butterflies. But what happens inside a chrysalis? What creates those little abominations?

蝴蝶。但在蛹裡發生了什麼事？是什麼創造了那些噁心的東西？

Here’s what doesn’t happen: caterpillars slowly morph into butterflies, growing wings,

這是沒有發生的事：毛毛蟲慢慢變形成蝴蝶，長出翅膀

eyes, etc in the process.

眼睛等等的過程

Nope! It’s actually a lot grosser than that:

才不！實際上噁心多了：

A caterpillar’s own digestive juices dissolve its body, turning it into a soup of proteins

毛毛蟲的消化液溶解自己的身體，將之變成蛋白質湯

with some random body parts thrown in.

裡面包括了一些身體部位

Aww, caterpillar soup...just like my aunt Sheila used to make!

噢，毛毛蟲湯...就像我的 Sheila 阿姨之前做的！

Anyway, that soup also includes cells called “imaginal discs” which grow into butterfly

總之，湯裡也含有稱為「想像板」的細胞，這些細胞

structures like wings while the body re-forms. Bake at 375 on the bottom rack for a few more

會在身體重組的時候長成蝴蝶的構造，像是翅膀。放到底層用 375 度再烘個幾

minutes, and voila, a butterfly!

分鐘，瞧，一隻蝴蝶！

The craziest part is that in spite of turning into goop and back again, butterflies can

最瘋狂的部分在於，儘管毛毛蟲會先變成黏呼呼的東西再變回蝴蝶，蝴蝶還是可以

retain memories from their caterpillar days. Which means that somehow, some nerve connections

保留毛毛蟲時代的記憶。這代表一些神經連結

survive that change. The scientific conclusion here is: don’t be a jerk to a caterpillar,

在過程中存活下來了。科學家對此的結論是：別對毛毛蟲不好

or it’ll hate you forever as a butterfly. Like tiny things that might hate you?

否則牠會以蝴蝶的型態恨你一輩子。喜歡可能會討厭你的小東西嗎？

Watch my video on viruses. I’m going to play like a second or two of that for you

看看我關於病毒的影片吧。我現在播個一兩秒給你們看看

now. So click real fast. Did you miss your chance? Click now to subscribe.

所以快快點閱。你錯過機會了嗎？現在點來訂閱