Butterfly Life Cycle

Butterfly Life Cycle

1. DID YOU KNOW?

   • Many people watch and collect butterflies as a hobby?!

2. Technical Vocabulary

   • LARVA: Is the active immature form of an insect. MOTH: It symbolizes rebirth, change, transformation, resurrection, and power of regeneration. PUPA: It is an insect in its inactive immature form between larva and adult. CHRYSALIS: Is a quiescent insect pupa, especially of a butterfly or moth. METAMORPHOSIS: This means transformation or change in shape.

3. Butterflies are one of the most beautiful insects in the world, but do you know the process it takes for a butterfly to form into that beautiful being? This occurs through the life cycle of butterflies. This is what happens.

   • The butterfly and moth develop through a process called metamorphosis.
     • And this is how it goes.
       • AT FIRTS
         • Eggs are laid on plants by the adult female butterfly. These plants will then become the food for the hatching caterpillars. Butterfly eggs can be very small.
       • 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 100 times their size during this stage.
       • After that...
         • When the caterpillar is full grown and stops eating, it becomes a pupa. This stage can last from a few weeks, a month or even longer. Some species have a pupal stage that lasts for two years. It may look like nothing is going on but big changes are happening inside. Special cells that were present in the larva are now growing rapidly. They will become the legs, wings, eyes and other parts of the adult butterfly. Many of the original larva cells will provide energy for these growing adult cells.
       • Finally
         • The adult stage is what most people think of when they think of butterflies. They look very different from the larva. The caterpillar has a few tiny eyes, stubby legs and very short antennae. The adults have long legs, long antennae, and compound eyes. They can also fly by using their large and colorful wings. The one thing they can't do is grow. The adult's job is to mate and lay eggs.

4. IN CONCLUSION

   • The beautiful insects that butterflies are to become the beautiful they are has to go through a long process and not always pleasing to the eye.
   • Butterflies give us a good example that everything good and beautiful is worth the effort, this will take as long as necessary, everything good goes through a long and suffered process but in the end everything is worth it.

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