Life Cycle- Butterfly

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

• Butterfly is an insect and has 4 stages in it's life cycle.
• The adult female butterfly lays it's eggs on the leaves. 
• It takes about 3-7 days for a egg to hatch and produce larva.
• Larva is also called as Caterpillar.
• As soon as the larva comes out of the egg 
• First it eats it's egg shell
• Then, it starts to eat the leaves.
• The larva grows and undergoes a process called as molting to form Pupa. It takes about 2-5 weeks for larva to become Pupa.
• Molting is a process of shedding of outer skin. In the entire life cycle of a butterfly it happens 5 times.
• Between formation of larva and pupa, molting happens 4 times. The butterfly keeps growing in size after each molting.
• After 4th molting the larva stops growing and forms a protective layer around it. This stage is called pupa stage or chrysalis.
• It takes about 15 days for a pupa to become an adult butterfly. The 5th and the final molting occurs at the end of pupa stage forming the adult butterfly.
• As soon as the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis it's
• wings are small
• wings are wet
• The butterfly pumps fluid to it's wings to make the wings bigger and stronger.
• It takes about 2 hours for a new born butterfly to become a fully grown strong butterfly.
• The changes that happen during the entire life cycle of an animal is called metamorphosis. It is also called as transformation.