Merian found this brightly coloured caterpillar (Acharia ophelians) on a watermelon plant and waited for it to hatch, anticipating it would be an equally gaudy butterfly. On 10 August 1700, however, she noted that ‘such an unsightly moth emerged’. Reflecting on the unpredictability of the life cycles she was observing, she wrote ‘It has happened to me that the most beautiful and unusual caterpillars turned into the plainest creatures, while the plainest caterpillars turned into the most beautiful moths and butterflies’.