In the 1830s a German naturalist named Renous was arrested in San Fernando, Chile for heresy. His claim? He could turn caterpillars into butterflies. A few years later, Renous recounted his tale to ...

Every spring, I see spiny bugs that look like tiny alligators. They spend all day chomping up other insects outside my window. I asked my friend Rich Zack about them. He’s an insect scientist at ...

Complete metamorphosis transforms caterpillars into butterflies, reshaping not only the bodies of the insects but their behaviors and identities. New work reveals in detail for the first time how ...

The transformation of metamorphosis evolved gradually over hundreds of millions of years. It involves both genetics and natural selection pressures on species. This insect is studied by scientists to ...

When a caterpillar hatches from its egg, it spends the first few weeks of its life eating as much as it physically can. Then, it hangs itself upside down from a leaf or stem and sheds its outer skin ...