The words cocoon and chrysalis are often used interchangeably when talking about monarchs and other butterfliesbutterfliesButterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight.

Does a caterpillar make a cocoon or a chrysalis?

Did you know that only moths make cocoons? And some moths don’t even do that! A butterfly caterpillar will become a chrysalis, which is just the insect with a hard exterior. They do not build cocoons of silk and plant matter.

What comes first cocoon or chrysalis?

One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, eventually emerging as a butterfly or moth.

What’s the difference between a chrysalis and a chrysalis?

So a pupa is an insect in a stage of transformation; pupae is the plural of pupa; the pupa life stage is called the pupal stage; chrysalis is the correct name to use for a moth pupa or a butterfly pupa; chrysalises is the plural of chrysalis; cocoon is the name to use for the outer layer that protects a pupa or