fact that many cocoons are very well camouflaged is an important survival tool, but animals are curious creatures and will certainly check to see if an object is edible! In researching this question, we also found that in some parts of the world such as China, people treat certain kinds of cocoons as a special delicacy! If you are interested in knowing how people throughout human history have used cocoons to make things such as rattles, necklaces or purses, click here for an interesting article. And here is a link to a short article summarizing cocoons. Kids can submit nature questions to Snake and Newt by clicking her
