Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Philosophical question

Following a sober discussion with my daughter, I have the following question:

Is a caterpillar an insect?

Well--is it?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a potential insect. You can kill it within the first two trimesters.

Me said...

No.. it's a larva of an insect!

: 1. The wormlike larva of a butterfly or moth.
2. Any of various insect larvae similar to those of the butterfly or moth.
:

Thainamu said...

Very funny, Mr./Ms. Anonymous. You must be from ZFT. According to my calculations, the first two trimesters of a caterpillar's life would be about 6-7 days.

Julie--I agree, but I'm not sure I convinced her that you couldn't really call a caterpillar an insect.

Anonymous said...

Hookah-smoking caterpillar!

but yeah, a caterpillar is most definetly an insect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar


~Luis, by way of Juile

Thainamu said...

Luis, I had never heard of the hookah-smoking caterpillar--but I have now! And the article says that caterpillars have 6 real legs and then a bunch of "prolegs" further down their bodies. Hmm, maybe they are insects.