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The caterpillar turns to mush. Its nervous system seamlessly morphs into a new one. Many neurons are retained, some are pruned, and some new ones are formed.

• lbotos 4y ago
  I remember being taught this as a child and iirc recent studies say it doesn’t mush. EDIT: "Textbooks will commonly talk about the insect dissolving into a kind of “soup”, but that’s not entirely accurate. Some organs stay intact. Others, like muscles, break down into clumps of cells that can be re-used, like a Lego sculpture decomposing into bricks. And some cells create imaginal discs—structures that produce adult body parts. There’s a pair for the antennae, a pair for the eyes, one for each leg and wing, and so on. So if the pupa contains a soup, it’s an organised broth full of chunky bits." https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/3-d-scans-caterpillars-transforming-butterflies-metamorphosis https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/3-d-scans...