When it comes to butterfly gardening, a “plant it and they will come” mentality certainly works! Plants that attract butterflies offer their own beauty and invite the handsome winged creatures within easy viewing distance. Butterflies bring to the garden a delicate gracefulness that completes nature’s beautiful tapestry of color, form and motion.

A well-designed butterfly garden not only offers nectar for the adult butterflies, but food plants for the insects while in their larval stage. Parsley and milkweed, for example, may be planted to encourage the Monarch butterfly into the yard.

Butterflies and moths, while beautiful to view, of course must first be caterpillars. These wiggly creatures are feeding machines. When it comes to “attractive” species, such as butterflies, the home gardener may not mind so much the voracious feeding of the caterpillar.

But what about the butterfly’s less wanted relatives?

This time of year, periodic outbreaks of tent caterpillars result in masses of unsightly woven weblike tents in trees, defoliation of deciduous trees, and a high level of aggravation for people trying to control the wriggling masses of larvae. These caterpillars attack a wide variety of plants and prefer alder trees, apple trees, ash trees, birch trees, cherry trees, willow trees and rose bushes. During heavy infestations, the tent caterpillars will migrate and feed on many other plants.

Metamorphosis is defined as a complete, often sudden or dramatic change in appearance, character or form. The metamorphosis of moths and butterflies transforms the insect from an egg, to larva (or caterpillar) to pupa, and finally to winged adult.

For a number of butterfly and moth species, the tiny larval caterpillar’s first meal is likely to be its eggshell. After this nutritious meal, the critter sets forth on a feast that will bulk up its body to perhaps a thousand times its size. At first it may be able only to scrape with its jaws at the leaf surface of some plants. After garnering some size and strength, the caterpillar with align itself along the leaf edge and eat chunks of the plant tissue.

Some species of butterflies and moths are solitary feeders. Others, like the eastern tent caterpillar, congregate in groups for safety. Some larvae feed at night on plant foliage, while others prefer flower buds and seeds of various plants during the daylight hours.

The caterpillar grows inside an external skeleton consisting of a substance called chitin. How does it amass such growth with what is scientifically called an exoskeleton? As with many other animals, the larvae may molt several times before it metamorphoses into the pupal stage: it sheds its outgrown skin for a new one. Attached with silk to a protected place, the transforming larva swallows air to crack the old skin and enlarge its size. Within a few hours, it is ready to crawl away in its new exoskeleton. These stages, called instars, can look totally different from the previous patterning and color of former exoskeleton.

Many caterpillars feature adaptations that offer protection from predators. Some caterpillars are smooth, others horned. Still others are hairy or protected with spines.

The caterpillar’s segmented body has six true legs in front and eight prolegs in their middle segment that assist in locomotion. They have two grasping false legs in their end segment, which help them to cling in precarious positions on their food source. The caterpillar has simple eyes, antennae, an apparatus for spinning silk and strong jaws to accommodate incessant feeding.

As spring passes and summer gets underway, watch carefully for these animals in your yard and garden. If you’re lucky, perhaps you’ll witness much of the amazing metamorphosis that transforms a tiny egg into a delicate winged insect.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.