Magical Metamorphoses

ShinYeon Moon is an artist and illustrator based in New York. Moon teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the School of Visual Arts, where she received her MFA.

For her Zócalo Sketchbook, Moon puts a psychedelic lens on the natural world, rearranging the birth and adolescence of five animal species into bright kaleidoscopes to delight the third eye as much as the first two. Note the details in the artwork—the color shift in the cocoons, the delicately rendered leaves framing the firefly, and the subtle color glow around the …

| Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Butterfly Vacation

Mercedes Padró is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Illinois. With a paintbrush in hand, she creates whimsical and vivid pieces that visualize the world as she sees it. …

Why Migrant Butterflies Are Dying | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why Migrant Butterflies Are Dying

Border Policies, Corporate Greed, and Political Dysfunction Hurt Monarchs and Humans Alike

In July, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus plexippus, to its Red List of Threatened Species, a recognition that the insect’s ongoing …

The Bug That Had the World Seeing Red

How a Mesoamerican Insect Created the Globe's Most Coveted Color

Once there was a color so valuable that emperors and conquistadors coveted it, and so did kings and cardinals. Artists went wild over it. Pirates ransacked ships for …