🦋 Life cycles

Metamorphosis is the amazing process where an insect completely changes its body shape as it grows up, ending up looking almost nothing like it did as a baby. Butterflies, beetles and flies all go through this kind of dramatic transformation, moving through very different stages before becoming adults. Not every insect changes this much though, some just get bigger and grow wings along the way, without ever looking totally different.

After weeks of eating almost nonstop, a caterpillar attaches itself to a branch and forms a hard shell around itself called a chrysalis. Inside, its body dissolves into a kind of living soup, then rebuilds itself piece by piece into wings, legs and antennae completely different from before. When the transformation finishes, the butterfly pushes its way out, pumps fluid into its crumpled new wings to unfold them, and waits for them to dry before its very first flight.

An insect's hard outer shell cannot stretch or grow the way skin does, so as the insect gets bigger inside, it eventually needs to split and shed that old shell completely, a process called molting. Underneath, a soft new shell is already waiting, and for a short while after molting the insect is squishy and vulnerable until the new shell hardens. Most insects molt several times throughout their life, each time coming out just a bit bigger than before.

Insect lifespans vary wildly, some flies live for just a few days, while certain queen ants and termites can survive for decades, far longer than many pets. Often it depends on the insect's job, worker bees that fly out gathering food tend to wear out and die much sooner than a queen who stays safe inside the hive. Cold weather, predators and the constant search for food all shorten most insect lives long before old age ever becomes the real cause.