Planet Crafter Larvae: Find, Breed Butterflies and Boost Insect Biomass (2026)

Planet Crafter larvae spawn on the ground once you reach the Insects stage, and from 5 GTi the Incubator turns them into butterflies, bees and silkworms. What matters is the species, not the quantity: insect multipliers range from 120% to 1500%. Five of the strongest species only exist as wild finds in Mushroom River, the Wasteland and around the waterfall.

Insect biomass is the first stage you can't force with machines alone – you need actual animals. That's exactly where terraforming progress stalls for a lot of players.

🔬 Unlocking the Incubator at 5 GTi

The Incubator is the only machine that turns a larva into a finished insect. It unlocks at a Terraformation Index of 5 GTi, roughly in the middle of the Insects stage. Before that you can pick up larvae, but you can't do anything with them – they just sit in a crate until then.

The standard butterfly recipe is 1 larva + 1 Fertilizer + 1 Mutagen. Load the ingredients into the Incubator, start the sequence and wait about a minute. Which insect comes out is random within the rarity tier. You can recycle unwanted results and get the ingredients back for the next attempt.

Fertilizer and Mutagen are the real bottleneck, not the larvae. If you start building those production chains too late, you end up with a full stack of Planet Crafter larvae and nothing to turn them into.

🗺️ Where to find Planet Crafter larvae

Larvae only start spawning once the Insects stage is reached. They appear as small moving objects right on the ground, in three rarity tiers:

• Common larva – everywhere on the surface and by far the most frequent type.
• Uncommon larva – pale with black tips. This is the one that becomes bees and silkworms.
• Rare larva – much less common, concentrated in ore caves and remote areas.

The key mechanic: Planet Crafter larvae respawn gradually near you. If you race across the map with your jetpack, you're long gone before anything appears. Walking beats flying.

A 30- to 60-second loop at a productive spot yields more than a big lap around half the planet. There's also a cap on how many larvae can exist at once: as long as you leave some lying around, nothing new spawns. Leaving the area and coming back resets the spawns.

According to community reports, good spots are the ore caves, the balcony above the first iridium mine, Lost Paradise and the mushroom cave. If your base is far away from these spots, a second outpost pays off – our guide to the best Planet Crafter base locations shows where to put it.

The five exotic butterfly larvae

Five species never come out of the Incubator at all – you can only find them in the wild. Each one is tied to specific regions:

• Futura (800%) – Mushroom River and the mushroom cave, glows bright pink when it spawns.
• Alben (700%) – the Wasteland and the iridium cave region, black.
• Fiorente (600%) – the hills around the waterfall, the crater and Ancient Paradise.
• Nere (600%) – the shore by the waterfall and the sulfur fields.
• Lorpen (600%) – around the waterfall, near the climbable vines.

A targeted run through Mushroom River and the waterfall area is worth more than any Incubator session with common larvae.

🦋 Multipliers: which butterflies are actually worth it

Every insect species has a fixed percentage value. It multiplies the insect biomass a butterfly farm produces. A farm full of Azurae is practically worthless compared to the same farm stocked with Liux or Golden.

The priority list is short: as long as you're below 500%, every Rare larva is a better investment than ten common ones. Once you have T2 Mutagen, only Imeo and up are worth it – anything below just takes up farm slots.

The exotic wild finds at 600 to 800% bridge exactly the gap where the rare recipes are still locked.

⚠️ Found or crafted – the distinction that trips people up

This is where most time gets wasted. Planet Crafter larvae follow a two-part rule:

• Larvae in the Common, Uncommon and Rare tiers can only be found outside. You can't craft them.
• Bee larvae, on the other hand, never show up in the wild. Bees and silkworms come out of the Incubator from an Uncommon larva – with roughly a 50/50 chance of one or the other.

So if you've spent hours looking for bee larvae out in the open, you've been looking for something that doesn't exist there. The route goes through Uncommon larvae and the Incubator. Later the T2 Beehive takes over and delivers Bee larvae instead of Honey in about half of its cycles.

You need silkworms for the Silk generator, which becomes available at 800 kg of insect biomass; Fabric recipes follow at 950 kg.

✅ How to raise insect biomass the fastest

Your biggest lever isn't the number of farms but what's inside them and how they're boosted. Put an Insects multiplier fuse (+750%) into a Machine optimizer next to a T2 Butterfly Farm and that farm's output rises massively. The Planet Crafter fuses guide covers how optimizers and fuses work together. The interface shows the bonus in square brackets after the base value.

Important: for Honey or Bee larva output, the Insects multiplier fuse is the wrong choice – that's where the Production multiplier fuse applies. If you're short on ingredients, you can get them through the Trade space rocket. If your index stalls despite full farms, the cause is usually a different stage.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions about Planet Crafter larvae

When do Planet Crafter larvae start spawning?
Once you reach the Insects stage. The Incubator itself only arrives at 5 GTi, a bit later. Larvae you collect before that stay usable in your inventory.

Why can't I find a Rare larva?
The Rare larva is scarce and prefers ore caves and remote areas. Traveling on foot, picking everything up and switching areas boosts your yield noticeably – the spawn cap blocks new larvae as long as old ones are left lying around.

Can I find bee larvae in the wild?
No. Bee larvae come from the Incubator, made from an Uncommon larva, and later from the T2 Beehive.

Which butterfly is the best?
Golden at 1500%, followed by Serena (1200%) and Imeo (1000%). All three need T2 Mutagen and high plant biomass. Until then, Futura at 800% is the strongest species you can simply find without unlocking anything.

Did the 2.0 update change anything about insects?
Not according to the patch notes from April 6, 2026. The update brought a new biome on Prime (more in our overview of all Planet Crafter planets), graphics and weather overhauls and a reworked interface for animal creation. Spawn locations, recipes and multipliers stayed the same.

As of: August 6, 2026. Multipliers, spawn locations and unlock thresholds come from community guides (Corrosion Hour, GameRant, Steam guides and discussions), the 2.0 details from the official patch notes of April 6, 2026. The community wiki (there is no official one) was unreachable, so percentages, thresholds and fuse values are not cross-checked against it. A further species (Faleria, 1400%, reportedly via the trade rocket) appears only in an older Steam guide and is unconfirmed.