We all know that beautiful, elegant caterpillars build chrysalises and turn into hideous, nightmarish
butterflies.
But what happens inside a chrysalis?
What creates those little abominations?
Here’s what doesn’t happen: caterpillars slowly morph into butterflies, growing wings,
eyes, etc in the process.
Nope!
It’s actually a lot grosser:
A caterpillar’s own digestive juices dissolve its body, turning it into a soup of proteins
with some random body parts thrown in.
Aww, caterpillar soup...just like my aunt Sheila used to make!
Anyway, that soup also includes cells called “imaginal discs” which grow into butterfly
structures like wings while the body re-forms.
Bake at 375 on the bottom rack for a few more minutes, and voila, a butterfly!
The craziest part is that in spite of turning into goop and back again, butterflies can
retain memories from their caterpillar days.
Which means that somehow, some nerve connections survive that change.
The scientific conclusion here is: don’t be a jerk to a caterpillar, or it’ll hate
you forever as a butterfly.
Like tiny things that might hate you?
Watch my video on viruses.
I’m going to play like a second or two of that for you now.
So click real fast.
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