Butterfly Life Cycle

Two butterflies get together. The female lays the eggs. Butterfly eggs are usually the size of a piece of sand. Inside each egg the caterpillar is beginning to grow. After ten days the eggs are ready to hatch. Each caterpillar eats a hole in its shell and wriggles out. (Here is a website with lots of information on the life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly.)

The caterpillars are hungry. They eat the shells. Next the caterpillars eats the leaves of the plant on which it was hatched. They love cabbage leaves for example. The caterpillar uses its strong jaws to munch through a leaf. It eats all the time and grows very fast. As the caterpillar grows, its skin gets too tight.

Soon the caterpillar's skin begins to split. After the caterpillar gets out of its skin it's free to go with its new skin. This process occurs four times in its life. After three weeks the caterpillar is fully-grown. The caterpillar has a hairy body. It's divided into thirteen parts. Caterpillar eyes are very small. They are so small they can't see well. It breathes through air holes. The air holes are on the side of its body. The caterpillar uses its legs to grip the leaf it is on. Then the caterpillar stops eating. The caterpillar rests.

The caterpillar uses its legs to grip the leaf it is on.

Later the caterpillar spins silk thread. Thread comes out of the hole below the mouth of the caterpillar. It makes a pad of silk thread to lie on. Then it spins a silk thread around its body. The thread is sticky. Soon the caterpillar skin splits. The caterpillar is now a chrysalis (or pupa).

The chrysalis is soft for a few hours then hardens. The chrysalis stays on its silk pad for months. Inside the chrysalis a butterfly is growing. Inside the chrysalis the butterfly pushes until the case splits. Tben it slowly struggles out of the case.

The wings are soft and crumpled like a wet wash cloth. At this moment the butterfly is so tired. It uses the empty chrysalis, then the wings slowly unfold. About an hour later the butterfly's wings are the right shape, but for about two hours the wings need to dry. Finally, it it will be ready to fly.

Inside the flowers there is nectar. Butterflies love nectar to drink. Butterflies use their long tongues to suck up the nectar. It is like when you drink out of a straw. When the butterfly stops drinking its tongue is curled up. Soon the female butterfly will mate with a male butterfly and lay eggs. Then another caterpillar is born and the cycles begins again.

The Body of a Butterfly

The butterfly's feelers are called antennae. You can tell by the antennae whether it is a moth or a butterfly. The middle of it's body is called a thorax. The thorax is made up of muscles. it uses these muscles to fly.

The end part of a butterfly is called an abdomen. It makes eggs. It is the longest part of a butterfly. It's back wings are called hind wings. Lots of butterflies have various different wings.

The butterfly's feelers are called antennae.

Camouflage

Lots of butterflies camouflage. The Viceroy butterfly fools the birds. It looks almost exactly like a Monarch except it is smaller. (see photograph) The birds would like to eat the Viceroy though. Other butterflies camouflage themselves. Some look like other animals. (See section on "mimicry" from Dealing with Danger).

The Viceroy Butterfly fools birds by resembling the Monarch Butterfly.

Interesting info

The Glass Swallowtail butterfly has hind wings shaped like an oak leaf. it is also close to extinction. The Vampire Moth (see photograph) sucks blood from animals. It lands near the eye of the victim and gets its share of blood from there. There is also a moth that has a body that has the stripes of a bee.

Butterflies and caterpillars protect themselves from predators with colors of danger, spikes, poison, fumes, and camouflage. And did you know that moths mate using chemicals? They are also attracted to light.

Some butterflies can spread disease. They land on a cow and then carry mad cow disease with them.

A Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.