Green caterpillar curled up on dark soil background
Most caterpillars have tubular, segmented bodies. They have three pairs of true legs on the three thoracic segments, up to four pairs of prolegs on the middle segments of the abdomen, and often a single pair of prolegs on the last abdominal segment. There are ten abdominal segments. The families of lepidoptera differ in the numbers and positioning of the prolegs. Some caterpillars are fuzzy (which means they have hair) and they are most likely to cause itching of the hands if touched. Caterpillars grow through a series of moults; each intermediate stage is called an instar. The last moult takes them into the inactive pupal or chrysalis stage. Like all insects, caterpillars breathe through a series of small openings along the sides of their thorax and abdomen called spiracles. These branch into the body cavity into a network of tracheae. A few caterpillars of the family Pyralidae are aquatic and have gills that let them breathe underwater. Caterpillars have 4,000 muscles (compare humans, with 629). They move through contraction of the muscles in the rear segments pushing the blood forward into the front segments elongating the torso. The average caterpillar has 248 muscles in the head segment alone
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Photo credit: © Scenics & Science / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: background, butterfly, curled, dark, entomology, green, larva, metamorphosis, moth, pest, soil
