Nature: An Ohio farm attracts migratory congregations of monarch butterflies

"The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity."

Monarch butterflies undergo a complete metamorphosis, or a four-part life cycle. Life begins as a tiny egg, which soon hatches an elfin larva, or caterpillar. The caterpillar does much of the heavy lifting on the road to butterflydom. It is an eating machine, increasing its body mass scores of times as it grows through, in the case of the monarch, five molts.