My Science School

Rafflesia, native to Indonesian rainforests, is a parasite plant which produces the largest single flower that stinks. With no leaves, stem or roots, it lacks chlorophyll to aid photosynthesis. It attaches itself to a wine called Tetrastigma from which it absorbs water and nutrients.

The only part of the plant that can be seen outside the host vine is the five-petalled flower. In some species, such as Rafflesia arnoldii, the flower may be over 100 centimetres (40 in) in diameter, and weigh up to 10 kilograms (22 lb). A Rafflesia that flowered in West Sumatra in 2019 was measured to be almost 4 feet (120 cm) in diameter, the largest flower ever recorded – 4 inches (10 cm) wider than the flower reported as the largest in 2017. Even one of the smallest species, R. baletei, has 12 cm (5 in) diameter flowers.

The flowers look and smell like rotting flesh. The foul odour attracts insects such as carrion flies, which transport pollen from male to female flowers. Most species have separate male and female flowers, but a few have hermaphroditic flowers. Little is known about seed dispersal. Tree shrews and other forest mammals eat the fruits.[8] The extremely tiny seeds have an extremely tiny elaiosomes, and are thus most likely dispersed by ants. The seeds are packed into berries, which contains hundreds of thousands of seeds.

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When the leaves of the plants turn yellow, they are pulled out of the ground. When the plant has matured and the peanuts are ready for harvest, the farmer waits until the soil is not too wet or too dry before digging. When conditions are right, he or she drives a digger up and down the green rows of peanut plants. The digger pulls up the plant, gently shakes off any lingering soil, rotates the plant and lays it back down in a “windrow”—with peanuts up and leaves down.

Peanuts contain 25 to 50 percent moisture when first dug and are dried to 10 percent or less so they can be stored. They are usually left in windrows for two or three days to cure, or dry, before the next step.

After drying in the field, a combine separates the peanuts from the vines, placing the peanuts into a hopper on the top of the machine and depositing the vines back in the field. Peanut vines can be left in the field to nourish the soil or be used as nutritious livestock feed. Freshly combined peanuts are then placed into peanut wagons for further curing with forced warm air circulating through the wagon.

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You might have heard your grandparents lament about how the greenery in your town has been replaced by buildings. They might have even shared their concern over rising pollution and missing birds and insects in the neighbourhood. The environment they grew up in has disappeared and what we are left with is just a concrete jungle.

Human settlements and urbanization have rapidly transformed the planet in the last few decades. The activities have greatly deteriorated the environment and wildlife. Climate change, global warming, habitat loss and pollution have pushed many species of plants and animals to the brink of extinction. And scientists and conservationists are now advocating several restoration efforts, chief among them being rewilding.

Rewilding is the reintroduction of locally extinct plants and animals to a landscape where they have the potential to restore ecosystems. It is a potential to restore ecosystems. It is a progressive approach to conservation – it’s about letting Nature take care of itself, by enabling natural processes repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes.

Two types of rewilding

Passive rewilding focuses on reducing human intervention in the ecosystem and letting Nature recover and flourish on its own. It involves giving cultivated land back to Nature.

Translocation rewilding involves reintroduction of species. It is the deliberate release of a species from captivity or other areas into the wild, where the organism is capable of survival. Also called trophic rewilding, it focuses on re-establishing large-bodied animals or megafauna. Trophic rewilding aids in the restoration of balance in the entire ecosystem.

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A single banana is called a finger. A group of attached “fingers” make up a “hand” of bananas. Multiple hands that grow in a cluster are called a bunch or stalk – a bunch of bananas may contain 3 to 20 hands! A banana plant is actually a giant herbaceous flowering plant. The long, stout structure that holds the leaves and fruit is called a pseudostem (false stem).

The Zoo grows 24 different types of bananas. While we get some fruit off of them, we mostly grow them for the stalks and leaves, which we give to our primates and elephants to enjoy. Sometimes that means munching them, other times it means wearing one of the big leaves on their head!

About 14 days after the stem has emerged, the weight of the growing bananas causes the stem to hang upside down. At this stage, many farmers cover the fruit with a bag to help protect it from insects and sun damage. Farmers also support the plant by tying it to neighboring plants with twine. This helps prevent the plant from toppling over from the weight of the bananas.

