Page 12 - The Book of Caterpillars: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species From Around the World

RIGHT The English
word “caterpillar” is
derived from the Latin
catta (cat) and pilosa
(hairy), meaning
“hairy cat.” Species
like this, the Banded
Woolly Bear (Pyrrarctia
isabella), may have
inspired the image,
also reflected in
cat- and dog-related
nicknames in dialect
and other languages.
WHAT IS A

CATERPILLAR?

10

Whether hairy, spiny, ridged, or smooth, the world’s caterpillars all share

one common trait, reflected in Eric Carle’s children’s classic, The Very
Hungry Caterpillar. Typically described as “eating machines,” they may
increase their body mass by up to 1,000 times as they mature. They are the
developmental stage of butterflies and moths and have a simple goal—to
eat, grow, and become an adult. While a butterfly or moth sometimes

survives only long enough to reproduce, the larval period may last days,
weeks, months, two to three years, or occasionally even longer in species
that are dormant during winter or hot summers.

STRUCTURE
Butterflies and moths have the caterpillar in common. While the adults can
often be distinguished from each other by the structure of the antennae
and the way the wings are held at rest, there is no simple physical
characteristic that distinguishes a butterfly caterpillar from a moth

caterpillar. Despite the extreme diversity of color and form in the hundreds
of thousands of species, all caterpillars share the same basic features, built
on the standard insect plan of head, thorax, and abdomen. The head is
large, the thorax (the middle section between the head and the abdomen)

is small, and the whole body is long and tubular.

The head
The epicranium, a hard head capsule with a triangular front plate or
“frons,” has a characteristic inverted, Y-shaped line extending down from
the top of the head; this line distinguishes the caterpillar from any other