Maria Sibylla Merian
Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family. Merian was one of the first naturalists to observe insects directly.
Maria Kuryluk
Maria Kuryluk, called Mia by her family and friends, was born Miriam Kohany in an assimilated Jewish family in Bielsko-Biała, Silesia, and died in Warsaw. She was the eldest daughter of the merchant Herman Kohany (1882–1942) who perished in the Holocaust under unknown circumstances, and Paulina Kohany, née Raaber (1882–1942), a porcelain designer in her youth, who was killed along with her younger daughter Hilde Kohany (1920–1942) in Treblinka. Miriam's older brother Oscar survived the war in the Soviet Union and in 1950 emigrated with his family from Poland to Israel.