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Moon trees are trees grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the Moon on the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. After the flight the seeds were sent to the southern Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi, and to the western station in Placerville, California, with the intent to germinate them. Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and the Forest Service had some 420 seedlings after a few years. Some of these were planted alongside their Earth-bound counterparts, which were specifically set aside as controls. After over forty years there is no discernible difference between the two classes of trees. Most of the "Moon trees" were given away in 1975 and 1976 to many state forestry organizations, in order to be planted as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration. Since the trees were all of southern or western species, not all states received trees. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to Emperor Hirohito, among others.

Second-generation trees, grown from Moon Tree seeds, are sometimes known as Half-Moon Trees and are also growing around the world. One such Half-Moon Tree calls NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, its home as it stands outside a building that played a key role in development of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 14 mission.

As NASA and its international, industrial, and academic partners prepare to return humans to the Moon as part of the Artemis program, understanding the effects of deep space on plant growth is critical – a foundation the Apollo 14 mission help lay. Astronauts on the Moon and Mars will be too far from Earth for regular resupply missions carrying fresh food, so they must be able to grow their own.

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Lettuce is member of the sunflower family. Both are part of the Asteraceae family, one of the most diverse and largest families of flowering plants. Many of the members of this family, including lettuce are grown as food crops. Others are considered ornamental, like asters, daisies and marigolds. This family also includes medicinal flowering plants such as chamomile and plants that produce oils used in cooking, such as the sunflower and safflowers plants.

Lettuce plants can have taproots or fibrous root systems. The leaves of domesticated varieties come in a wide range of colours, from shades of green to deep red and purple; variegated varieties have also been developed. Lettuces are harvested prior to flowering, as the “bolting” of the flower stalk elongates head lettuce, reduces the size of the leaves, and imparts a bitter flavour. The yellow flower heads produce achene fruits with feathery pappus structures for wind dispersal.

For successful cultivation, lettuce requires ample water, especially in warmer weather. During unseasonable weather, protection is furnished and growth stimulated with greenhouses, frames, cloches, or polyethylene covers. In many parts of the world, the cos, leaf, and butterhead types are most popular, though some varieties are difficult to ship and are commonly grown on truck farms or market gardens relatively close to markets. The crisphead varieties, well adapted for long-distance shipment, are popular in the United States.

 

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SKULLS

Most vertebrates (animals with backbones) have strong bony skulls. They are made up of cranial bones that protect their brains, jaw bones that support their teeth or beaks, and face bones that contain their eye sockets and nasal cavities. The whole structure can be quite heavy, and is supported by strong neck muscles.

• CROCODILE One of the closest living relatives of the dinosaurs, crocodiles has long jaws studded with many sharp-pointed teeth for seizing their prey. The fish-eating gharial of Indian rivers may have more than 100 teeth.
• PARROT All birds have thin, light skulls, which make flying easier. Their beaks or bills are much lighter than toothed jaws. They are not built for chewing, yet the bills of some parrots are strong enough to crack nuts.
• FROG The skull of a frog is broad, providing plenty of room for its large eyes and giving it an extremely wide mouth. This allows it to swallow its prey whole, so it does not need a set of teeth for chewing.
• LION Like all cats, the lion is a dedicated hunter. It has short, powerful jaws with huge stabbing canine teeth at the front, and meat-slicing carnassials at the back.
• ANTELOPE Some animals, such as antelope and cattle, have massive horns on their heads for defence and fighting rivals. Male deer grow antlers, which they use to impress females and fight each other, but these antlers fall off at the end of the mating season. Each male grows a new pair every year.
• BARRACUDA Fish have quite strong skulls, but the various parts are not fused together like those of mammals. The jaws of many fish are separate from the brain case, but attached by bones that allow them to be thrust forward to seize prey.
• BABOON Close relatives of humans, baboons have similar skulls, but longer jaws and bigger back teeth. This is because they eat large quantities of grass, which requires a lot of chewing. They also have long, sharp canines, which they use to kill animals for food, and to fight among them. Baboon Eye sockets at front of skull allows the baboon to see things in three dimensions.

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MAMMALS

Mammals are warm-blooded creatures that feed their babies on milk until the young are able to eat solid food. Most are furry or hairy, unlike all other vertebrates (animals with backbones). Many eat plants, while others prey on other animals. Some, like humans, eat both plants and meat.

