the butterfly – natures magician

Insects and ickyness seem inevitably intertwined but you know it’s not so for butterflies. They somehow look likeable – even as caterpillars they could be your friends. But more mysterious than the fact that they’ve figured out how to be likeable, they’ve also discovered how to turn sixteen legs into six legs and a pair of wings in just two weeks.

For the monarch butterfly there are four stages to the metamorphosis. 1 Females lay eggs 2 which become caterpillars who stuff themselves with food like bears banqueting for bed 3 then spin silk pads for the cocoon and disappear into their magic chambers, and abbracadabra ! 4 emerge as butterflies.

Let’s look a little closer at the magic.

Trivia Question: where are the taste buds in a butterfly?

The caterpillar has a two week life span and eats enough milkweed to grow two thousand times bigger. Then it has a two week hibernation in the cocoon. It binds its bum to a branch with silk but its body doesn’t go into the cocoon – it becomes the cocoon. The caterpillar sheds its skin to reveal the green shell growing under the surface. As this happens the caterpillar dissolves, including the extra legs, and on the inside it becomes partially like the goop of an egg. Then, from specific cells in this goop, the monarch butterfly grows.

The day before it hatches you can see the wings through the chrysalis as it turns transparent.

Watch it happen at National Geographic.

Imagine tasting your socks? Well if butterflies wore them they would have no choice – their taste buds are on their feet.