This Life History was done in March April 2010,There were three caterpillars, all of them well escorted by Red Fiery Ants,But two of them were found parasitised (see picture) after a week. It was observed that oakblue caterpillars unattended by ants were perished while moulting even if they were well fed in between,the reason might be the absence of the help the ants are giving them. Anyway this could not be concluded before systematic study and observations .Though ants attend lycaenid caterpillars generally, REDSPOT (Zesius chrysomallus) and OAKBLUE (Arhopala sp) are attended by fiery ants only,as far as I know the caterpillars of them doesnt survive moulting without the attendence of Red Fiery Ants. the sharp pincers must be the helping hand! I havent seen any caterpillars feeding on Ant nymphs at any stage and interestingly, Ants attrending caterpillars were always less offensive In this particular case two out of the three caterpillars were infected which means ants were not giving cent percent protection to caterpillars from parasetoids