Butterflies are some of the most interesting insects on the planet Earth. There are more than 17,000 different kind of butterflies! Butterflies come in all shapes and sizes. Butterflies go through four stages of life. The first stage is the egg stage, followed by the larva stage, or caterpillar, the future butterfly eats as much as possible. As it grows, it sheds its outer skin, or exoskeleton. This may happen four or five times. After a few weeks, the caterpillar enters the next stage of its life, the chrysalis stage. In the chrysalis stage, the caterpillar will liquefy into a soup of living cells. Then, it will reorganize into a butterfly, and the metamorphosis is complete. In later parts of the chrysalis stage, you can see the forming butterfly through the chrysalis.
When the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, it pumps its wings to send blood through them so that it can fly. Most butterflies only live a couple of weeks-just enough time to drink flower nectar and to mate. Some, like the monarch butterfly, however, may live many months.
Life cycle
Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their entire life cycle.