photo credit: Keith Allison Yao Ming – The guy just didnt stop growing.

I bet you’ve never thought of growth in as much detail as I have. As an Entomologist, I think about it a lot! It’s very simple for vertebrates. You eat, drink and sleep – and your body grows. Do you tell your body to grow? Do you try to grow? No, it just happens, slowly at times and quickly at other times. Sometimes we grow up and unfortunately, sometimes we grow out! The point is that it is an involuntary action that our body undergoes, just like breathing, blinking, salivating and blood pumping! I am so grateful to be a human and have this happen effortlessly and without many bumps along the way.  Arthropods, on the other hand, got the short end of the stick! Arthropods have to go through a serious ordeal to get from one size to another, known as molting or more scientifically, ecdysis.

Insects and other arthropods are not like us, obviously! Whereas we have an endoskeleton, or skeleton that supports our body from the inside, they have an exoskeleton, or a hard shell covering the outside of their bodies. This exoskeleton functions much in the same way as ours does. It supports the arthropod, as well as acting as a point for muscle attachment. Additionally, it protects them from certain predators and parasites and helps to keep terrestrial arthropods from desiccating or drying out. It also contains certain sensory structures that are very important to insects and their many relatives.

Exoskeletons are formed by a long chain polymer called chitin. This compound is very tough and resilient and is also found in other animal structures such as the beaks of octopi and squid. When I’m teaching kids about exoskeletons, I like to compare it to a suit of shining armor that a knight would wear. Now, if it was a young knight, he would have to grow, so he could not always wear the same suit of armor. He would have to trade it in for a new, larger one. This is the case with arthropods and their exoskeleton. In order to grow and get larger, they must shed their exoskeleton and grow a new one.

This is where things get a bit hairy! In order to shed their exoskeleton, arthropods have to go through a scientific process called ecdysis. I’ll spare you the boring scientific details, but basically, they excrete a liquid that separates their old skin from their bodies. This process is called apolysis. They then form a new skin. They excrete another chemical which digests the innermost layers of the old skin and they crawl out of what’s left. What’s left behind turns into a dry crunchy empty shell. Shortly before this process, arthropods stop eating, start swelling up a bit, and eventually stop moving or being able to function at all. If anything at all goes wrong during this process, they are finished!

photo credit: emills1 A katydid nymph molting, getting a little help from a friend!

Many insects have to hang upside down and let gravity help pull them out of their old exoskeletons. If they fall from their perch before they are done, they will not be able to get everything out and will either die or be severely deformed. To make matters worse, they are super defenseless during and after this process, making them prime targets for predators! If an arthropod is able to successfully complete their molt, they are stuck with this brand new, super soft exoskeleton. They can neither walk nor fly. They are completely vulnerable for at least a couple of hours. Have you ever eaten soft shell crab? Well, it’s not some cool different species of crab you’re eating, it’s just a regular crab that has been harvested right after molting. They cook it while it is still soft, so you’re eating the whole crab, shell and all. I can’t ever bring myself to eat them, it kind of grosses me out! The most commonly used crab for this, in the United States, is blue crab.

photo credit: emills1 A deformed katydid due to a failed molt

If the arthropod is able to successfully remove all body parts and limbs from the old skeleton and find a safe place to rest until their new skeleton hardens, they can go on living their little bug lives, until the next time they have to molt! This process gets even more complicated in insects that have what we call complete metamorphosis, such as butterflies, beetles, flies and bees. Insects like grasshoppers, cockroaches and praying mantises go through incomplete metamorphosis, so every time they molt, they have relatively little changes in their bodies. They mainly get bigger and some grow wings. As we all know, a butterfly starts out as a caterpillar, it gets bigger as it molts, but when it’s time for it to pupate or form a chrysalis, the process of molting involves the insect changing its body completely. This makes it even MORE of a challenge for them.  It’s very interesting to note that similar chemicals that digest the insect’s old exoskeleton, digest most of the actual cells of the larva, leaving only some cells alive. These remaining cells reform the organism into a completely different looking organism, like the adult butterfly!

photo credit: emills1 The Exuvia of a Giant Prickly Stick, a walking stick from Australia.

The cast away skin of an arthropod is called the exuvia or exuvium. When it’s first removed from the animal, it’s soft, like the new skin, but as it dries out, it becomes very crunchy!

I bet almost everyone has seen one of these. You know those empty insect shells you can sometimes find stuck on trees? I grew up calling them locust shells and I used to love scaring my siblings and friends with them. Then I’d get a lot of pleasure out of crumbling them up! Well, they are not locust shells; locusts are a type of grasshopper. These exuviae belong to cicadas.

photo credit: jasonb42882 A cicada molting.

Cicadas are those funny looking insects you hardly ever see but always hear in the summer. You can hear the rattling noise they make during the hottest hours of the day. The immature cicadas can spend anywhere from 2 to 17 years feeding on tree roots underground, depending on the species. They emerge at night, start climbing a tree, and complete their final molt to adulthood on the way up. The next day we find the shells, but the actual cicadas are high up in the tree tops by then!

Every arthropod on the planet has to go through metamorphosis that involves molting. Insects, spiders, centipedes, millipedes and crustaceans. Interestingly, millipedes are born with only a few segments and legs. Each time they molt, they add another segment and 4 more legs.  I could go on and on about the amazing molting process. The point is, next time you are getting down about anything in your life, think about how easy we have it compared to the bugs of the world. Be thankful that we have easy access to resources we need to survive, we have no real predators and we don’t have to molt! The whole process terrifies me really, so I’m very thankful!

Until next time, happy bug watching!