The first to observe it methodically and describe it in an illustrated book entitledThe caterpillar, wonderful transformation and strange flower food(1679) was the German naturalist and pioneer entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian, whom Google pays tribute to today on the 366th anniversary of her birth.
“When I realized that butterflies and moths developed faster than other caterpillars, I collected all the caterpillars that I could find, in order to observe theirmetamorphosis“he wrote about his work.” Thus, I withdrew from human society and devoted myself exclusively to these investigations. In addition, I learned the art of drawing so that I could trace and describe them as they are in nature. “Thus, on fifty copper platesdrew the life cycle of each insect, going from the egg to the caterpillar, and then to the cocoon and the butterfly.
Parallel to the metamorphosis, Merian also described many other details of the evolution and life of insects, showing, for example, that each caterpillar depends on a small number of plants for its food and that, therefore, the eggs were laid nearby of those plants.
In 1699, after turning fifty-two years old, he left for the Dutch colony ofSurinameto continue investigating worms and caterpillars. According to his own words, there he created “the first classification of all insects with chrysalis, the chapels that fly by day and the owls that fly at night. “And she returned loaded with specimens and illustrations of caterpillars, worms, beetles, bees, butterflies, flies … In addition to showing the reproduction and development of insects, Merian’s illustrations revealed to Europe “plants never previously described or drawn.”
