When insects first evolved, they were no more successful than other land-dwelling arthropods like spiders, millipedes, and centipedes, which had left the ocean long before them. But insects weren’t going to play second fiddle forever. At some point they developed a quirk in their life cycles that eventually catapulted them to unprecedented success. They evolved larvae: grubs, maggots, and caterpillars.

How they achieved this is still debated, but the advantages are clear. Their young could occupy entirely different ecological niches from the adult form, allowing more to be packed into a given space. In addition, grubs and caterpillars became specialized to grow as quickly as possible, maximizing the efficiency of converting food into bug biomass. But these adaptations often rendered larval stages more vulnerable—which means evolution has had to be particularly inventive to ensure their survival.

Emmy Award–winning wildlife documentary filmmaker Steve Nicholls looks at the often- extraordinary lives of caterpillars (some of which are deadly to humans), grubs, and maggots—their origins, and how they protect themselves as they grow, from mimicking snakes or alligators to leading complex social lives.

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