Overwintering eggs hatch early in the season, then the caterpillars start eating like crazy and building their tent. they become fully grown by late spring or summer, and during the growing process they can actually eat every leaf from a tree, so that the tree must redevelop all of its leaves.Once the caterpillars are grown they wander off and hide themselves in well protected places such as a piece of tree bark laying against rock.There they spin silken cocoons for themselves, then moths emerge from those cocoons in a few weeks.
it depends on what kind of catterpillar it is, if you could write me back a small description of the catterpillar I would be happy to find out for you.
some day
two years
a year
3 mnths
it would be 20 minutes. actually it would still be 10 minutes. the rate of the caterpillars is 1 ft/min. doubling the number of caterpillars wouldn't half their rate of movement.
long
1 day
a couple of inches
No Only LIME caterpillars (caterpillars which are born at lime plants/leaves) eat lime leaves. They eat leaves that they are suitable for.
yes
for ages
for a wille
This is really depends on the type of caterpillar you have/seen. (whatever) It can take a few weeks; but before winter arrives, butterflies have the ability to make the process last for months at a time.