Caterpillar

Distribution: Cosmopolitan

Life Span: 2 weeks–2years

Diet: Herbivorous (some species are carnivorous)

Social life: Solitary (some species are gregarious)

IUCN red list status: Data Deficient ‒ Extinct



The caterpillar is the larval stage of the Lepidoptera family (butterflies and moths) and it’s the longest period on its lifetime. Caterpillar’s life starts in the moment they hatch from the egg and end with the chrysalis-a protective coverage in which the caterpillar pupates undergoes the metamorphosis. Meanwhile, caterpillars only have two functions on its life: to eat and to survive. Polyphagous caterpillars use to feed on leaves, steams, flowers, or seeds on a variety of different plant families’. However, most of them are monophagous depending on one particular species of plant (or two closely related). Depending on the species, caterpillars increase their size 60-200x in the period between the hatching and the pupating. In order to grow and collect as much food as possible, they have an elastic skin that sometimes becomes too tight and have to be replaced by a second and looser skin that forms under the outer skin. After reach its full size, caterpillar will hang on a branch in order to undertake the final molt to become a pupa and metamorphosis to the adult form of a butterfly or a moth.