The hungry caterpillar 🐛
1On an early Sunday morning, “a tiny and very hungry caterpillar” hatches from his egg. Then, he searches for something to eat. For the following five days (Monday through Friday), the very hungry caterpillar eats through an increasing quantity of fruit: one apple on Monday, two pears on Tuesday, three plums on Wednesday, four strawberries on Thursday, and five oranges on Friday. The caterpillar is still hungry. On Saturday, he feasts, eating a piece of chocolate cake, a strawberry ice cream cone, a pickle, a slice of Swiss cheese, a slice of salami, a lollipop, a piece of cherry pie, a sausage, a cupcake and a slice of watermelon. That night, he gets a stomach ache from unhealthy overeating.
To recover from Saturday’s stomach ache, the caterpillar eats one green leaf on Sunday (week has passed), and then feels much better. He is no longer little and hungry; he is now a big and fat caterpillar. He builds a cocoon around himself. He stays inside of it for two weeks, after which he nibbles a hole and pushes his way out. Finally, he develops into a large, beautiful, multi-colored butterfly. As a butterfly, the cycle begins again. Carle’s story mimics a caterpillar’s actual life cycle: eating, growing, spinning, and finally metamorphosing into a butterfly.
Caterpillars (/ˈkætərpɪlər/ KAT-ər-pil-ər) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
Euthalia aconthea (baron butterfly) caterpillar found in India
Caterpillar of Papilio machaon
A monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) caterpillar feeding on an unopened seed pod of swamp milkweed
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Symphyta) are commonly called caterpillars as well.[1][2] Both lepidopteran and symphytan larvae have eruciform body shapes.
Caterpillars of most species eat plant material (often leaves), but not all; some (about 1%) eat insects, and some are even cannibalistic. Some feed on other animal products. For example, clothes moths feed on wool, and horn moths feed on the hooves and horns of dead ungulates.
Caterpillars are typically voracious feeders and many of them are among the most serious of agricultural pests. In fact, many moth species are best known in their caterpillar stages because of the damage they cause to fruits and other agricultural produce, whereas the moths are obscure and do no direct harm. Conversely, various species of caterpillar are valued as sources of silk, as human or animal food, or for biological control of pest plants.
Etymology
The origins of the word "caterpillar" date from the early 16th century. They derive from Middle English catirpel, catirpeller, probably an alteration of Old North French catepelose: cate, cat (from Latin cattus) + pelose, hairy (from Latin pilōsus).[3]
The inchworm, or looper caterpillars from the family Geometridae are so named because of the way they move, appearing to measure the earth (the word geometrid means earth-measurer in Greek);[4] the primary reason for this unusual locomotion is the elimination of nearly all the prolegs except the clasper on the terminal segment.
Crochets on a caterpillar's prolegs
Larvae of Craesus septentrionalis, a sawfly showing six pairs of prolegs.
Caterpillars have soft bodies that can grow rapidly between moults. Their size varies between species and instars (moults) from as small as 1 millimetre (0.039 in) up to 14 centimetres (5.5 in).[5] Some larvae of the order Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) can appear like the caterpillars of the Lepidoptera. Such larvae are mainly seen in the sawfly suborder. However while these larvae superficially resemble caterpillars, they can be distinguished by the presence of prolegs on every abdominal segment, an absence of crochets or hooks on the prolegs (these are present on lepidopteran caterpillars), one pair of prominent ocelli on the head capsule, and an absence of the upside-down Y-shaped suture on the front of the head.
Lepidopteran caterpillars can be differentiated from sawfly larvae by:
the numbers of pairs of pro-legs; sawfly larvae have 6 or more pairs while caterpillars have a maximum of 5 pairs.
the number of stemmata (simple eyes); the sawfly larvae have only two,[7] while caterpillars usually have twelve (six each side of the head).
the presence of crochets on the prolegs; these are absent in the sawflies.
sawfly larvae have an invariably smooth head capsule with no cleavage lines, while lepidopterous caterpillars bear an inverted "Y" or "V" (adfrontal suture).
Fossils
Eogeometer vadens, the earliest known geometrid moth caterpillar found in Baltic amber
In 2019, a geometrid moth caterpillar dating back to the Eocene epoch, approximately 44 million years ago, was found preserved in Baltic amber. It was described under Eogeometer vadens.Previously, another fossil dating back approximately 125 million years was found in Lebanese amber.