The Life of Butterflies

The life of all butterflies starts as eggs. The eggs themselves are wonderful creations, found in different shapes, colours and sizes. The eggs may be sperical, domeshaped, tall and bottle shaped. They could be with smooth or textured skins .

Butterfly species lay eggs on specific host plants. Butterflies may also have more host plant species than just one. New host plants are being discovered even for the common butterfly species.

The eggs are laid either singly or in groups . This differs from species to species. The butterfly may lay many eggs spread over various locations to maximize survival rates.

The next stage in the life of the butterfly is the caterpillar.

The caterpillar is an eating machine. Caterpillars of many species start off by eating the egg cases!During the first few days , when the mouth parts are not strong enough,the catterpillars may feed by scraping material from the surface of the leaves. But soon enough they start doing serious damage to the leaves.

The leaves not only give nutrition to the butterfly ,they also impart some desirable properties to the insects. Many butterflieslay eggs on poisonous plants. For the caterpillars, the plant is perfectly edible , but this diet renders the adult butteflies inedible to preditors like birds.

The caterpillars grow at a tremendous rate and when the skin starts getting tight for the growing body inside, it molts. These stages of molting are known as instars. A caterpillar passes through five instars.

After the final instar, the caterpillars turns into a Pupa.

The caterpillar may sometmes move away from the hostplant to find a suitable isolated spot to moult. On finding a good spot, the caterpillar weaves a pad of silk, and suspends itself from this pad. At the right time , it moults into a pupa. Some pupae are simply suspended, some are held in an inclined possition with the pad at one end and a silk band around the body.

From the outside, The pupa stage looks quite uneventful, but transformation is taking place inside. The pupa remains suspended for a few weeks. Some hours before final day, some of the colours of the butterfly may be seen through the covering.

The pupa splits open and the butterfly crawls out of the case. The wings are initially crumpled and soft. The butterfly crawls up to a high possition and remains upside down. Fluids are pumped into the vains of the wings so that they slowly straighen out and harden . The butterfly then rests and waits for the wings and body to dry completely .As soon as it is warm enough and it has expelled extra fluids from it's body , it is ready to fly as an adult.