Alright, I am certainly not an expert when it comes to transformation of caterpillars into butterflies but this is very likely a massive and incorrect oversimplification of the process.
I mean this makes it sound like if you poke a hole into the cocoon it will just drip goo out until its empty.
Happy to be corrected by a real expert but very likely transformation occurs in coordinated small steps and not just everything melts and rematerializes.
I’m not an expert, but there’s a good overview of the process here: Nat Geo. You can de-paywall it at the usual places. They describe it more as “an organised broth full of chunky bits” as some organs don’t break down.
Insects that undergo complete metamorphosis experience enormous changes in both morphology and lifestyle. The current study examines whether larval experience can persist through pupation into adulthood in Lepidoptera, and assesses two possible mechanisms that could underlie such behavior: exposure of emerging adults to chemicals from the larval environment, or associative learning transferred to adulthood via maintenance of intact synaptic connections. Fifth instar Manduca sexta caterpillars received an electrical shock associatively paired with a specific odor in order to create a conditioned odor aversion, and were assayed for learning in a Y choice apparatus as larvae and again as adult moths. We show that larvae learned to avoid the training odor, and that this aversion was still present in the adults. The adult aversion did not result from carryover of chemicals from the larval environment, as neither applying odorants to naïve pupae nor washing the pupae of trained caterpillars resulted in a change in behavior. In addition, we report that larvae trained at third instar still showed odor aversion after two molts, as fifth instars, but did not avoid the odor as adults, consistent with the idea that post-metamorphic recall involves regions of the brain that are not produced until later in larval development. The present study, the first to demonstrate conclusively that associative memory survives metamorphosis in Lepidoptera, provokes intriguing new questions about the organization and persistence of the central nervous system during metamorphosis. Our results have both ecological and evolutionary implications, as retention of memory through metamorphosis could influence host choice by polyphagous insects, shape habitat selection, and lead to eventual sympatric speciation.
Yes, a paper that they retain “memories”. I didn’t doubt that. I doubted the “turns completely into goo and then solidifies as butterfly” part. And from what I can tell after skimming the introduction of the paper this is only covering the behavioural aspect.
Yeah, but again, this says “turns completely into goo” and thats not at all what you are describing either. Its just over-sensationalising an already impressive process. But I can see I am alone with that opinion, so whatever. Total goo it is.
So, if you happen to know them… I have a question.
How doped up on hormones are they? Like, maybe they’re just having the time of their life, Brain riding high on dopamine or whatever butterfly’s have for pleasure, and they don’t even realize what’s going on.
Then, when they pop out and realize what they’ve been doing run off to the shower trying not to think about it
So from what I can find, you’re right in that it’s not 100% goo, but it’s not really “coordinated small steps either”. It’s a messy fluid process that all sort of happens at once. When caterpillars are inside their chrysalises, they first digest themselves by releasing an enzyme. But this enzyme doesn’t break down everything. Some organs are completely dissolved and completely new ones are grown from the goo, but most only partially, and are moved around remodeled into their butterfly counterparts. As for the entirely new parts, like wings, they’ve actually been inside the caterpillar since before the cocoon as these tiny clumps of cells call imaginal discs, and it’s only during metamorphosis that they begin to develop into their full size organ. It’s really cool, and you should read more about it. I’m no expert, so I’m sure I explained it badly, but here’s some good links.
My dad saw this painted on a sidewalk recently and was really curious what it meant. He was disappointed I think to hear it was just a “cool S” so maybe I’ll send him this comic!
Wait, how bad are bachelors' degrees in the US/anglosphere? I was contirbuting to research projects and had a specialization by the time I was done with my five year bachelors' equivalent.
In fairness, I think the system has since been reformatted so that the fifth year is now a (paid for) master's, but still. That graph makes it seem like it's high school with benefits.
College is what you put into it. A lot of people don’t get into the networking side of it because it’s never really introduced to them. Mostly professors look for those who are “turned on” to bring onto projects like that, that is, those that are engaged and asking questions and curious.
Youngins, lpt: talk to your professors and let them know you are interested and ask questions. It’s what you are there for- access to brains.
College and university are relatively interchangable colloquially in American English. Associate’s Degrees are 2 years. Colleges in Europe etc. are different.
Well, not really over here. You do have to do a bunch of hands-on stuff for credits. Can't even replace those with more standard subjects.
You can absolutely wing it past all five years, depending on your degree, but between mandatory projects and internships you have to try really hard to not get some level of expertise in the field.
Plus, university curriculums have specializations here, so you get mandatory courses on pretty narrow subjects whether you like it or not. So... I guess there are some differences, maybe? I was pissed when they announced they'd do that masters' thing here because the price of tuition for that year goes from being a couple hundred to a few thousand for basically the same curriculum, but this is definitely not the first time I notice that the anglosphere assumes there's a huge difference between the two things.
The UK system is a bit better about those kinds of things, courses tend to be modular with required internships etc. The American system is a lot different and scheduled like high school, but that may have changed since I was in it. It really was dependent on the course, though. I like the UK setup much better.
It depends on the course. For my course, the bachelor’s year included a project that was more design based, while the master’s year had a project that was research based, however I ended up working with a PhD student assisting in his research project for my bachelor’s.
It definitely sounds that our system was a bit more standardized than that, which checks out and is both a strenght and a weakness depending on how you look at it.
In Germany (and Europe, I believe, since the Bologna reforms), a bachelor’s is (usually) 3 years and a master’s is 5 years. That might be why you got to do research and I didn’t. How long are your master’s courses?
One year, typically. Some could be two or have a big chunk of on-the-job training/internship.
We used to have a more prominent 3 year degree, but it went semi-extinct in favor of other intermediate education, leaving our Bachelor's equivalent being 4-5 years, depending on which degree you're going for. And yeah, I think now they made them all 4 year and have more of a master's offering.
The thing is that internationally those 4-5 year degrees are still the thing immediately under a masters' degree, so there is a bit of a mismatch there. That goes some ways towards clarifying that, thanks.
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