Download Caterpillar Life Cycle

Butterflies are beautiful creatures, have
you ever thought how they have babies?
It takes a Mummy and a Daddy butterfly
to lay eggs.
The mum is called the female and the dad
is called the male.
Butterfly eggs are laid in batches
on the underside of leaves.The
eggs become darker as the time
for hatching becomes nearer.
The eggs hatch as long thin
caterpillars which eat leaves for a
month,they only stop eating to
moult or discard their skin when it
gets too tight.
When the caterpillar is ready it will
spin a cocoon of silk around itself,The
shell is called a chrysalis. Inside it
becomes a pupa and starts to grow
wings to then change into the adult
butterfly.
When the butterfly emerges, its wings
are crumpled and damp but they soon
dry, expand and harden. Butterflies feed
on nectar which they get from the
centre of flowers using their long tongue
called a proboscis.
Life cycle of a Butterfly
Adult Butterfly.
Butterfly eggs
Cocoon or chrysalis
caterpillar
Caterpillars can
do a lot of
damage to crops
– farmers do not
like them!
There are now some
butterfly farms where
you can go and see rare
types of butterfly and
unusual cocoons.
Butterflies
have very
short lives.
Glossary
Cocoon :
Emerge :
Moult :
Proboscis:
A small hard structure the caterpillar
spins and hides in while the wings are
growing
Is when a caterpillar comes out of a cocoon
when it is a fully grown butterfly
the caterpillar shreds / takes off it’s skin
to transform into a butterfly
is a long curled up tongue. They use it to
suck up their food.