Caterpillar gutting a cherry tomato
Image: turtlemom4bacon
There are few who don’t know Eric Carle’s children’s classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, about the cheeky green caterpillar who eats through anything in its path – from an apple, pears, plums and strawberries, to oranges, cake, ice cream and even cheese. We’ve taken a look at what caterpillars really eat and have come back with some astonishing if not astonishingly cute results.
Caterpillar going for a whole cabbage:
Image: net_efekt
As plant eaters or herbivores, caterpillars really could not digest cake, ice cream or cheese of course and some caterpillar species only feed on a very narrow selection of plants. However, most caterpillars are known to be voracious eaters of all things green and are therefore not always welcome in a garden.
The very hungry caterpillars we have followed confirm this; they eat through berries, flowers, plant pods, cabbage and even tomatoes. But see for yourself what the real-life very hungry caterpillar has been up to:
On the first day, the very hungry caterpillar ate a hole into a rosebud:
Image: Alan Turkus
On the second day, the very woolly caterpillar ate two red berries:
Image: Bert Dennison
On the third day, the very hungry caterpillar went into the lilacs:
Image: Dvortygirl
On the fourth day, the very spiky caterpillar chomped on a daisy: 
Image: aussiegall
On the fifth day, the very silvery caterpillar ate a wildflower called Indian paintbrush:
Image: Anauxite
On the sixth day, the Monarch caterpillar ate a pretty pink flower bud:
Image: Linda Tanner
… a swan plant seed pod:
Image: kiwinz
… some butterfly weed:
Image: OakleyOriginals
… and the flower bud of a Mexican Milkweed plant:
Image: Derek Ramsey
Last, it ate through a whole Milkweed leaf for digestion:
Image: John Owens
On the seventh day, the now not so hungry caterpillar had a drop of water:
Image: suncana
Then it rested before building a cocoon around itself:
Image: Dean Morley
It stayed there for a few days and then…
…emerged as a beautiful Tortoiseshell butterfly:
Image: Dean Morley
