This is called a complete metamorphosis.
When the change is gradual, without any pupa form, any stopping place as it were, the change is said to be an incomplete metamorphosis.
Yes, the metamorphosis of the grasshoppers is incomplete, and of the katydids and the crickets and all the other insects we have studied until we came to the dobson.
Another name for the larva of insects that undergo an incomplete metamorphosis is nymph. Some books speak of the nymph of the grasshopper, and never of the larva of the grasshopper. Such books use the word larva only in speaking of the young of insects that undergo a complete metamorphosis.
Yes, Ned, they would speak of the nymph of the dragon fly, and the nymph of the May fly and the nymph of the cricket and the katydid, but they would speak of the larva of the corydalus.
Egg, nymph, adult,—those are the stages of insects that have an incomplete metamorphosis.
Egg, larva, pupa, adult,—those are the stages of insects that have a complete metamorphosis.
No, it is not wrong to say larva instead of nymph. I only want you to know how the word nymph is used, so that when you see it in reading about insects you will know what it means.
The corydalus lays its eggs near the water, and it lays a great many—sometimes nearly three thousand. Think of that! The young larvæ crawl into the water as soon as they are hatched, and those that escape the hungry fishes grow into these large larvæ and finally metamorphose into the big-horned corydalus.
It is such a remarkably fierce-looking creature that it has received many names that are neither complimentary nor beautiful, such as conniption bug, alligator, and dragon, and numerous others equally expressive.