Multiple Parasites

The caterpillar of the white cabbage butterfly, has one of the most complicated parasitic food chains on earth. The adult Apanteles glomeratus lays her eggs inside the of the caterpillar which will soon die when the eggs hatch and begin to feed on its internal organs. However the wasp population of Apanteles never increase to a high level because of the ichneumon, another species of wasp, which when it finds a caterpillar with Apanteles' eggs inside it lays her own eggs inside of the Apanteles larvae. The ichneumon is by no means safe because a third species of wasp known as the Chalcid might lay its eggs inside of the ichneumons'. So in the end, the white cabbage caterpillar plays host to three different species, one inside the other, and only the Chalcid wasps' young will survive.