Maria Sibylla Merian

366 years ago, Maria Sibylla Merian was born. She is honored today by Google for her work. Merian made very detailed paintings about her studies of plants and insects. She was a well known naturalist and scientific illustrator. She was already interested in insects in a young age and studied silk worms, who produced beautiful butterflies or moths like other caterpillars. She died in the age of 69 in Amsterdam, shortly after Peter the Great has seen her work. He acquired many of her paintings, which are still kept in St. Petersburg. The Doodle shows adapted images taken from her book "Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium". Her work was rediscovered and recognised in the last years of the 20th century. She was illustrated on Germanys 500DM note (around 250€).