Some moths can remember what they learned as caterpillars.

Metamorphosis looks like the ultimate reset button. A caterpillar changes body plan, nervous system, mouthparts, and behavior inside a pupa. In tobacco hornworm experiments, late-stage caterpillars were trained to avoid an odor after it was paired with a mild shock. After becoming adult moths, they still avoided that odor. The result does not mean every caterpillar memory survives, and timing matters: memories formed late in larval development were the ones that persisted. That limitation makes the fact stronger, not weaker. Some information can cross a transformation that looks, from the outside, like biological demolition.

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