The Life of a Butterfly
“Transformation is a marvelous thing... I am thinking especially of the transformation of butterflies.”
From Nabokov's Cornell Lectures, March 1951. Published in Nabokov’s Butterflies (2000) p. 472
Like many types of insects, Lepidoptera have holometabolous development, or a "complete metamorphosis" life cycle. Their larvae (caterpillars) look very different and have different ecology than the adults. All growth is completed during the caterpillar stage–butterflies themselves do not grow.
Illustration by Jacki Whisenant (CUIC)
“ You will ask, what is the feeling of hatching? Oh, no doubt, there is a rush of panic to the head, a thrill of breathless and strange sensation, but then the eyes see, in a flow of sunshine, the butterfly sees the world, the large and awful face of the gaping entomologist.”
- From Nabokov's Cornell Lectures, March 1951. Published in Nabokov’s Butterflies (2000) p. 472-473
Butterfly Feeding
Across the Lepidoptera, caterpillars feed on a wide variety of host plants, and are the subject of many ecological studies for both forestry management and agricultural control. A few lycaenids are predatory, including our local New York species the Harvester (Feniseca tarquinius) whose caterpillars feed on aphids. Adults are typically nectar-feeding and have a long, coiled proboscis that helps them access their sugary food deep within the flowers. Butterflies can be observed "puddling" where they gather around puddles of water to sip fluid and dissolved minerals, some feed on rotting fruit juices, and some moths have even been observed feeding on blood.