It’s next to impossible to believe that this Tiger Swallowtail (Click photo to enlarge) looked like this as little as two weeks ago! Ugly greenish brown with a bulging thorax trying to look like a big, scary head, with two false eyes to frighten away just about anyone. Having true thoracic legs that are tiny and useless, the caterpillar uses stumpy abdominal “prolegs” to navigate on the leaves on which it feeds, using chewing mouthparts.
After feeding and undergoing several molts, the caterpillar pupates and becomes even uglier. And considering what happens inside this chrysalis in a couple of weeks (or over winter), it is no wonder that caterpillar-to-butterfly metamorphosis is so often used as an illustration of magical transformation or miracle.
Inside that look-dead chrysalis, seeming chaos reigns. Most body structures disintegrate and their cells dissolve into an amorphous soup. The only signs of organization appear as several groups of cells called imaginal disks. They “know” what they are to become and go about the business of growing, migrating, and taking shape as totally different body parts than those of the larva. From these microscopic blobs develop compound eyes, siphoning, soda straw mouthparts, antennae, legs, new digestive system, reproductive system—and most remarkably, those magnificent, multi-colored scale-covered wings!
All this brand new structure must be perfectly packaged and able to break out of the tough chrysalis at the proper time. The wings must form perfectly folded so they can “hang dry” wrinkle free in several hours after the adult emerges. The wings, after all, are passive, chitinous structures that will be operated in precise manner by muscles within the thorax.
So far we have reflected upon things cellular and morphological (structural). If we were to delve into the molecular, the amazement would multiply. Every cell, tissue and organ of our insect is made of and is controlled by thousands of different chemical compounds, many consisting of hundreds or thousands of atoms in precise configurations: enzymes, hormones, molecular motors, pumps, structural proteins, as well as the chitin (say Kite-in), which is a cellulose-like polysaccharide with nitrogen-containing side groups—but now we’re just bloviating!
The point is that insects—and all living organisms, whether considered “primitive” or “advanced,” are complex beyond imagination and so information-packed that, knowing what we know today, it is inconceivable that they have just “evolved” by chance mutations and natural selection, no matter how much time the processes are given. In fact, in regard to insects in particular, Sir Fred Hoyle, Nobel Prize-winning astronomer, came to the conclusion that insects are so weird that they could not possibly have evolved on Earth—they must have arrived as spores from space. Now THAT’S weird. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, even proposed the theory of "directed panspermia" to explain the origin of ALL life on Earth. That's even weirder!
We have gone way too long. But I would refer you here for edification and warning. Enjoy the beauty of a fluttering butterfly, but don’t get to idolizing it, ya’ hear!
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