• ECHIDNA The echidna and the equally strange platypus are the only mammals that lay eggs. A baby echidna lives on milk produced by its mother for up to six months. The mother eats food such as earthworms, which she digs from the ground with her long snout.
• ELEPHANT Elephants use their sensitive trunks to gather coarse vegetation, which they grind to pulp with their massive teeth. They are the biggest land animals and are very intelligent.
• KANGAROO Marsupials such as kangaroos give birth to tiny young that are only half-formed. The newborn crawls into a pouch on its mother’s belly to drink milk and grow into a fully developed baby kangaroo, or Joey.
• MOUSE Nearly half of all mammal species are rodents - a group that includes mice, rats, beavers, porcupines, and squirrels. The house mouse is the only mammal, apart from humans, to live on every continent.
• BAT Bats are mammals that can fly. Some eat fruit, but most species like this long-eared bat catch insects. They are nocturnal (active at night) and locate prey in the dark by emitting high-pitched clicks and listening for echoes from their target.
• TIGER Powerful hunters like the tiger eat other mammals and birds. They have long, dagger-like canine teeth for killing their prey, and scissor-like cheek teeth for slicing through hide and meat.
• MOLE Moles are specially adapted to their underground environment. They have strong claws for digging and very sensitive whiskers, which compensate for their poor eyesight.
• KILLER WHALE Whales and dolphins, like this killer whale, live in the ocean, swimming with up-and-down movements of their powerful tails. They come to the surface to breathe air.
• GORILLA Our closest relatives among the mammals are apes like the gorilla - a plant-eater that lives in the rainforests of tropical Africa.
• HIPPOPOTAMUS The hippopotamus spends most of its time wallowing in rivers and lakes. The massively built plant-eater has the largest mouth of any land mammal.

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SLEEP

Animals sleep to save energy, rest their muscles, and allow their brains to process the information that they pick up while awake. Some hunting animals sleep a lot, because they devote only a few hours each day to looking for food. Animals that are hunted spend much more of their time awake and alert.

1. Bats sleep for about 20 hours a day, often in large colonies.
2. Two-toed sloths are awake for only four hours a day. Like bats, they can cling to branches with their claws while fast asleep.
3. Gorillas like to have about 12 hours of sleep a day.
4. Horses need just three hours of sleep a day.
5. Elephants stand up for two of the four hours a day they sleep. They have to lie down for the dreaming stage, when their muscles are too relaxed for them to stay on their feet. Large plant-eating animals tend to get less sleep than smaller animals, because they have to spend so much time looking for food and eating.
6. Seals often sleep on rocks and beaches, but they can also sleep floating upright at sea, or even underwater, surfacing to breathe without waking up.
7. Wolves may sleep for up to 14 hours a day, especially if they have had a big meal after a successful hunt.
8. Pigs need eight hours of sleep a day, just like adult humans.
9. Bears also clock up about eight hours of sleep a day.
10. Tigers sleep for up to 16 hours, since they can catch all the food they need within a very short time.
11. Sheep are descended from wild animals that needed to stay awake to escape predators, so they sleep for less than four hours a day.
12. Kinkajous are raccoon-like animals that forage for food at night, and sleep all day for about 12 hours.
13. Armadillos sleep for 18 hours a day, curled up in their burrows.
14. Human babies need 15 hours of sleep a day. We sleep less as we get older, so adults sleep for an average of eight hours, and elderly people for less than six hours.
15. Echidnas are egg-laying mammals that sleep for about 14 hours a day. Scientists believe they do not have phases of dream sleep like other mammals.
16. Red foxes sleep for about 10 hours, mostly during the day. Like many hunters they are more active at night when they track their prey using their sensitive noses and ears.
17. Koalas eat tough eucalyptus leaves that are hard to digest and provide little energy, so they spend about 15 hours a day sleeping and another five hours dozing.
18. Dogs sleep for 10 hours a day.
19. Red pandas, which are like bamboo-eating raccoons, sleep for about 11 hours a day.
20. Cats often sleep for 15 hours a day. Wild cats are most active during the night.
21. Lions sleep for at least 13 hours. While they sleep, other animals feed near them without risking attack.
22. Chinchillas sleep in burrows for about 13 hours a day, high in the mountains of South America.
23. Rabbits sleep for about eight hours, mainly during the day. They prefer to feed at night when they are not so vulnerable to predators.
24. Chimpanzees normally sleep for 10 hours a day, but baby chimps sleep for longer.
25. Baby gorillas need more sleep than their parents, and may sleep or doze for more than 15 hours.
26. Hedgehogs usually sleep for 10 hours during the day. In winter, they hibernate (spend the cold months in a sleep-like, inactive state).

