# Bag of Wonder: The Butterfly > A caterpillar turns into soup, then into a butterfly. Really! A free interactive 3D exhibit for children aged 2 to 6, from Curiosity's Child in Troy, Michigan. - Interactive exhibit: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/chrysalis/ - Ages: 2 to 6. The story is pitched at the youngest; the tap cards give older children more to chew on. - Cost: free, with no sign-in, no ads and no tracking. - Works on: phones, tablets and computers, in a web browser. Sound on for the narration. ## What it is Interactive 3D model of butterfly metamorphosis. A time slider moves from caterpillar through the chrysalis (the caterpillar breaks down and imaginal discs grow into wings, legs, eyes and antennae) to the emerging butterfly. A second slider pulls the parts apart with labels; tapping a part shows a child-friendly fact. How to play: press play to hear the story (read aloud in Kelly's voice, with the words on screen). Slide the time slider back and forth to see any part again. Slide "Pull apart" to see what is hidden inside. Tap any glowing button for a fact. ## The story 1. A very hungry caterpillar has eaten and eaten. Now it hangs upside down in a J. 2. Its skin splits open, and underneath is a chrysalis! 3. Inside, the caterpillar is turning into soup. Really! 4. But tiny imaginal discs survive the soup, and they start to grow. 5. Wings, legs, eyes and antennae are building themselves... 6. A butterfly is almost ready. Look how the chrysalis goes see-through! 7. Out it comes! It pumps up its crumpled wings and waits for them to dry. 8. Hello, butterfly! 🦋 ## The parts, and what we tell children These are the tap cards, word for word. - **The caterpillar's head**: A caterpillar has 12 tiny eyes, but it can hardly see! It mostly feels and tastes its way to the next leaf. - **The caterpillar's body**: Stripy rings called segments. It eats and eats: a monarch caterpillar gets about 2,000 times heavier in two weeks! The stripes warn birds: "I taste horrible!" - **Tentacles**: Those black wiggly things are not antennae! They're feelers that help the caterpillar sense the world around it. - **Prolegs**: Squishy back legs with tiny hooks for gripping. The butterfly won't keep them. - **The chrysalis**: A chrysalis is NOT a cocoon! A butterfly makes its chrysalis from its own skin. (Moths spin cocoons from silk.) A monarch's is jade green with tiny gold dots, and nobody is completely sure why the dots are there. - **Caterpillar soup**: Inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar breaks most of its own body down into a gooey soup. Did you know? Scientists found that moths can remember things they learned as caterpillars, even after the soup! - **Imaginal discs**: Tiny bundles of cells that were hiding inside the caterpillar all along, like seeds for wings, legs, eyes and antennae. In the soup, they grow and grow! - **Wings**: Butterfly wings are covered in thousands of tiny scales, like roof tiles. The scales make the colours. These wings come from a real monarch in a museum, and the body is a real monarch scanned in 3D! - **Legs**: Monarchs have 6 legs but only stand on 4: the front two stay tucked up. And butterflies taste with their feet! - **Antennae**: Antennae help a butterfly smell flowers and keep its balance while it flies. - **Eyes**: Each eye is made of thousands of tiny lenses. Butterflies can see colours that we can't see at all. - **Proboscis**: A curly straw-tongue for sipping nectar. When the butterfly isn't drinking, it rolls up like a spring. - **Thorax**: The middle of the body. The wings and all six legs are joined on here. - **Abdomen**: The long back part of the body. When the butterfly first comes out, it pumps fluid from here into its crumpled wings to stretch them open. ## Getting the science right What we checked, and the myths we steer around: - A chrysalis is not a cocoon. A butterfly makes its chrysalis from its own hardened skin; moths spin cocoons from silk. - Before it changes, a monarch caterpillar hangs head-down in a "J", then its skin splits to show the chrysalis underneath. - Inside, much of the caterpillar's body breaks down, while small clusters of cells called imaginal discs build the wings, legs, eyes and antennae. It is not simply a caterpillar growing wings. - The time in the chrysalis is "about 10 days" on the page; in real life it varies with temperature, roughly one to two weeks. - Monarchs have six legs but stand on four; the front pair stays tucked up against the body. - A new butterfly pumps fluid from its body into its crumpled wings and waits for them to dry before it can fly. ## How to use it with children Watch the whole story together with the sound on. Pause at the "soup" and ask, "What do you think is happening in there?" before you tap. Then let the child pull the butterfly apart and find the proboscis, the curly straw-tongue. Ask more than you tell, and let the child drive. Then step away from the screen: raise caterpillars from a classroom kit, or look for monarch caterpillars on milkweed in late summer and watch them, without taking them. Draw the chrysalis every day and count the days together. A few minutes together is plenty. The exhibit is a doorway to the real thing, not a replacement for it. ## Credits and licenses The real scans, maps and photographs belong to their makers, under the licenses below. The words, story and code are Curiosity's Child's. - Real 3D models from Sketchfab: monarch caterpillar by [oneillbeck](https://sketchfab.com/oneillbeck) ([CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) - Chrysalis shape by [orbytnz](https://sketchfab.com/orbytnz), repainted ([CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)) - Monarch body scanned by [University Libraries at Virginia Tech](https://sketchfab.com/VirginiaTechUnivLibraries) ([CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)) - Wings from a museum specimen photographed by Didier Descouens, Muséum de Toulouse ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)) - Narrated by Kelly, in her own voice - Real garden sounds from Freesound ([CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/), thank you!): [summer garden](https://freesound.org/s/157778/) (matucha), [breeze in the leaves](https://freesound.org/s/460178/) (johanwestling) - Music-box waltz made for this page ## More on the Bugs shelf - [The Spider](undefined): Watch a garden spider spin her web, thread by thread. Wobble, wobble! - [The Ladybug](undefined): From tiny yellow eggs to a spotty ladybug. Watch her open her wings and fly! ## About Bag of Wonder A free library of interactive 3D "look inside" science exhibits, made at Curiosity's Child, a licensed home daycare in Troy, Michigan. Secular and science-based; welcoming to all. - All exhibits and how we make them: https://bagofwonder.com/llms.txt - For grown-ups and AI assistants: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/about/ - To cite: "The Butterfly", Bag of Wonder, Curiosity's Child (Troy, Michigan). https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/chrysalis/