The Life Cycle of a Butterfly
There are four stages in the life cycle of a butterfly.
Stage One: Egg
The adult butterfly first lays her eggs safely on a leaf. Depending on the type of butterfly,
she may lay just one egg, dozens of eggs, or up to hundreds of eggs at once. When she lays her eggs,
she produces a sticky substance that allows these eggs to stick
wherever she lays them, even on the
bottom side of a leaf. The butterfly carefully chooses to lay her egg upon a leaf so that the caterpillar
will have an immediate food supply once it hatches from the egg. This first stage lasts for about a week.
Stage Two: Larva
The egg begins to hatch and a
caterpillar is revealed. This caterpillar is known as the larva stage. The
caterpillar crawls out of the egg and immediately begins to start eating. They may first eat the egg that
they hatched from or just starting eating the leaves upon which they hatched from. The caterpillar is
continuously growing, but its skin only stretches a little bit. Once its skin has reached as much as it
can possibly stretch, the skin splits and the caterpillar crawls out of
it, revealing the new skin that has
formed below. This is known as molting, and happens four times during this stage.
This stage will last between twelve and fourteen days.
Stage Three: Pupa
The next stage that the caterpillar will enter is known as the pupa stage. During the stage,the
caterpillar
forms a protective chrysalis that protects it from the outside world while allowing it to undergo important changes.
The caterpillar will stay in this stage for about a week.
Stage Four: Butterfly
After about a week later, the caterpillar is ready to emerge from its
chrysalis and enter the fourth stage of the life cycle.
The caterpillar has gone through a metamorphosis, which is a change from one physical form to another, and
emerges from the chrysalis as a butterfly. The butterfly will hang upside down for two hours, allowing its wings to
dry and the blood to pump into its wings. Once it is ready, it will begin to fly. Within the next couple of weeks, the
butterfly will
find a mate and produce more eggs, beginning the life cycle once again.
When you have read the information about the life cycle of a butterfly and think that you are ready to
help Charlie, click on the link below to start your journey.
Begin your journey
Student SideTeacher Side
| Butterfly Life Cycle
|
|
|
|
|
| The Butterfly Life Cycle
Let’s explore a butterfly’s life cycle in detail, including all four stages of life. All butterflies have "complete metamorphosis." To grow into an adult they go through 4 stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Each stage has a different goal - for instance, caterpillars need to eat a lot, and adults need to reproduce. Depending on the type of butterfly, the life cycle of a butterfly may take anywhere
from one month to a whole year. You can print out this Butterfly Life Cycle coloring page to follow along as we talk about the 4 stages.
|
Butterfly Eggs on a Leaf
| The First Stage: The Egg
A butterfly starts life as a very small, round, oval or cylindrical egg. The coolest thing about butterfly eggs, especially monarch butterfly eggs, is that if you look close enough you can actually see the tiny caterpillar growing inside of it. Some butterfly eggs may be round, some oval and some may be ribbed while others may have other features. The egg shape depends on the type of
butterfly that laid the egg. Butterfly eggs are usually laid on the leaves of plants, so if you are actively searching for these very tiny eggs, you will have to take some time and examine quite a few leaves in order to find some.
|
Butterfly Caterpillar
| The Second Stage: The Larva (Caterpillar)
When the egg finally hatches, most of you would expect for a butterfly to emerge, right? Well, not exactly. In the butterfly’s life cycle, there are four stages and this is only the second stage. Butterfly larvae are actually what we call caterpillars. Caterpillars do not stay in this stage for very long and mostly, in this stage all they do is
eat. When the egg hatches, the caterpillar will start his work and eat the leaf they were born onto. This is really important because the mother butterfly needs to lay her eggs on the type of leaf the caterpillar will eat – each caterpillar type likes only certain types of leaves. Since they are tiny and can not travel to a new plant, the caterpillar needs to hatch on the kind of leaf it wants to eat. Caterpillars need to eat and eat so they can grow
quickly. When a caterpillar is born, they are extremely small. When they start eating, they instantly start growing and expanding. Their exoskeleton (skin) does not stretch or grow, so they grow by “molting” (sheding the outgrown skin) several times while it grows.
|
Caterpillar Becoming a Chrysalis
| The Third Stage: Pupa (Chrysalis)
Monarch Caterpillar Becoming a Chrysalis The pupa stage is one of the coolest stages of a butterfly’s life. As soon as a caterpillar is done growing and they have reached their full length/weight, they form themselves into a pupa, also known as a chrysalis. From the outside of the pupa, it looks as if the caterpillar may just be resting, but
the inside is where all of the action is. Inside of the pupa, the caterpillar is rapidly changing. Now, as most people know, caterpillars are short, stubby and have no wings at all. Within the chrysalis the old body parts of the caterpillar are undergoing a remarkable transformation, called ‘metamorphosis,’ to become the beautiful parts that make up the butterfly that will emerge. Tissue, limbs and organs of a caterpillar have all been changed by the time the pupa is
finished, and is now ready for the final stage of a butterfly’s life cycle.
|
Butterfly Emerging from a Chrysalis
| The Fourth Stage: Adult Butterfly
Finally, when the caterpillar has done all of its forming and changing inside the pupa, if you are lucky, you will get to see an adult butterfly emerge. When the butterfly first emerges from the chrysalis, both of the wings are going to be soft and folded against its body. This is because the butterfly had to fit all its new parts inside of the pupa. As soon as the
butterfly has rested after coming out of the chrysalis, it will pump blood into the wings in order to get them working and flapping – then they get to fly. Usually within a three or four-hour period, the butterfly will master flying and will search for a mate in order to reproduce. When in the fourth and final stage of their lives, adult butterflies are constantly on the look out to reproduce and when a female lays their eggs on some leaves, the butterfly life cycle will
start all over. This content is from the Butterfly Life Cycle/Metamorphosis page.
|
|
|
What are the 4 stages of a butterfly life cycle?
Butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and bees have complete metamorphosis. The young (called a larva instead of a nymph) is very different from the adults. It also usually eats different types of food. There are four stages in the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.
What is Stage 3 of the butterfly's life cycle?
Stage 3: Pupa
The parts we recognize as a butterfly are beginning to form. The transformation consumes so much energy that the pupa loses more than half of its original weight. The limbs and organs have all transformed by the time the pupa is ready to emerge as a beautiful butterfly.