Insects walk around inside a miniature suit of armor, called an exoskeleton.
Since they wear their skeletons on the outside rather than the inside, it’s impossible for them to grow little by little. Instead, they grow in spurts, by shedding their skin. When the old skin becomes too small, a soft new one develops underneath. The old skin then splits down the back, the insect crawls out, and the new skin expands and hardens. This usually happens four or five times before an insect becomes an adult and stops growing. The series of changes from egg to adult is called metamorphosis.
