Do butterflies remember life as a caterpillar?

Question

Do butterflies remember life as a caterpillar?

Answer 1

I doubt butterflies remember what they did yesterday, let alone what they did in another life.

Answer 2

..maybe not..butterfly has a tiny brain..i just wonder why would you ask that???..

Answer 3

that's funny, but surely not. Possibly they might be programmed to remember good feeding sights or something, but doubtful.

Answer 4

A better question would be: do butterflies remember?

I would say no, because during metamorphosis the caterpillar's body digests itself and rebuilds. This makes me think that the butterfly-to-be might be unconscious for this whole process. And besides, butterflies have only days to find a mate and lay their own eggs before they die- they probably have other things on their minds ^-^

Answer 5

Recent research suggests that they do remember things from the latter part of their time as a caterpillar. A group of scientists 'trained' caterpillars to avoid a certain scent. They found that if they were trained before their third moult, they did not avoid the scent once they were butterflies, but that if trained after their third moult, they continued to avoid the scent after becoming butterflies. They must therefore have remembered learning to avoid that scent when they were caterpillars.