The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

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The Life Cycle of a Butterfly
The life cycle of a butterfly is perhaps one of the most beautiful and astounding processes in nature. The four stages a butterfly goes through to become the beautiful flying insects are just as interesting as the vibrant colors and patterns on the wings of the various species of butterflies. The four stages are as follows: the egg, the caterpillar, the pupa, and the emergence of the butterfly. Each stage is vital to the development of the adult butterfly. Perhaps the most interesting piece of the complicated puzzle that is the butterfly life cycle is the process of metamorphosis that happens in stage three. Similar to how a tadpole becomes a frog, a larva (caterpillar) morphs into a beautiful brilliantly colored butterfly.
To begin, it is necessary to understand what a butterfly is. A butterfly is a flying insect from the Lepidoptera family that includes moths and butterflies. This classification (Lepidoptera) makes up the second largest family within the insect family. Like all holometabolous insects, butterflies endure a complete cycle of metamorphosis that is broken down into four distinct stages throughout the life of a butterfly. Because the butterfly family is so large and the species are so diverse, there are some butterflies that will migrate outstanding amounts of distance and there are some that have symbiotic relationships with other animals in their habitat. For example, the Monarch butterfly, possibly the most recognizable and well known of all butterfly species with their bright orange and black outlined wings that look like stained glass windows migrate to escape the cold weather of the United States. They manage to migrate south and west in October of each year, eventually making ...

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