Why do true bugs not have a pupal stage?

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Illustration showing a variety of adult insects, each labeled with its common name and order, including walkingstick, earwig, stonefly, tree cricket, dragonfly, female scale, cat flea, thrips, sucking louse, thysanuran, ant, scarab beetle, stinkbug, mosquito, and cabbage butterfly, highlighting their diverse shapes and sizes. — insect An illustration of insect diversity.

True bugs do not have a pupal stage because they undergo incomplete metamorphosis, also known as hemimetabolous development.12

Unlike holometabolous insects—such as butterflies or beetles—which transition through a distinct, inactive pupa stage to reorganize their larval tissues into adult structures, true bugs develop gradually. In this life cycle, the insect hatches from an egg as a nymph, which is essentially a juvenile version of the adult.123

The nymph already resembles the adult in form and eating habits, differing primarily in size, body proportions, and the development of reproductive organs and wings. Through a series of molts, the nymph grows and its wings develop externally until it reaches the final adult stage, or imago, without ever requiring the transformative pupal phase.213