According to scientists, many new caterpillar species have been found in Hawaii, which are comfortable both on land and underwater, becoming the foremost amphibious insects.

Found only in Hawaii's fast-moving freshwater brooks, the amphibious caterpillars belong to the moth class, Hyposmocoma, a group, which consists of more than 400 species.

The 14 newly discovered species are never seen far from water. But these species can act the same in water or on land for indefinite time periods, unlike truly aquatic caterpillars.

Study Co-Author, Daniel Rubinoff, a biologist at the University of Hawaii, said, "When you put these guys in water, they run around and eat. You take them out, and they're perfectly fine too".

According to the paper that was published online on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, different from other amphibious creatures, which can live underwater on stored oxygen but must come back up for air, these caterpillars can spend many weeks without ever breaking the surface.

However, it is not clear how these insects manage to do so. Rubinoff and Co-Worker, Patrick Schmitz, of the University of Hawaii, did not find any water-blocking closure over the caterpillars' tracheae or evidence of gills. The scientists said that when kept in still water, the animals drowned quickly, so it appears that they require higher levels of oxygen, which is present in running water, and most likely absorb it directly through pores in their body.