Maria Sibylla Merian

            Maria Sibylla Merian influenced many on her work about insect metamorphosis. She was very intrigued by the fact that the insects had very many life stages. The one area that she specialized in was the metamorphosis of caterpillars to butterflies. She was the daughter of her fathers second wife and then after he died, her half-brother inherited the printing business that their father had. In 1679 she published her first book on insect life and it was mainly about the insects that changed throughout their life time. She took a once in a lifetime opportunity, after she settled in Amsterdam, to go to Surinam, South America on a far off plantation to study bugs. She studied all the bugs that she could, but in order for her to do that, she had to keep the insect alive and, being in Surinam instead of her home town, she couldn't do that and the bugs usually died. Merian went home and died in Amsterdam in 1717 and we now know that even though her work was pretty accurate, most people discredited her because she was a woman. Even though she didn't get the adequate recognition that she wanted, she is regarded today as the woman who helped "invent" the field of entomology.


This is a picture of Maria Sibylla Merian.