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LIVING TOGETHER

Animals and plants often rely on other living things for survival. Food, shelter, and pollination are some of the clearest examples of this. However, some animals and plants have much closer relationships. They can be partners, providing things like food or protection for each other. Some tag along with others without providing anything in return. Many do worse, latching on to other organisms as parasites, which can harm or even kill their often helpless hosts.

1. CORAL Corals trap prey in their stinging tentacles. They pass some of the nutrients from their victims to tiny algae living in their tissues. These use the sun’s energy to make sugar, and they pass some of this food back to the corals.
2. HUMMINGBIRD Hummingbirds gather flower nectar, and in the process they carry pollen from flower to flower. Some plants have evolved flowers that match the bills of particular hummingbird species, to encourage the birds to visit them and deliver their pollen efficiently.
3. ANTS AND APHIDS Aphids are tiny insects that feed on sugary plant sap. They must eat a lot of it to get enough protein, and they excrete the excess sugar as drops of sweet honeydew. Ants love to drink this, so they “farm” the aphids, protecting them from predators, ensuring a constant supply.
4. CUCKOO Cuckoos are “brood parasites” — they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Each young cuckoo hatches quickly and destroys any other eggs in the nest, so it can eat all the food brought by its foster parents. It soon outgrows its hosts, who often do not seem to notice its massive size.
5. STRANGLER VINE Some slender rainforest plants, such as figs, grow by encircling a tree and slowly killing it — a process that can take up to 150 years. They steal the tree’s nutrients, and eventually the tree dies and decays, leaving the fig plant standing alone.
6. OXPECKER Hoofed grazing animals, such as impalas, are often plagued by tiny bloodsuckers, such as ticks, that they cannot remove by scratching. In Africa, stout-billed birds called oxpeckers do the job for them by picking the parasites off their skin and eating them.
7. REMORA Predatory sharks have very sharp teeth that cut their prey to shreds. The scraps are eagerly devoured by fish called remoras, which travel with the sharks by clinging to their skin. They do their hosts no harm, and the sharks seem to ignore them.

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SHELLS

The bodies of some creatures are protected by strong shells. They include all kinds of animals ranging from crabs to armadillos, but the most well known are marine molluscs such as winkles, cockles, and clams. These animals absorb chalky minerals from their food or sea water and turn them into beautiful, sculptured, often vividly coloured “seashells”. These are sometimes lined with iridescent, gleaming mother-of-pearl.

1. NAUTILUS A relative of the octopuses, with big eyes and up to 90 tentacles, the nautilus can retreat into its pearl-lined shell for safety. The inner chambers of the shell act as flotation tanks.
2. VENUS COMB MUREX Named for its comb-like appearance, this sea snail of the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans has up to 100 sharp spines that protect it from predators such as shellfish-eating rays.
3. PAPAL MITRE This is one of about 800 known species of mitre shells, which all have a pointed form similar to the ceremonial hats worn by bishops and popes. The papal mitre may be up to 15 cm (6 in) long.
4. CUBAN LAND SNAIL Some land snails are brightly coloured too, but their colours are usually similar to those of the places where they live. Snails that have noticeably different colours are soon eaten by birds.
5. OYSTER SHELL Most oysters have shells that are rough outside, but pearly inside. Grains of sand that find their way into oyster shells are smothered with layers of shell material, turning them into pearls.
6. SEA URCHIN TEST Sea urchins belong to a group of animals called echinoderms. Their “shells” are covered with skin, so they are not true shells like those of molluscs. Known as tests, they are peppered with holes and small knobs where the spines were once attached.
7. SPINY SAND COCKLE Cockles and clams are molluscs with two shells, called bivalves. A cockle burrows into sand, often on coasts that dry out at low tide, but it can close its shells tightly to keep itself moist until the tide turns.
8. MANUS ISLAND SNAIL All snails have a shell that is coiled in a spiral, so the coil gets smaller towards the tip. As the snail grows, it adds shell material at the shell mouth, which gets broader all the time.

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MOVEMENT

The feature that makes animals so different from other living things is their ability to move. Some do not move much - a sea anemone, for example, is sedentary (remains in one place) and catches anything that touches its tentacles. Most animals, however, travel to look for food, find breeding partners, or escape from their enemies. They slither, crawl, walk, hop, run, swim, and fly, sometimes at incredible speed. Some have evolved other amazing ways of getting about, like the insects and spiders that walk on water, and the extraordinary side-winding rattlesnakes.

1. GIBBON Although gibbons can walk well, they usually move through the forest by using their long, powerful arms to swing from the trees. They hurl themselves from branch to branch with astonishing speed, agility, and elegance.
2. SNAKE A typical snake slips along by curving its flexible body around plants and stones, and pushing the curves towards its tail. Sidewinders like the desert viper have a more baffling method, looping sideways over the sand like rolling springs.
3. OCTOPUS An octopus normally hauls itself over the seabed using its long, elastic arms. But it can shoot away from danger by jet propulsion, drawing water into its body and blasting it out at high pressure. Cuttlefish and squid do the same.
4. PENGUIN All penguins are superb swimmers, using their wings to “fly” through the water, but they walk clumsily. On snowy slopes they often prefer to toboggan on their well-padded bellies, pushing themselves along with their stoutly clawed feet.
5. FISH Most fish have flexible bodies that allow them to move through the water using their fins for stability and to control their direction. Some fish, such as tunas, propel themselves at high speed using just their tails.
6. STARFISH A starfish can curl its arms, but it actually creeps over the seabed using hundreds of tiny “tube feet” on its underside. Each tube foot is pumped full of water, and is extended and moved by changes in water pressure.
7. SNAIL The muscles in a snail’s foot contract and expand to create a rippling movement that pushes the snail forward. Glands in the foot produce slimy mucus to make the track slippery. The slime also protects the snail from debris.
8. POND SKATER The water molecules at the surface of a pool cling together to form an elastic film, strong enough to support tiny animals like pond skater. Its special brush-tipped feet just dimple the surface, so it can skate around without sinking.
9. CHEETAH The fastest of all land animals, a cheetah can run at an astonishing 95 km/h (60 mph). It achieves this by flexing its back to extend its stride as it bounds forward on its long legs, but it can only keep up this pace for about 40 seconds.
10. BARN OWL Birds are the masters of the air. Most, like the barn owl, use their powerful feathered wings to drive themselves forward. Others can travel long distances by soaring on rising air currents like gliders, without beating their wings at all.
11. KANGAROO A leaping kangaroo uses the elastic tendons in the backs of its legs like the springs of a pogo stick. Every time it lands on its long feet the tendons stretch like rubber bands, then spring back again to catapult the kangaroo forward.

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REPTILES

Scaly, creeping, cold-blooded reptiles can seem sinister — especially venomous snakes and snapping crocodiles. Yet many reptiles are glossy, vividly coloured creatures, with fascinating habits. Most are hunters, but since they do not use any energy keeping warm they do not need to eat much. Crocodiles often go for months without eating, and some big snakes can survive for a year on just one big meal.

CROCODILES The most powerful of all reptiles, alligators and crocodiles are ferocious predators that ambush, kill, and eat animals as big as zebras.

TUATARA Found only in New Zealand, the two species of tuatara are the only survivors of a group of reptiles that mostly died out 100 million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs.

GECKOS Special hairs beneath the broad toes of many geckos act like suckers, enabling these active, agile lizards to climb up any surface, including glass, and even run across ceilings.

CHAMELEONS Famous for their ability to change their skin colour, chameleons are slow-moving lizards that hunt by shooting out their very long, sticky tongues to catch insects.

VENOMOUS LIZARDS The Gila monster is one of just two species of lizard with a venomous bite. Both live in deserts in Mexico and the United States.

IGUANAS Iguanas are typical lizards - reptiles that usually have four legs, a long tail, and scaly skin. Most lizards eat small animals, but the green iguana is mainly vegetarian.

