Today is #WhoopingCraneDay! The Whooping Crane (Grus americana) is an endemic North American species that is the continent’s tallest native bird. It is also one of our flagship conservation success stories, having very nearly gone extinct in the early 20th century. Once thought to have numbered at least 10,000 birds,…
Since both Audubon Day and International Flamingo Day are celebrated annually on the 26th of April, what better work to spotlight today than John J. Audubon’s famous flamingo print from his magnum opus, The Birds of America… On the 7th of May, 1832, while sailing from Indian Key, one of…
This gallery contains 9 photos.
Today is not only a #MarsupialMonday, but it’s also the first annual International Tasmanian Devil Day! The Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is an endangered marsupial species endemic to Australia. Although it once ranged across the mainland continent, since its extirpation some 3500 years ago, it is now only found on the…
Happy Manatee Appreciation Day! As seen above, there are three officially recognized manatee species, all currently listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. Today’s Animal Art of the Day is a 19th century illustration which was first identified as one, then identified as another, and finally correctly identified as…
This gallery contains 6 photos.
Happy #NationalAardvarkWeek! Besides being one of my favorite mammals, the Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) is also the most evolutionarily distinct one, which makes it very special indeed: The aardvark…has the highest score for being the most evolutionarily distinctive (ED) using the EDGE scientific method. Species such as the aardvark are much…
This gallery contains 3 photos.
Plates XIII. IX, and X from Our reptiles and batrachians; a plain and easy account of the lizards, snakes, newts, toads, frogs and tortoises indigenous to Great Britainby M. C. Cooke (1825-1914)London, W. H. Allen & co., limited, 1893via Biodiversity Heritage Library
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.
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…
To mark the quincentenary of the birth of the famed Italian natural historian Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), the Edward Worth Library and the Zoologial Museum of Trinity College Dublin have co-curated a web exhibition called “Reading the Book of Nature,” which juxtaposes images from the Worth Library’s set of Aldrovandi’s natural…
