caterpillar

Butterfly Life Cycle - The Caterpillar

The caterpillar is only one of four stages in the life cycle of a butterfly. This article will introduce you to the caterpillar life cycle stage and a few interesting facts about caterpillars. But first, let's look at the entire life cycle of a butterfly to put things in perspective.

Butterfly Life Cycle - Egg: Adult butterflies lay their eggs on the leaves of their host plant. Each butterfly species has certain plants that their caterpillars must eat to live and grow. Some butterfly species are very specific to one or two plants while others may be able to eat a family of plants. Butterfly eggs are small in general (like the size of a pin head) and usually hatch in about 3-7 days.

Butterfly Life Cycle - Caterpillar: The caterpillar hatches from the egg and usually the first thing it does is eat the egg shell. After that it will start consuming the host plant. The caterpillar will spend the next several weeks eating and growing since that is its main purpose.

Butterfly Life Cycle - Chrysalis: This stage is often a called a cocoon, but generally a cocoon is the pupa stage of a moth while a chrysalis is the pupa stage of a butterfly. At this point the caterpillar has made its final molt into a pupa and in about 1-2 weeks an adult butterfly will emerge.

Butterfly Life Cycle - Adult Butterfly: The adult butterfly will spend its time eating nectar and mating/laying eggs. Many butterflies only live about 2 weeks, however, some species such as the monarchs will overwinter by migrating south and thus will live for many months.

The Caterpillar:

Caterpillars are truly eating machines. Before they become a chrysalis their body mass will increase thousands of times. With all this rapid growing they end up molting several times before their final molt into a chrysalis. They grow their new exoskeleton beneath their current skin then when the time comes they split the old skin off. Many times they will eat the old skin before returning to their leaf-munching.

Caterpillars will change their appearance sometimes dramatically between their molts. An example is the black swallowtail caterpillar. When it is very young it is black with a white saddle. By the time it becomes ready to pupate it has become a beautiful mix of stripes and dots with colors of yellow, white, black and green. That can make identification more difficult since their appearance depends on their age.

Caterpillar identification is not really that difficult if you happen to know what plant they are eating. If you can identify the plant then it becomes much easier to identify the caterpillar since they are so particular to their own host plant. Just Google the "plant name" plus "caterpillar" or "host plant" and you are very likely to find the butterfly or moth species to which the caterpillar belongs.

The butterfly life cycle is fascinating and caterpillars are great fun to raise into butterflies indoors. For more information about the caterpillar life cycle visit Life Cycle of a Butterfly.

Kelly Ballard has a website dedicated to raising caterpillars indoors. Come learn more about this fun and educational hobby at Joyful Butterfly

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_L_Ballard

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Caterpillar Heavy Construction Equipments

Heavy equipments for sale are some of the most required and basic necessities of the world. None of the industries or development can take place without the use of these equipments. There are many of the names and industries that are involved in manufacturing these necessities of the world. The leading name that is having supreme position in the world of Equipments for sale is Caterpillar.

About 85 years ago in 1925, the world witnessed founding of a company that created many of the pages in the history of Heavy Equipments for sale. California was the lucky place where this innovation happened. The company is involved heavily in the process of designing, manufacturing, marketing, distributing and sales of various productions like machinery, engines, insurances, and also the financial products. There are many of the companies involved in manufacturing of heavy equipments but rare names are involved in all the channels of production, marketing and sales.

Caterpillar is one of these rare names. The specialty of the company is that they are leading the entire industries in which they are dealing. They are not only the top seeded manufacturers of machineries and equipments but also are the top rankers in the financial sectors. They are also the world leaders in the production of construction and mining equipments, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines.

The company is having chain of production in different countries. According to the company source, they are the only company in the world which is having business and dealerships in almost all the continents of the world. They are truly the global leaders. The three line project of the company focuses harder on delivering products, offering services and enhancing technologies. The excellence in each and every field they deal is the sole target and motto of the company. There are 220 dealers worldwide of the company and are having branches in 157 countries of the world. They are having 51 plants in USA and 59 plants overseas.

The company is having almost 400 names of products and vehicles that are under production by the company. The company is having the range of production from hydraulic excavators to backhoe loaders, motor graders, off-highway trucks and also many of the vehicles that are quite useful in the agricultural processes. The tractors manufactured by the company are quite preferred by the farmers due to the longer lastingness and also the technical superiorities. The road building is also one of the specialties of the company. The equipments related to mining industries, forestry departments, energy production and also the tools that are useful in transportation are created by the company with extreme engineering features.

They are still the world's largest creators of Wheel loaders. Different types and sizes of these wheel loaders are offered by the company in the form is Medium and larger sizes. Other product line of the company includes the following varieties.

* The track type trucks and Bulldozers

* The diesel series of tractors

* The Pipe layers

* The Motor graders

* The large, medium and small Excavators

* The ultra-demolition excavators

* The tracked loaders

* The Wheel Loader series

* Articulated Dump trucks

* Rigid dump trucks

* Mechanical Drive trucks

* Rollers

These are some of the leading types of products that are being produced by Caterpillar Equipments. The Caterpillar construction equipments for sale are some of the most important and qualitative vehicles of all time. If you are searching for qualities of heavy machinery equipments, Caterpillar is one of the most spectacular and splendid names. Get the entire details and manufacturing process of Caterpillar at usedheavyequipments.com.

Other Used Vehicle Resources:

Used SUV Stretch Limousine Sale

Caterpillar Construction Equipments for Sale

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Arul_Vadamalai_Kumar

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What Do Caterpillars Eat?

A general answer to the question of what caterpillars eat would be "plants", but when referring to plants specifically as caterpillar food, they are called "host plants".  However, the actual plant type or part of the host plant that the caterpillar eats is very specific to the species of caterpillar.  This article will focus on some generalities of butterfly caterpillars and their food requirements.  At the end of the article you can find links to more information about raising your own caterpillars and specific host plants used by different butterfly species.

The butterfly life cycle consists of four stages: egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult butterfly.  The caterpillar stage is the "growth" stage and the caterpillar will increase its body mass several thousand times in a matter of weeks.  Thus, eating is the number one function of the caterpillar.  Each butterfly species has a particular family of host plants or a few families from which their caterpillars must eat in order to survive.

A common example of a butterfly species which uses only one family of host plant is the Monarch butterfly.  The Monarch caterpillar can only eat plant leaves from the Milkweed family.  There are several varieties of milkweed that will provide food for the caterpillar but it must be a milkweed.

The Black Swallowtail caterpillar is an example of a caterpillar that can eat a more varied diet including the parsley family, carrots, dill, fennel, Queen Anne's Lace, celery, caraway, and the caterpillars will feed not only on the leaves of the host plants but also the flowers.

An adult female butterfly is good at finding the precise host plant(s) on which to lay her eggs because if she lays them on the wrong plant the caterpillars will not eat and will die.

Most caterpillars eat the leaves of plants and some will have preferences for younger or older leaves and even the flowers.  The range of plants used as caterpillar food varies tremendously.  Host plants can consist of annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees. 

A few caterpillars such as the Harvester butterfly's caterpillars actually eat aphids that are on various plants.  The female Harvester butterfly will lay her eggs next to an aphid colony.

Caterpillars do not have to drink water.  They get all the water they need from their food.

For more specific information about what caterpillars eat, come learn more about the fun and educational hobby of raising butterflies at Kelly Ballard's website, Joyful Butterfly.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_L_Ballard