Insects grow too! The whole life cycle of an insect has several stages: 1) egg, 2) larva or immature, 3) pupa in some insect orders, and 4) adult. The process of change from one insect stage to the next is called metamorphosis. Metamorphoses have several types depending on insect orders:
– Ametabolous – immature resembles the adult, except that it is smaller. Development simply involves increasing the insect’s size by going through successive molts. Feeding habit of immature and adult stages are the same.
– Hemimetabolous – The immature stage is called nymph and resembles an adult without wings; the wings grow and develop larger at each molt. The larva reaches the adult stage at the final molt.
– Paurometabolous – immature looks different from the adult. Another difference is that habitat and feeding behavior is different for both stages (ie. aquatic vs aerial). Immature stage is termed as naiad.
– Holometabolous – the larva looks very different from the adult and it generally has a very different feeding habits. When its growth is completed, the larva forms a pupa. Inside this protective envelope, the larva undergoes major structural changes, eventually emerging as the adult stage.
Immature stages’ age can be measure by number of instars. The number of instars depends on insect species. Unlike humans where skin are elastic and bones are inside the body, insect skin and bones are joint together and are called exoskeleton. Insects grow by shedding their skin thru the process of molting (entomologically termed as ecdysis), and grows a new skin.
Superworms and insects under order Coleoptera have long life cycles with long instars in their larval stage. Superworm larvae go thru 15 to 18 instars before going to pupal stage. Video below shows a timelapse of a superworm going thru last molting and last instar stage.
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