Our Eating Machine

In The Family Butterfly Book, author Rick Mikula states:

"Caterpillars are eating machines. In a two-week period a caterpillar can increase in size by 2,000 times."

Here's the proof. The first picture was taken yesterday afternoon when we gave our Monarch larva a fat new milkweed leaf. The second picture is what was left of that leaf this afternoon! (Yes, I did put in a new leaf before I left work this evening.)