TURTLES Instantly recognizable by their shells, turtles and tortoises have existed since the days of the first dinosaurs. Tortoises are famously slow, but turtles can swim quite fast over long distances.

VIPERS Equipped with long poison fangs that hinge forwards when they open their mouths, vipers such as rattlesnakes are extremely dangerous. Luckily, rattlesnakes rattle their tails as a warning.

COBRAS Among the deadliest of venomous snakes, cobras are armed with a nerve poison that paralyzes their victims so they cannot breathe and they die from suffocation.

LEGLESS LIZARDS Some lizards have no legs, so they look and behave like snakes. The European glass lizard has tiny vestiges of legs, showing that its ancestors were like normal lizards.

COLUBRIDS Three-fifths of all snake species belong to the colubrid family. Most are harmless, but some, including the mangrove snake, have venomous fangs at the backs of their mouths.

PYTHONS Most of the biggest snakes are pythons — powerful, non-venomous reptiles that kill their prey by coiling around it and squeezing until it cannot breathe.

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MOLLUSCS

Snails, clams, mussels, and even octopuses are all molluscs — soft-bodied animals that often have strong chalky shells. Some live on land, but most molluscs live underwater or on tidal seashores. A snail or octopus can move about and use its sense organs to find food, but many aquatic molluscs, such as mussels, spend their adult lives in one place. They do not have obvious sense organs or even heads, and their bodies are encased within two shells that can be closed for protection.

1. Snail Able to creep about on its muscular foot, a snail can squeeze its soft, boneless body into its coiled shell when it feels threatened.
2. Giant snail A native of tropical Africa, the giant snail can be 30 cm (12 in) long. A gland at the front of the foot produces the slime that enables a snail to slide along.
3. Giant clam The biggest of all molluscs, the giant clam can grow to more than 1 m (3.25 ft) across. It finds a spot in a coral reef and, once there, stays in place for life.
4. Squid Fast-swimming squid can catch fish with their tentacles, change colour, and shoot through water backwards using jet propulsion.
5. Slug Basically snails without shells, slugs can live in places with few of the chalky minerals that other molluscs need to build up their shells as they grow larger.
6. Limpet Able to clamp its strong shell to rocks, the limpet is well equipped to survive the rough and tumble of rocky seashores.
7. Octopus Like the cuttlefish and squid, an octopus is an intelligent animal with excellent eyesight. It uses the strong suckers on its eight long arms to catch crabs.
8. Whelk A type of sea snail, the whelk uses its acute sense of smell to track down dead animals in the water for food.
9. Scallop Like clams, scallops are two-shelled bivalves. By snapping their shut, they can shoot through the water when they need to escape danger.
10. Mussel All mussels attach themselves to rocks with strong threads, and live by pumping food-rich water through their bodies.
11. Sea slug Many sea slugs have flamboyant frills. Bright colours act as a warning to predators to leave them alone.
12. Cuttlefish Unlike most molluscs, a cuttlefish has an internal shell. This can be filled with air to make it buoyant, so the cuttlefish can drift through the water after its prey.

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LIFE CYCLES

All animals pass through different stages of life as they grow into fully developed adults. The first stage is the start of a new life, and for most animals the final phase is when they breed to start the cycle over again. For some animals, such as most mammals, these stages are very similar. For others, such as many insects, every stage is quite different, and involves a complete transformation, or metamorphosis, from the previous stage.

DOG A dog’s life cycle is typical of many mammals, because it starts life as a smaller version of its parents. As it grows bigger, its internal organs develop so it can eat an adult diet, and eventually produce its own young.

FROG Most amphibians, such as frogs, have complex life cycles. A typical frog lays eggs in water, and these hatch out as fish-like tadpoles. The tadpoles develop lungs and legs, and hop out of the water as tiny froglets, eventually becoming fully grown adult frogs.

TURTLE Most reptiles, such as turtles, lizards, and snakes, lay eggs. When these hatch, the babies that crawl out are like miniature replicas of the adults. They live in exactly the same way, and often eat the same foods.

BUTTERFLY Butterflies, like many insects, have two quite different phases in their life cycle. They hatch as soft-bodied larvae that spend all their time eating and growing. Then they turn into winged adults, which do not grow and may not eat at all.

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