As previously reported, Google began showing a doodle in honor of naturalist and illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian in parts of the world where it was already April 2nd. Now that the date has changed in the rest of the world, including here in the U.S., the doodle has made it to a larger audience, putting Google in the spotlight once again after its day of April Fools’ jokes.
The doodle celebrates Merian’s birthday, as she was born on April 2nd, 1647 in Frankfurt, Germany. She died on January 13, 1717 in Amsterdam.
Here’s what Google’s Knowledge Graph result looks like for Merian:
Merian published three collections of engravings of plants before turning her studies to insects. According to Wikipedia’s history of her, she kept her own live specimens, and illustrated the metamorphosis stage in various species. As the article points out, this was at a time when insects were largely thought of as “beasts of the devil”.
If you click over to Google’s Image results, you can peruse a plethora of Merian’s beautiful illustrations.