New Delhi: Celebrating the 366th birthday of naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian, Google has posted a doodle on its homepage. The doodle features caterpillars, chrysalises, moths, butterflies and a green iguana in conjunction with the specific plants upon which they feed. Born on April 2 1647 in Germany, Maria dedicated her life to the study and depiction of the metamorphosis of insects. She studied plants and insects and made elaborated paintings about them. Her detailed observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly laid the foundation for modern entomology. She was born into a family of artists and scholarly printers, Maria Sibylla was exposed to natural history publications at a young age. After her father's death, her mother married the still-life painter Jacob Marrel, who trained her as a flower painter. At the age of 13, Merian painted the transformation of silkworms into moths. This was the beginning of her pas