Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

i cannot find any studies or written info on what affect temperature has on the development of a caterpillar into a butterfly. can you help me?

Hi Scott!
Sounds like a cool idea! I did a google search on "temperature caterpillar growth" and I picked out a couple of helpful links:
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/inse ... w/ecol.htm
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/inse ... handle.htm
Hope this helps, good luck!

Hi Scott,

What an interesting topic! I am personally quite interested in the effects of temperature on animals.

If you are looking for published studies, I always find Google Scholar to be a very helpful search engine (http://scholar.google.com).

I searched "temperature caterpillar metamorphosis" in Google Scholar, and got lots of interesting hits. Here are a couple to get you started:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 1&SRETRY=0
http://jbiol.com/content/5/5/15

Good luck, and let us know if you have any more questions as your project progresses!

Cheers,
Heather

I found one particular site that actually set up a working experiment on the effects of butterfly development and temperature. I know it is not the same concept you are trying to study, but I feel that by looking at this example you can get an idea to where you can start.
http://www.crystal-clear-science-fair-p ... jects.html

One person I found seemed to have done a similar experiment on a white butterfly caterpillar cocoon and the results have shown that:
At cool room temperatures (60sF) the cocoon seem to have a built-in, end-of-season minimum cocoon-span of 6 months. "Outdoors in prevailing winter temperatures they stay cocooned long enough to assure they are past (hard) freezing temperatures before hatching, since, as cold-blooded insects, they can die if they can't protect themselves from temperatures a few degrees below freezing. In warm summer temperatures the cocoon-span would be much shorter; they sense it is not end-of-season and they need to get a few generations of butterflies hatched during each summer season to reproduce the species."

Also, another study indicates that butterflies do not make cocoons they instead make chrysalis; moths make cocoons.
They also suggest that "Pupation normally lasts for 10 to 15 days, but it really depends on the time that the stage starts. If the caterpillar starts to pupate in late autumn to early winter, then they will stay in this state until the weather become warmer, which can take a few months. Whereas, if pupation starts in spring or summer, they will only stay in the chrysalis for the normally 10 to 15 days. "

I hope this info helped. =]
Try to google for more information because surprisingly I found these additional interesting facts on your great topic of choice. Hope you have a great project!