some engravings. In 1679, Merian published the first volume of a two-volume series on caterpillars, with a second volume in 1683. Each volume contained 50 plates engraved and etched by Merian, with a description of the insects, moths, butterflies and their larvae she had observed. Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung – The Caterpillars' Marvellous Transformation and Strange Floral Food, was very popular in certain segments of high society as it was written in the vernacular, but her work was largely ignored by scientists of the time. The title page of her 1679 Caterpillars proudly proclaimed in German: "wherein by means of an entirely new invention the origin, food and development of caterpillars, worms, butterflies, moths, flies and other such little animals, including times, places and characteristics, for naturalists, artists, and gardeners, are diligently examined, briefly described, painted from nature, engraved in copper and published independently." Jan Goedart had described and depicted the life stages of European moths and butterflies before her, but Merian's "invention" was the detailed study of species, their life-cycle and habitat. Goedart had documented species by depicting one adult, a pupa and one larva. Merian depicted the physical differences between male and female adults, showed wings in different positions and the different colouring on each side of the wing. She also documented the extended proboscis of feeding insects. The first plate in her 1679 Caterpillars detailed the life cycle of the silkworm moth. Starting in the right-hand corner with eggs, progressing with a hatching larva and several moults of the growing larva. Goedart had not included eggs in his images of the life stages of European moths and butterflies, because he had believed that caterpillars were generated from water. When Merian published her study of insects, it was widely believed that insects were spontaneously generated. Merian's discoveries were made independently of, and supported, the findings of Francesco Redi, Marcello Malpighi and Jan Swammerdam. While Merian's depiction of insects' life cycle was innovative in its accuracy, it was her observations on the interaction of organisms that are now regarded as a major contribution to the modern science of ecology. The depiction of insects and their plant hosts set Merian's work apart from that of the classic by Swammerdam and Francis Willughby as well as the work of her countrymen and contemporaries such as Georg Rumphius. Merian was the first to show that each stage of the