1. Egg: The female butterfly lays a tiny, round, white, or green egg on the underside of a leaf. These eggs are quite hard to spot. Some butterflies lay one egg at a time, while others lay up to a thousand.
2. Larva (caterpillar): The tiny caterpillar that emerges has segmented bodies and powerful jaws that allow it to eat plants. Caterpillars also have tiny hair-like filaments on their bodies.
- It eats continuously growing from tiny to huge proportions with each passing day.
- Caterpillar sheds it's skin about five times as it grows.
- After eating, crawling and growing they hang head down from a stem or twig (molting).
- After its final molting, the skin hardens and a caterpillar turns into a chrysalis.
3. Pupa (chrysalis): The caterpillar then attaches itself to a twig and sheds its skin, entering the pupa stage. The chrysalis is a hard protective casing that resembles a seed pod. Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar undergoes a dramatic transformation, from a wriggling creature of segmented body parts into a beautiful winged creature.
4. Adult (butterfly): After about two weeks, the chrysalis splits open and the butterfly emerges. Initially its wings are crumpled, but they soon expand, and the butterfly starts flying about. Butterflies take about five days to dry out and mature.
The life cycle of a butterfly varies in length, depending on the species. Some species can complete their life cycle in as little as a month, while others may take several months.