Raven points at a leaf by the fence. A fat green caterpillar is chewing the edge.
"That is a baby butterfly," she says. Rocket laughs. "It looks nothing like a butterfly!"
Nova projects a cyan egg, a caterpillar, a hard case and a butterfly.
"Four stages," she says. "Which one are you looking at right now?"
Rocket thinks. "The eating one," he says. Raven smiles and starts to draw.
A life cycle is the set of stages a living thing passes through.
Butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, ants and flies share one kind of life cycle.
It has four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.
The adult lays tiny eggs, often on a plant.
A larva hatches from the egg. A caterpillar is the larva of a butterfly or moth.
The larva eats and grows. It is the main eating and growing stage.
Then the larva becomes a pupa. A butterfly pupa is called a chrysalis.
Inside the pupa the body changes completely. This big change is called metamorphosis.
At last an adult comes out. The adult looks very different from the larva.
| Stage | What it does | Butterfly example |
|---|---|---|
| egg | waits to hatch | a tiny dot on a leaf |
| larva | eats and grows | a caterpillar |
| pupa | changes inside a case | a chrysalis |
| adult | flies, finds a mate, lays eggs | a butterfly |
The larva and the adult often live in different ways.
A caterpillar eats leaves. An adult butterfly drinks sweet nectar from flowers.
They do not compete for the same food.
The adult can fly to new places and lay eggs there.
Every insect life cycle has the same big events: birth, growth, making young and death.
| Statement | True or false? |
|---|---|
| A caterpillar hatches from an egg. | ? |
| The pupa stage flies around and lays eggs. | ? |
| A chrysalis is a butterfly pupa. | ? |
| Adult butterflies eat the same food as caterpillars. | ? |
Beautiful cycle drawing! Tomorrow we meet insects that skip the pupa stage.