About the catterpillers still have ? How long does it take for them to do a cacoon?

Question

The cacoons we have are just the ones you see crawling around on the ground, we live in Ok------after they make a cacoon how many wks or etc does it take to turn into a butterfly

Answer 1

A caterpillar is the larval form of a lepidopteran (a member of the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).

Unlike many insects, butterflies do not experience a nymph period, but instead go through a pupal stage which lies between the larva and the adult stage (the imago).

Egg
Larva, known as a caterpillar
Pupa (chrysalis)
Adult butterfly (imago)

Larvae, or caterpillars, are multi-legged eating machines. They consume plant leaves and spend practically all of their time in search of food.

Caterpillars mature through a series of stages, called instars. Near the end of each instar, the larva undergoes a process called apolysis, in which the cuticle, a mixture of chitin and specialized proteins, is released from the epidermis and the epidermis begins to form a new cuticle beneath. At the end of each instar, the larva moults the old cuticle, and the new cuticle rapidly hardens and pigments. Development of butterfly wing patterns begins by the last larval instar.

When the larva exceeds a minimum weight at a particular time of day, it will stop feeding and begin "wandering" in a quest for a suitable pupation site, usually the underside of a leaf. The larva transforms into a pupa (chrysalis), which then transforms into a butterfly by metamorphosis. To transform from the miniature wings visible on the outside of the pupa into large structures usable for flight, the pupal wings undergo rapid mitosis and absorb a great deal of nutrients. If one wing is surgically removed early on, the other three will grow to a larger size. In the pupa, the wing forms a structure that becomes compressed from top to bottom and pleated from proximal to distal ends as it grows, so that it can rapidly be unfolded to its full adult size. Several boundaries seen in the adult color pattern are marked by changes in the expression of particular transcription factors in the early pupa.

The adult, sexually mature, stage of the insect is known as the imago. As Lepidoptera, butterflies have four wings that are covered with tiny scales (see photo), but, unlike moths, the fore- and hindwings are not hooked together, permitting a more graceful flight. A butterfly has six legs; the larva also has six true legs and a number of prolegs. After it emerges from its pupal stage, it cannot fly for some time, because its wings have not yet unfolded. A newly-emerged butterfly needs to spend some time 'inflating' its wings with blood and letting them dry, during which time it is extremely vulnerable to predators.