Leaving at the bottom of food chain, it is a hard fight for existence for the colorful and beautiful Caterpillars. It has to adapt a variety of self-defense techniques to remain hidden from birds. A caterpillar is basically the larva of a butterfly or moth. It’s the second stage in its four-stage life cycle of egg, larva, pupa and adult. During this stage the only job to them is to eat. starting from it's on eggshell it's main diet is plant and vegetation, that's why caterpillars are sometimes treated as agricultural pests. They consume 27,000 times their body weight to increase their body mass by 1000 times and sustain itself through its pupal stage and into adulthood. Without proper nutrition, it may not have the energy to complete its metamorphosis that will make them impotent to produce eggs.
A caterpillar generally have 12 eyes yet their eyesight is very poor and only used to distinguish light or dark. On each side of its head, a caterpillar has 6 tiny eyelets, called stemmata, arranged in a semi-circle close to the antennae.
There are over 40000 muscles in a caterpillar body and only 6 legs remaining are false legs called prolegs, which help the caterpillar hold onto plant surfaces and allow it to climb.
The importance of Caterpillars to human society are that they produce silks. Using modified salivary glands along the sides of their mouth, caterpillars can produce silk as needed. Foe this reasons butterfly along with their caterpillars cultivated many areas to grow silk which is used for textile manufacturing and garment industry world-wide.
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