Is a worm like creature during its second , or larval, stage in the life history of butterflies and moths. Butterfly egg hatches, a tiny caterpillar crawls out and starts to eat. Caterpillar grows, but its skin does not grow with it and the skin becomes tight, and the caterpillar throws it off. The caterpillar wiggles out through a split at the upper part near the head end. A new soft skin is shown under the old one and this is grown out of as well, this process is repeated many times. In the temperature region most species remain as a caterpillar stage from two to four weeks. In very cold climates, some species take from two (2) to three (3) years to pass from the egg to butterfly stage.
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A caterpillar has 13 rings or segments, not including the head. Each segment has five - jointed legs. The head has (6) six simple eyes on each side. It guides itself by a pair of short, joined feelers. It also has strong biting jaws. The body may be naked or covered with hairs , bristles, or spines.
Some have glands which secrete an unpleasant fluid others with a sickening taste which saves them from being eaten by birds and other animals. Some have sharp spines covering that inject stinging fluids when they break off in a person's skin. False eye spots help defense and also a long whiplike appendage on the backs of some larvae. Very few caterpillars that are hatched reach adult stage. Large animals eat them, and tiny, parasitic wasp and fly larvae feed within their bodies and kill them.
Caterpillars are heavy eaters, all its growing is done through this stage before it becomes a butterfly or moth. The larva stores up nutrients that is later used to transform it to an adult insect. Here the adult grows no more after it grows functional wings.
Few larvae , such as silkworms, are valuable, but most are not. When they are numerous; fields are made bare of vegetation , and trees are stripped of their leaves. The cabbage worm , gypsy moth caterpillar, the cotton moth, the army worm, cutworms are especially problematic.
