This gallery contains 10 photos.
Happy Word Numbat Day! The first published image of a numbat accompanied its 1836 scientific description; see it and other 19th century plates in this gallery.
This gallery contains 13 photos.
November 3rd is World Jellyfish Day! To celebrate, here is a dozen of Ernst Haeckel’s “medusae” plates from Kunstformen der Natur (1899-1904) as well as the cover art that features a bonus one.
May 31st is World Parrot Day!
To celebrate, here are two cockatoos seen at the recent Majolica Mania exhibition at the Walters Art Museum:
The 3rd Friday of May is Endangered Species Day. Although Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) never traveled outside of Europe, he painted at least two different animals from faraway lands…
Fauna: Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) (Reminder: not really a bear! It’s a marsupial.)Flora: Western Wooden Pear (Xylomelum occidentale) (Also not a true pear.) While Marianne North is primarily known as a pioneering botanical artist of the nineteenth century, many of her paintings include native fauna as well. Her life’s work of…
It was on this day (21 February) in 1918 that the last known Carolina Parakeet, Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo – tragically, in the same cage the last known Passenger Pigeon, Martha, had died only four years earlier. (Even worse, unlike Martha, whose body was sent to the Smithsonian…
Here are two 19th-century turtle-shaped umbilical cord amulets from the Penn Museum‘s rotating display. The first one I saw on display this past weekend; the second one is from a visit back in 2019. I thought it looked different than what I remembered! 😉 1. Turtle-shaped umbilical cord amulet, Assiniboine…
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Happy International Red Panda Day, celebrated annually on the 3rd Saturday of September! The Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens, which roughly translates to “shining cat”), is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It is the only extant species of the Ailuridae family, nestled within the “weasel…
International Vulture Awareness Day is celebrated annually on the first Saturday of September. There are 23 extant species of “vultures” split between two distinct taxonomies: the “New World” Vultures, a monophyletic group comprised of 7 species from the Americas in the Cathartidae family, and the “Old World” Vultures, a polyphyletic…
Festival Kimono, Akita Prefecture, Tōhoku region, Honshū. Late 19th-early 20th century. Cotton; shibori (shape resist) 51 × 50 inches (129.6 × 127 cm) “The motif on the back of the garment is known as koi no takinobori (“carp ascending a waterfall”), which was an immensely popular design. It references a…
