>>42724008>>42724110Fun fact: Almost all animals have a “middle stage” between the infant/larva stage and the adult stage.
There are several older families of insect which have two stages (“nymph” and “adult,” often with nymph having up to 5 stages of different size, but identical appearance), but most newer branches of insect have a larval stage and adult stage with an intermediate pupa.
Most mammals, humans included, have a period of transition between what would be a larval stage and an adult stage which is capable of reproduction. Humans, notably, can reproduce during adolescence, but still have a period of disproportionate growth between body parts—hands and feet have to change a LOT, and total height changes around the time secondary sexual characteristics begin developing. This growth spurt, or series of growth spurts, coincides with a massive change in metabolism.
(Some larva in other organisms ingest a MASSIVE amount of calories compared to other stages so that they don’t have to acquire more food during the pupa stage...and, many acquire zero new calories as pupa OR adults. But regardless, a massive re-balance occurs between the larva stage and the pupa stage, in parallel with an infant/child stage and pubescent stage in other organisms.)
TL;DR: babies are larvae, children are slightly better larvae, teenagers are pupae, and adults are glorified mammals which are more similar to bugs than we care to admit.
