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The life cycle of the butterfly. 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.
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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. Butterfly facts...
Glossary A small hard structure the caterpillar spins and hides in while the wings are growing Cocoon : Emerge : 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 Moult : Proboscis: is a long curled up tongue. They use it to suck up their food.