Google Honors Maria Sibylla Merian 366th Birthday With a Doodle : 5 Facts About the Naturalist

Google Honors Maria Sibylla Merian 366th Birthday With a Doodle : 5 Facts About the Naturalist

Google pays homage to Maria Sibylla Merian, a German naturalist and scientific illustrator, on her 366th birth anniversary with a Doodle. The Doodle by the software giant shows a caterpillar, cocoon, reptile, butterfly, vines and other insects, all painted together to form the Google logo.

For those who are not aware, Maria studied plants and insects and made detailed paintings about them. She is not very well known, but her detailed observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly was a valuable contribution to entomology.

Other five important facts about the renowned naturalist:

Fact #1: Marian, was born on 2 April 1647 in Frankfurt. Marian's father passed away when she was 3. Her mother later married still life painter, Jacob Marrel. Jacob was a big influence on Merian, as he encouraged her to take up painting. At the age of 13, she painted her first images of insects and plants from specimens, she had captured.

Fact #2: At age 15, Maria got married to jacob's apprentice Johann Andreas Graff . She moved with her husband to Nuremberg. It, is here where she began giving drawing lessons to unmarried daughters of wealthy patrician families. During this period, she gained access to the finest gardens, maintained by the wealthy families.

Fact #3: She began observing insects, including the caterpillars and butterflies, in these gardens, carefully analyzing their life-cycles and making sketches and illustrations of them.

Fact #4: Marian published her first book, Neues Blumenbuch, in three parts between 1675 and 1680. Marian moved with her daughters to Netherlands, after separating from her husband, in 1686. She continued her work in Suriname, which belonged to Netherlands, back then. Then in 1705, she published a book, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, about the insects of Surinam

Fact #5: Maria Sibylla Merian died in Amsterdam on 13 January 1717. Later on, her daughter Dorothea published Erucarum Ortus Alimentum et Paradoxa Metamorphosis, a collection of her mother's work.