The life cycle of the butterfly.

1
The life cycle of the butterfly.
2
Butterflies are beautiful creatures, have you
ever thought how they have babies? It takes a
Mummy and a Daddy butterfly to lay eggs. The mum
is called the female and the dad is called the
male.
3
Butterfly eggs are laid in batches on the
underside of leaves.The eggs become darker as the
time for hatching becomes nearer. The eggs
hatch as long thin caterpillars which eat leaves
for a month,they only stop eating to moult or
discard their skin when it gets too tight.
4
When the caterpillar is ready it will spin a
cocoon of silk around itself,The shell is called
a chrysalis. Inside it becomes a pupa and starts
to grow wings to then change into the adult
butterfly.
5
When the butterfly emerges, its wings are
crumpled and damp but they soon dry, expand and
harden. Butterflies feed on nectar which they get
from the centre of flowers using their long
tongue called a proboscis.
6
        Life cycle of a Butterfly
  Adult Butterfly.
Butterfly eggs
Cocoon or chrysalis
caterpillar
7
Caterpillars can do a lot of damage to crops
farmers do not like them!
8
There are now some butterfly farms where you can
go and see rare types of butterfly and unusual
cocoons.
9
Butterflies have very short lives.
Butterfly facts...
10
Glossary
A small hard structure the caterpillar spins and
hides in while the wings are growing
Cocoon
Emerge
Is when a caterpillar comes out of a cocoon when
it is a fully grown butterfly
the caterpillar shreds / takes off its skin
to transform into a butterfly
Moult
Proboscis
is a long curled up tongue. They use it to suck
up their food.