• ENTOMOLOGIST & ARTIST who was the first to depict bugs and insects in their natural environment
• At thirteen years old, she documented the metamorphosis of the silkworm in her journal, nine years before Marcello Malphighi, the man who is generally credited with the discovery
• Not content to study already dead specimens sent from overseas, she became the FIRST person to self-fund an independent scientific expedition, selling more than 200 of her own paintings and procuring a small loan from the Dutch government so she and her 21-year-old daughter could travel to Suriname
• Condemned in her writings the cruelty with which Dutch colonists treated and enslaved the natives
• Made her way through the thick jungle with a machete, studying and painting local flora and fauna, as well as conversing with native people about their uses for plants
• Published Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, the FIRST scientific work about Surinam, in 1705, which consisted of two volumes with more than 100 paintings, sketches, and observations
• Counter to contemporary scientific illustrators who depicted bugs dead, in black & white, and often dissected, her specimens were in vibrant color, alive, often drawn full size, and shown at every stage of their life cycle, with their host plants serving as the focal point of each illustration
• Instead of writing in academic Latin, she published the book in common German, so more people would be able to read it
• This work includes the FIRST European depictions of leafcutter and army ants, as well as many species of flora and fauna that have since gone extinct

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Metamorphosis LX from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium by Maria Sibylla Merian, via Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: Auricchio, Laura. "Merian, Maria Sibylla." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Volume 3. Oxford University Press, 2008, 210-211.
Harvey, Joy and Marilyn B. Ogilvie. "Merian, Maria Sibylla." Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, Vol. 2, Routledge, 2000, 884-885.
Maggs, Sam. Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2016. Print.

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