For instance, caterpillars turn into butterflies.
In Maria Merian's time, people thought these two creatures were actually different insect species.
Here's a video on her life and achievements made by the Royal Society.
One would hope that there is appropriate representation of women and people from minority groups amongst the names of people that are included and named in the specification - we don't want it to be just old white men such as Darwin, von Humboldt and Linnaeus.
Maria was the first person to work out that these were actually the same insect in different stages of its life.
She was the subject of a Google Doodle which was shown in April 2013 on the occasion of her 366th birthday.
This is a rather lovely design. See the separate post on other Google Doodles on the blog, with a suggested activity linked to the proposed curriculum which is a creative task.
Here's a Linnean Society video as well:
