Mar 03 2010
Butterfly Caterpillars
The butterfly caterpillars stage is a very important one in the life cycle of a butterfly, it is perhaps more important to the survival of the species than the adult stage of a butterfly’s life cycle.
Butterfly caterpillars were created to eat, they have large jaws and a huge gut. Their only goal in life is to eat and grow to a size where they can pupate. While an adult butterfly can roam over the landscape, caterpillars pretty much have to stay where they are hatched out.
They can spend their entire life eating from one plant. Although they have huge appetites, the butterfly caterpillars are highly selective about what they eat. That is why it is so important to have the right host plants in your butterfly garden.
The adult female butterfly must lay an egg on the right kind of plant for the butterfly caterpillar to survive. If there are not enough of the right types of plants it could end the entire cycle for that kind of butterfly.
Once the butterfly lays the eggs in a few days the caterpillars will hatch out and begin to eat the plant. The butterfly caterpillars will eat, and eat, and eat; until they are the right size to create a chrysalis.
Once the butterfly caterpillars turn into a chrysalis then the real magic begins, The caterpillar will change into a beautiful butterfly. I consider this to be a real miracle. How a butterfly caterpillar will morph into whole different creature. Amazing!
One note here, please do not use any pesticides in your butterfly garden; Ever! Those pesticide chemicals will kill the butterfly caterpillars, the pesticide can’t tell the difference between a butterfly caterpillar and an aphid. So please don’t do it.
From a gardener’s point of view, it is very important to know what plants each of the different butterfly caterpillars like to eat. By attracting the butterfly caterpillars, you will most surely get the adult butterflies who will feed on a wide variety of the flowers in your butterfly garden.
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