A mother butterfly can lay hundreds of eggs at one time, as many will not make it to the final stage of metamorphosis. Once the butterfly hatches from the egg, it becomes a larva. However, this larva stage is actually when the butterfly is in caterpillar form.
The tiny caterpillar has small eyes and short legs and antennae. It also has bundles of cells called imaginal discs that are waiting to turn into butterfly features, including long antennae and legs, as well as wings. However, the imaginal discs are prevented from growing by a constant source of juvenile hormones. These hormones will eventually trigger the third stage. The caterpillar spends most of this time eating, including the leaf it was born on.
In fact, caterpillars can be quite picky when it comes to what leaf to eat. This is why it is vital that the butterfly lays the eggs on a leaf the caterpillar will eat. For example, monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed.
Once the caterpillar eats, it grows — about times more than when they first hatched. Some internal organs begin to change, though the imaginal discs continue to stay dormant. The egg stage usually lasts days but this can vary quite a bit among different species of butterflies. In fact some species overwinter as eggs and undergo diapause to survive the many months of winter. Please visit our article about finding butterfly eggs for more information about butterfly eggs.
A very tiny caterpillar hatches from the egg. The first meal for most caterpillars is the eggshell. The picture on the left is a small young Black Swallowtail larva while the caterpillar in the picture on the right is an older Black Swallowtail larva. Caterpillars will molt several times as they outgrow their exoskeleton. Each time they do their appearance will change, sometimes rather dramatically.
Black Swallowtails, for example, have five instars or five different stages between the hatching from the egg and the time of pupation. The number of instars varies between butterfly species. The caterpillar on the right is in its fifth instar and will soon pupate, or molt, one last time to become a chrysalis. The total time that the butterfly stays in the caterpillar stage is about weeks and varies based on the species and the growing conditions. Eggs can be laid from spring, summer or fall.
This depends on the species of butterfly. Females lay a lot of eggs at once so that at least some of them survive. The next stage is the larva. This is also called a caterpillar if the insect is a butterfly or a moth. The job of the caterpillar is to eat and eat and eat. As the caterpillar grows it splits its skin and sheds it about 4 or 5 times. Food eaten at this time is stored and used later as an adult. Caterpillars can grow times their size during this stage.
For example, a monarch butterfly egg is the size of a pinhead and the caterpillar that hatches from this tiny egg isn't much bigger.
But it will grow up to 2 inches long in several weeks. When the caterpillar is full grown and stops eating, it becomes a pupa. The pupa of butterflies is also called a chrysalis.
Most people think of butterflies and moths as part of summer's beauty, but these insects must survive the winter somehow for the species to survive. Different species handle the cold months in various ways, but some spend their winters as caterpillars. They typically enter a form of hibernation to stay alive until spring. Some butterflies time their egg laying so the caterpillars will be newly hatched as the weather starts to cool. Butterflies such as the common wood-nymph lay eggs in the fall.
When the caterpillars hatch, they don't even take time to eat. Instead, they burrow into the soil under the nearest plant to create a nest to help protect them from the harsh weather.
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