Caterpillars Grow And Change

[Music] it is summer in summer we see green leaves white clouds and we feel soft breezes and we see beautiful flowers and butterflies [Music] lovely butterflies are seen on summer days and on summer nights While most butterflies rest moths usually begin to fly summer is the time for butterflies and moths where do they come from how do they grow now as summer night is over and another warm summer day is beginning look here are tiny eggs that were laid by a butterfly do tiny butterflies come out when butterfly eggs hatch caterpillars come out butterflies begin their lives as creeping caterpillars they're tiny now as the days go on they eat green leaves and grow many different kinds of caterpillars have been eating and growing only some hatched from butterfly eggs this caterpillar did so did this one but this caterpillar hatched from a moth egg so did this one moths begin their lives as caterpillars too so different kinds of caterpillars are eating and growing caterpillars seem to eat all the time they eat and eat and grow and grow a caterpillar grows inside its wrinkled skin filling the skin more and more the skin doesn't grow but the caterpillar keeps eating and growing inside the skin watch what happens when the skin has been stretched as far as it can go do you see the skin is splitting and coming off underneath there is another skin the caterpillar will lose several skins in this way before the summer is over but even while the caterpillar is losing its old skin it goes on eating and growing it feels its way along with little feelers it doesn't see very well even though it has several tiny eyes they're not much more than spots on its head how does it keep from falling off the twig well something is coming out from under its head a thin thread let's pick this one up so you can see the thread better see one side of a thread is very sticky it sticks to The Twig or Leaf the caterpillar is on it helps to keep the caterpillar from falling off as it crawls along the thread the caterpillar seems to have many legs but look only these six near the head are real legs the rest are not really legs but they also help the caterpillar hold on as it climbs and eats there are many dangers for the growing caterpillar there are hungry Birds they eat caterpillars they feed caterpillars to their hungry babies caterpillars can't run away from Hungry Birds but they have other ways of protecting themselves is this a creeping twig no it's a caterpillar perhaps it fools Birds by looking like a twig are these the eyes of a snake no they're just spots of color on a little caterpillar but perhaps birds are frightened by them is this a prickly Burr a bird wouldn't want to eat that no it's just another caterpillar perhaps the way it looks can fool a hungry bird it may be hard for a bird to see a green caterpillar on a green leaf so caterpillars are protected in many ways now summer is nearly over fall is coming this caterpillar has grown much since it was hatched with its thread it made a tiny pad to hold its tail end to the twig and now it's spinning another thread the thread goes around the caterpillar's body holding it to the twig now its skin is splitting near the head and coming off this has happened before will there be a wrinkled new skin under the old one as there was before no this looks different it's a harder covering that will help protect the caterpillar during the winter the old skin keeps sliding off now the old skin is almost gone when the old skin is off the caterpillar what will be left a hard case a hard case called a chrysalis what will happen now nothing that we can see for a long time let's leave the Chrysalis and look around this moth caterpillar is spinning too but it is spinning a whole case for itself the case is called a cocoon the Cocoon will help protect the caterpillar the caterpillar is still spinning the Cocoon is taking shape now it is almost finished there the Cocoon is done on many Twigs we see moth cocoons and Butterfly chrysalises for many caterpillars have gotten ready for winter is coming strong cold winds blow now winter is here with falling snow and icy cold air will the Chrysalis be all right many weeks later winter is over spring has come and it is warm again and the caterpillar is it still alive inside its chrysalis something is happening to the chrysalis it's splitting open and something is trying to get out is it a caterpillar no look there are long legs it's not a caterpillar at all it's a butterfly inside the Chrysalis during the winter and early spring the caterpillar changed into a butterfly it takes a while for its wings to fill up and now you can see the butterfly has black wings with yellow spots and at the bottom the wings have long slender tips like those on the Tails of swallows all butterflies with wings like these are called swallowtails this one is called a black swallowtail butterfly it has long sensitive feelers six long thin legs but no Jaws for chewing leaves its mouth is a long curving sucking tube how will it eat it sucks nectar from flowers with its long mouth which can go deep into a flower so now what was once a crawling caterpillar has become a flying butterfly with beautifully colored wings and this came out of a cocoon that was made by a moth caterpillar it's a moth a sacropia moth when we look at the moth's head we see it has long feelers too but they are feathery not like the butterflies feelers it also has six long legs and strong Wings to carry it from flower to flower with a curving mouth to suck the nectar like most moths it will fly at night most of the butterflies that were caterpillars will fly during the day and now you know how caterpillars grow and change foreign foreign