Butterfly Living One Life as Two Different Animals

8 months ago

In Nursery school we were taught before a butterfly is born, it first becomes a caterpillar which is the stage where it just keeps eating so it can grow big enough to become to crawl into a sleeping bag which it finds after which it comes out with beautiful wings that it uses to fly, and off it goes. Well, if your teachers taught you that as well, I might suggest that you sue them because that stuff you were taught is a complete lie but then I am not sure I would identify my nursery school teacher if I see her, so I should just let it go and rather work on letting people know the right thing.

We cannot deny the fact that butterfly live one life but as two different and distinct animals because during their metamorphosis, they change completely. Butterfly go through 4 different stages, from egg, larva, pupa which is were they become a Chrysalis, then adult in a process known as holometabolism. It isn't a type of metamorphosis that isn't common, as 8 in 10 insects also undergo this type of metamorphosis. For me, I think unlike Wasp and beetles, the reason butterfly has that attention is because of its beautiful color at the end.

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When butterflies are mating, their abdomen are connected. In this process, the male transfer a spermatophore to the female who hold on to the spermatophore. The female butterfly then go to lay eggs on specific types of plants since most caterpillars are plant eaters but not all because some exhibit cannibalism. The leaf selection depends on the plant shape, color, and taste which is done using their legs.

After the eggs are laid, the caterpillars hatch out of the eggs with the genetic programming needed to survive the next phase of their lives. In this caterpillars are cells that would grow to become different parts of the butterfly. As a larva, their only job is to eat in other to store as much calories as needed for the process of metamorphosis. As they eat, and releases waste, they also molt continuously as the metamorphosis stage is continuous. As the caterpillars grow, they develop wing buds inside them which is the wing that would be needed when it becomes a butterfly.

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Just like they have proto-wings, they also have proto-organs like the eyes, and other parts waiting for the last molt so they can become a thing. Before chrysalification begins, the hormone Ecdysone is released to stop the caterpillar from eating and instead look for a place to hang on to where it secretes silk to hold it firm to the layer. After this, it sheds off the caterpillar skin to a cuticle one made of chitin and that is the supposed sac your teacher told you about.

During the Pupa stage (Chrysalis stage), the caterpillar is immobile and depends on the food it had consumed over the period of its larva stage. During the pupa stage, hormone Caspases is released which lead to the programed cell death and digestion of cells in the caterpillar stage that isn't needed again which is then used to fuel the remaining stage of metamorphosis.

When the butterfly organs are fully grown, Eclosion begins where a diuretic hormone which helps the butterfly come out of the chitin to live its life. But then why do these things happen, well that's just life and science, or probably evolution but then compared to the story you were told as a child, Butterfly metamorphosis is more detailed than the story you were told in school.