# How a butterfly morphs revisited
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-a-butterfly-morphs-revisited/1012731
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [January 8, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-a-butterfly-morphs-revisited/1012731 "2025-01-08T17:56:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-a-butterfly-morphs-revisited/1012731/1 "2025-01-08T17:56:54Z")
Earlier column from [SD Staff Doug Yanega](https://www.straightdope.com/21343893/how-exactly-does-a-caterpillar-morph-into-a-butterfly)
He doesn’t actually say that the complete larva liquefies, except for the imaginal discs, but seems to imply it.
[Another bug expert explains it](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=324122360353245), and it seems not quite so dramatic. And he starts out by saying that complete liquification was the prevailing thought for many years.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2025, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-a-butterfly-morphs-revisited/1012731/2 "2025-01-10T05:00:16Z")
First, thanks for the video. It’s very good. The video of the various steps is particularly enlightening. Words are good, but seeing the steps is cool.
Second, complete liquification is a bit overstated, but breaking down the unnecessary structures and digesting them is pretty close. The caterpillar’s digestive tract, legs, and much of the musculature is digested. That’s pretty much liquification.
The imaginal disks form new body structures. It’s just some of that transformation begins _before_ the crysalis is formed.
It is pretty cool that the crysalis is just another stage of the exoskeleton, rather that a separately spun cocoon.
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### Author:  [@quintinmorrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quintinmorrow)
#### Post date: [April 16, 2026, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-a-butterfly-morphs-revisited/1012731/3 "2026-04-16T22:16:29Z")
Reading through that discussion, it’s interesting how the whole “caterpillar turns into soup” idea is a bit exaggerated. It’s not full liquefaction, more like selective breakdown where some structures get digested while imaginal discs build the new body parts. The part about transformation starting even before the chrysalis stage was especially surprising. Funny how details like this get simplified over time, kind of like data interpretations in Phonexa where nuance really matters