We were caterpillars, greedy worms condemned to toil on earth; the chrysalis was our coffin, but the butterfly's miraculous emergence symbolised the possibility of an afterlife, a chance for our souls to ascend to heaven.
Among the more common species, butterflies whose caterpillars feed on grass did particularly well last year after warm, sunny weather with some rain promoted luxuriant grass growth early last summer.
The "ugly caterpillars", as some Mumbaikars call them, block views from houses that overlook the skywalk and impinge on their privacy.
I believe, in a way, we're like caterpillars.
Common spring butterflies – orange tips, peacocks, large whites – have been plentiful so far, and fears that it would get too dry (butterflies don't generally thrive in droughts because caterpillars' food plants shrivel and die) have been assuaged by April showers.
The high brown fritillary's caterpillars feed on wild violets found on moorland, wood edges and rough pasture.
Among the nicotine-containing tobacco, 75% of the caterpillars survived each night of spider attacks, but only half did so in the nicotine-free fields.
To discover more Dr Baldwin and his colleagues took some of the caterpillars and silenced a gene that moves nicotine from their gut into their blood.
In some countries, foodstuffs containing GM ingredients became almost unsaleable.Matters were made worse by the publication soon afterwards of the results of another experiment, in which pollen from GM maize was fed to caterpillars of the monarch butterfly.
Howard Davies, boss of Britain's Financial Services Authority, notes that it has become fashionable to think of regulators as Shakespeare's "caterpillars of the commonwealth, creatures who, far from adding value, get in the way of the market".
In spring, caterpillars time their emergence to coincide with the bud burst of trees; birds start nesting when they can feed those newly emerged caterpillars to their fledglings.
