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Maria Sibylla Merian's Frogs, Kay Etheridge

Biology Faculty Publications

Maria Sibylla Merian (German, 1647-1717) is best known for her magnificent 1705 publication, Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium, although she published earlier works on insect metamorphosis. Merian wrote the text and painted all of the illustrations for her books, and for the early volumes she produced most of the engravings. Contemporary scholarship has focused primarily on Merian's detailed images of lepidopteran and host plant life cycles, but Merian's Surinam album also portrays anuram metamorphosis, including the first European depiction of Pipa pipa.