#Natural History

[the-shadows-request-candy-corn]

Guys

Remember the LCL ocean? The primordial soup of life?

"Genesis", Oil on canvas by Matthew Cornell

[amnhnyc]

Behold a black cat of a different kind: this melanistic serval (Leptailurus serval). Also known as the “giraffe cat,” servals have the longest legs in proportion to their body size of any feline. Found in parts of Africa, this predator can jump more than 9 ft (2.7 m) into the air to snatch birds in flight. Individuals like the one pictured, which are rare in the wild, are affected by a genetic mutation called melanism, which results in their dark coloring. Scientists think there are some advantages that come with having a dusky coat, including being able to more seamlessly blend in with the darkness of the night and take in heat more efficiently in the Sun.

Photo: Stan Rullman, CC BY 4.0, iNaturalist 

[sombertide-0]

dinovember day 2, medusaceratops!

[custosdefabulas]

Okay, so judging by the fact that you put the timeperiod as Georgian/Regency, I'm guessing that you are primarily interested in the British or at least English-speaking world?

If so, the first thing to remember is that "zoology" is not really a thing yet as its own dicipline – instead everyone is talking about "natural history", which is kind of a catch-all term for anything from what is today botany, zoology, entomology and geology to anthropology and ethnology etc. Really, anything that could be seen as "the study of the natural world". (If you already know this I am sorry for the lecture)

Anyway! Book recs (don't read every chapter, just what seems fun/relevant). Unfortunately I don't know much about zoology specifically, so these are about natural history:

MacGregor, Arthur (Eds.). (2018). Naturalists in the Field : Collecting, Recording and Preserving the Natural World from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century. Brill.

Holmes, J., & Ruston, S. (Eds.). (2017). The Routledge research companion to nineteenth-century British literature and science. Taylor & Francis Ltd. (has a chapter on women & science)

Emling, Shelly. (2009). The fossil hunter : dinosaurs, evolution, and the woman whose discoveries changed the world. Palgrave Macmillan. (About Mary Anning, the paleontologist)

Taylor, Michael. (2024). Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War Between Science and Religion. The Bodley Head. (Talks about Mary Anning, among other things)

Hill, Kate. (2016). Women and museums, 1850-1914 : modernity and the gendering of knowledge. Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526100313

Musgrave, Toby. (2021). The multifarious Mr. Banks : from Botany Bay to Kew, the natural historian who shaped the world. Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300252132

Broberg, Gunnar. (2023). The man who organized nature: the life of Linnaeus. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (This book is very long and not all will be relevant for you)

Academic history nowadays is very much trying to get away from the "great men" type of history, but the fact remains that a few people (mostly men) were very influential and are worth looking into (especially if you want to understand the historiography of the field). There are usually easy to read biographies of them that provide an overview of the time period, so they are usually a good jumping-of point, though you do of course need to go beyond them. I would recommend looking into Joseph Banks (British naturalist), Carl Linnaeus (Swedish naturalist, "Father of modern taxonomy"), maybe Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (French naturalist), and of course Charles Darwin, as well as the history of the Royal Society in London in general.

Unfortunately I am not specialised in zoology nor women in science, but hopefully these books prove useful as jumping of points! From my understanding, women during this period were often in the very important but somewhat invisible roles of collectors, illustrators, patorns, and the like during this time. Collecting was VERY important for science during this time – really, it was what science was all about. You needed to collect things so you could categorise and study them, and then write papers on them. Rich women - sometimes with their husbands, sometimes alone - were very much involved in developing these collections. More lower-class women were more likely to be involved in the actual finding of these objects – Mary Anning is a good example.

Sorry if this is not what you wanted, this got away from me.

Friends! Once again I am looking for BOOKS. HISTORY BOOKS!!

I want to look into the word of Georgian/Regency era zoology, but I've no idea where to start. Does anyone have any recs for books on the topic, or more broadly on women in science in this era?

I'd quite like something like an overview, or even recs for studies/books/articles from the time. THANKS Y'ALL.

[mariolanzas]

¨ANTEDILUVIAN¨ gifs

Antediluvian is a short animated film in commemorative homage to Classic Paleoart and the earliest Paleontologists. Exactly 200 years ago was the first dinosaur formally described.

Full short film now available at Youtube/MarioLanzas.

__

Youtube channel

Instagram

Prints and more paleomerch

[fandolion]

Incredible artist Julia Stoess makes these giant 100:1 insect models, I have never seen something more beautiful !

Definition of mastering your craft, they are PERFECT

[samimarkart]

go grandpa

[da-real-god]

[alexriesart]

One of a series of explorations into natural history art; a painting of a coconut crab I painted some time ago!

[snailspng]

Specimens in jars PNGs

(source: Universiteits Museum Utrecht)

[amnhnyc]

If you were born in November, topaz is one of your birthstones! Can you name the others? Weighing nearly 600 lbs (270 kg), this tremendous topaz is one of the largest single crystals of topaz in any museum in the world! This specimen is just one example of how large crystals in pegmatites can grow. If you look closely, you’ll notice that its upper faces are covered in small, stepped bumps and mounds. The mounds are growth hillocks and are caused by imperfections in the crystal structure called screw dislocations—where new material is added in a spiral!

Photo: D. Finnin / © AMNH

[katarinanavane]

Three new dollhouse curio cabinets! I didn't make the cabinets themselves but just found and arranged the contents.

[wobblyworks]

A Coelophysis pair enjoying the early morning hours

[sombertide-0]

day 4, argentavis!

[beauty-funny-trippy]

"The Eye of the Earth" (Cetina River Spring), Croatia

Ground water seeps into the deep, vast system of caves that supply the spring with a constant source of fresh water, where it flows out from the Eye of the Earth, like tears, into the Cetina River.