Another special visitor!!!

Today Mr Cookson found an amazing visitor in our school.  He shared it with us.  As we have been having fun looking at Seeds under the digital microscopes, the children asked if we could use these to view our special visitor.  Can you work out what our special visitor is?  (click on answer when you think you know).

Some interesting facts we learnt were...

• The eggs are white initially but slowly turn a purplish black.
• The eggs hatch after 2 weeks.
• The caterpillar hatches and spends a couple months feeding on fungi (the stuff on forest floors).
• It will then crawl up a 'suitable tree' and 'burrow in'.
• It will live inside this tree for around 5-7 years, before it moves back to just inside the entrance of its hole.
• It then will pupate into a moth (similar to a caterpillar making a cocoon), while still inside the tree.
• It then hatches and flies out.
• It only lives for a few days (up to 1 week), and spreads thousands of eggs in this time.
• It has no functioning mouth parts so it dies of starvation!

Answer