the.com/larva
a creature that eats so violently it gets to rebuild its own body from scratch
means The immature, often wormlike feeding stage of an insect or other animal, between egg and adult, before it transforms into its final form.
from From Latin larva, meaning 'ghost, specter' — and also 'mask.' The Romans used it for a haunting spirit; the great 18th-century naturalist Linnaeus borrowed it for biology, the idea being that the immature form is a kind of mask hiding the adult creature yet to come.
- appetite
- caterpillars can eat 27,000 times their birth weight
- total reset
- some dissolve into goo before becoming adults
- memory
- moths recall things learned as caterpillars
- latin roots
- means ghost or mask, the hidden true form
- lifespan
- some beetles stay larvae for decades underground
mosquito larva — aquatic larval stage of aedes aegypti that transmits dengue, found in stagnant water worldwide
fruit fly larva — maggot stage of drosophila melanogaster, used in genetic research since 1910s
butterfly caterpillar — larval form of lepidoptera like monarch butterfly, found on milkweed plants across north america