Metamorphosis

My initial intention was to write a blog post about growing a small herb garden (well, my husband would say it's big.. but I think it's tiny! ha). But then I got side tract researching different bugs that were hanging out in my garden. So later I'll make a post about starting and maintaining an easy herb garden that is SO worth it :)

It all started with my sweet mint plant. I was noticing a lot of the leaves were being eaten by something, other than me! So one morning I went out super super early and busted this little critter:

For weeks I thought this little guy was just a cute young caterpillar, and tonight I was proven wrong, horribly wrong! I first started researching things on Google like "caterpillar identifications" and "young green caterpillar with black spots" and so on but nothing looked like "him". So I thought..maybe  I should back up and get a better idea about insects. This is when I was reminded about (most) insects life cycles, metamorphosis. 

So tonight I want to talk about one of the many mind blowing biological processes that happens to but definitely not limited to most insects, metamorphosis! Metamorphosis is when the animal transforms through different stages of it's life. There are four different phases of complete metamorphosis:

1) Egg

2) Larve

3) Pupa 

4) Adult

Some animals don't go through all four phases, though. These animals go through Dramatic cellular changes and usually their habitat is completely changed! I could go on and on about this process but I want to stick to identifying this "cute little green caterpillar on my mint, well used to be on my mint". Since this little guy is in his larvae stage it will be quite easy to identify using this chart. I know that there are segmented thoracic legs (this means that right behind the head there are three pairs of legs) so I will be using a chart I found on the University of Kentucky page. (If there aren't the segmented thoracic legs than you would use a different key)

Pretty Gross...I know! Well after following this chart I was sadly mistaken my little green friend up there as a caterpillar, but really it is a SAWFLY! So I did a little research on sawflies and found out they were closely related to bees, not so much flies. Deceiving, yup!

It's amazing to think they go from a plant eating larvae to something similar to this:

So if you ever find an insect in it's larvae stage and want to know what it is, this webpage is a really great reference: http://www2.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef017.asp

I hope you weren't too grossed out by my random metamorphosis rant. When I was younger I always wondered if butterflies remembered being a little caterpillar, hey I never said I wasn't weird ;) Have a good night!