Have you ever seen Mexican jumping beans for sale? These little seedpods are each the size of a kernel of corn. They don’t really jump. Instead they rock or scoot a fraction of an inch. Their strange ability to move is because a tiny moth larva lives inside each one.

Adult moths deposit their eggs into the flower of a yerba de fleche shrub in the spring. These plants are native to the mountains of northwestern Mexico. The hatched larvae wriggle into the plant’s seedpods. The pods fall off the tree and the larvae remain inside.

Each larva seems content to stay in the pod as it waits six or eight weeks to become a pupa. Its food is the inside of the bean. Meanwhile, the larva might twist and turn inside. Some say this is to keep the pod from landing on a hot surface. High temperatures will kill the larva. As it moves, so does the pod. 

The larva becomes a pupa and goes dormant in winter. It will create an escape hatch in the spring and fly off to begin life as a moth.

So what exactly is a larva? It is a young wingless form of many insects. It hatches from an egg. It also can be an early form of an animal that looks very different from its parents when it hatches or is born. The larva will look like the adult when it completes a process called metamorphosis.

Larvae of different species (kinds of animals) have different names. Amphibian (frog) larvae are tadpoles. Butterfly and moth larvae are caterpillars. Fly larvae are maggots. Bee and wasp larvae are grubs. Dragonfly and grasshopper larvae are called nymphs. What an amazing world God made!

O Lord, how manifold [many] are your works! . . . The Earth is full of your creatures. — Psalm 104:24