Butterfly Life Cycle:
Larval (Caterpillar) Stage

The larvae are ravenous eaters - in fact they are designed for little more than eating. As they grow and become too large for their skins, the larvae shed them, or molt, and resume feeding until once again they are "bursting at the seams" and molt to the next larval stage. Most butterflies and moths pass through four or five of these larval stages, called instars, before they cease feeding and seek a place to pupate. Pupae are the restin forms in which the larvae transform into adults.

Although metamorphosis looks like a series of sudden changes from one form to another, continual changes are in fact taking place inside the larva as it grows. Adult wings, antennae, and other organs grow tremendously inside the older larvae, so that by the time it pupates, many of a moth or butterfly's adult structures have already formed.

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