Life cycle of a butterfly

From egg to butterfly

In the spring, you can see a beautiful yellow butterfly among the flowers. It flutters across the garden seeking honey. To become this matured butterfly, it passes through four stages in its life cycle. They are called egg, larva, pupa, and butterfly.

The cycle begins with egg. Around two days later after mating, the female butterfly lays eggs on the leaves of the plants. A butterfly can lay 450 to 500 eggs at once so that prevent them from being scattered and strewed with the effects of natural causes like wind. The egg is a little long and transparent white color, so it looks like a grain of rice. After 6~7 days later, a worm like creature hatches out of the egg which is light green or yellow colored.

Next is larva stage which is active. The worm is called a larva or a caterpillar. As soon as a caterpillar emerges and crawls out from egg, it usually eats the egg shell first. Then it starts to eat vegetation, flowers, or fruit of the host plant. In this stage, larva grows by molting or shedding their skin several times. Each time it becomes bigger and bigger.

Once a larva became big enough, soon it changes into a pupa. In this third stage which is called pupa, a larva begins to build a cocoon with the string from its body attached to a plant. It will take 3 or 4 days of non-stop working for the new born caterpillar to finish this process. During this period, the caterpillar would turn around itself for thousands of times and secrete approximately 900~1,500 meter long strings.

After a few weeks, by undergoing changes and metamorphoses in the cocoon, finally a pupa turns into a adult butterfly. The length of the pupal stage varies with each species and often depends on temperature. Once the organs have matured, the skin of the pupa splits and the butterfly emerges. After a few hours, the wings expand and the skin hardens, then the adult is able to fly, sip nectar, mate, and lay eggs. Hence a butterfly's life cycle is repeated. The entire process, from egg to butterfly, takes an average of five to six weeks.

Although most butterflies can live for two months to one year, they have to undergo this four stage overcoming the dangers from nature or natural enemy. To become a butterfly, they have to change constantly through the metamorphosis process. Then, finally they become a beautiful, charming butterfly.