The caterpillar

📖 In short

The caterpillar is the little worm-like creature that hatches from a butterfly's or moth's egg. It's the second stage of a butterfly's life. A caterpillar does almost nothing but eat, munching leaves night and day and growing very fast.

🤩 Did you know?

Few caterpillars survive to become butterflies, because birds and animals eat many of them.
The silkworm is a caterpillar, and it makes silk threads.
A caterpillar sometimes eats the eggshell it hatched from as its first meal!
A caterpillar has lots of tiny eyes, but it doesn't see well.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Skin that gets too tight

A caterpillar's skin doesn't grow with it, so when it gets too tight the caterpillar splits it and climbs out in a new, bigger skin. It does this several times before it's fully grown.

🔍 Lots of legs

A caterpillar has six true legs at the front of its body, and lots of fleshy legs at the back that help it grip branches and walk on leaves.

💡 How does it protect itself?

Some caterpillars are green like leaves and hide easily, some are covered in hairs or spines, and some have bright colors to tell birds: “I taste bitter, don't eat me!”

🎯 The big step

When the caterpillar is fully grown, it hangs from a branch or spins a cocoon around itself and becomes a pupa, and inside its whole body changes into a butterfly.