Hey hey,

Many of you have learnt that the life cycle of a caterpillar starts from an egg, goes on to the larvae stage, then the pupa stage and finally becomes a butterfly. Yet, few of you would have probably seen the actual process.

I was blessed with such an opportunity recently, when we realized that our plant was being ravaged by caterpillars. Against all common gardening sense, we decided to pursue science.

First of all, let’s introduce Greenie(小绿) our main artiste for this short production!

The caterpillar is the larvae stage in the life cycle of a butterfly. As you can see, it is perfectly camouflaged against the background of leaves! As the caterpillar eats the leaves, it will also excrete caterpoop. Lots of it.

The caterpillar will then transform into the larvae phase. As you can see, mimicry is done to protect it from predators. In this case it is pretending to be a young leaf. As it metamorphorsize, it’ll also change colour.

It’ll eventually become an adult and fly away. We are trying to catch one of Greenie’s brother or sister(cannot tell the difference between male or female) when it emerges! Wish us luck!