| Sorry, I don't enough about what happens during the metamorphosis. I hope that someone can answer that. (Another question: If the caterpillar lost a leg, the butterfly has a missing leg?) Changing the form is very popular between insects. (Almost?) All of them do it. For example: * Grasshoppers: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snodgrass_Melanoplus_... * The young grasshoppers look like small wingless grasshoppers, so it is not a surprising transformation (if you ignore the wings and some internal details) * Ants: http://askabiologist.asu.edu/individual-life-cycle * Bees: http://www.magicpest.com/the-life-cycle-of-an-arizona-bee/ * The young ants / bees look like eggs, because they live safely inside the hive, and get the food from their sisters. So we don't have a special name for them. * Mosquitoes: http://www.mosquito-misting.com/life%20cycle.htm * Flies: http://www.flycontrol.novartis.com/species/housefly/en/life_... * The young mosquitoes / flies are very different from the adult forms, they have a very different lifestyle and food. But they are nasty so it's better to just ignore them. * Butterflies: http://questgarden.com/120/22/8/110228062006/process.htm * Young butterflies live in the wild without protection like the ants/bees equivalent. So they are easy to spot and they are more difficult to relate to the adult forms. They are colorful to hide or as a bad taste signal, so they are nice and many of them have a special name that is unrelated to the name of the adult form. Butterflies in general are colorful and nice too, so we know a lot of names of the species of caterpillars and butterflies. (You can find more examples in Google, searching for: life cycle <insect> ) So the changes are very common insects, but the case of the caterpillars / butterflies is more surprising because both forms are popular. (Changes are also common in other kinds of animals / plants /fungus / etc., but this is getting too long, so lets analyze only.) |
