Butterflies!

We have been studying caterpillars and butterflies for the past few weeks. A butterfly is an insect. Like all insects, they have hard exoskeletons, 6 legs, and 3 main body segments.

Butterflies have a very specialized mouth. It is called a proboscis. Don't know how to say that word? Break it up into parts: pro   bos   cis   then blend it together. Try saying it three times fast!

Image source: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, from Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_painted_lady_feeding_closeup.jpg

A proboscis is like a long, flexible tongue. The butterfly can curl it up close to its body when it isn't using it. But when a butterfly lands on a flower, it extends the long, thin proboscis and sucks up nectar from inside a flower. Bees drink up nectar the same way! Do you think butterflies are pollinators just like bees are?

We raised Painted Lady caterpillars. When we first got them, they were tiny larvae (caterpillars) only 1 centimeter long. They ate and ate, munching on their crushed-up leaf food. When they grew, they shed their skin, and emerged with a new, bigger skin. Eventually, they stuck to the roof of their containers, curled into a J shape, and made a chrysalis to protect them while they metamorphasized. In their chrysalis, they were the third phase in their life cycle. They were pupas.

Finally, they emerged from the chrysalis, dried their wings, and flew around. They are now adults. If there are males and females, they will mate and the females will lay new eggs. New tiny caterpillars will come out of these eggs, and the cycle will continue!