Andrea Hart

Detailed black-and-white illustration of the head and neck of a gigantic land tortoise labeled "Testudo microphyes." The tortoise's head is covered in large, distinct hexagonal and irregular scales, with textured, wrinkled skin along its thick neck. The eye is prominent and round, showing a glossy surface. The drawing emphasizes the rough, scaly texture and folds of the skin, highlighting the tortoise's massive size and ancient, rugged appearance. The image is part of an 1877 collection from the British Museum showcasing living and extinct giant land tortoises.

🐢 The gigantic land-tortoises (living and extinct) in the collection of the British Museum
London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1877.

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Historical illustration of a dolphin labeled "Delphinus Orca Linn." showing a dark gray, stocky body with lighter, cream-colored underbelly. Notably, the dolphin has large, rounded pectoral fins resembling ears, a prominent dorsal fin with a jagged edge, and a tail fin. The head is exaggerated with sharp, pointed teeth and a distinctively sculpted face, including a pronounced brow ridge and a green eye. A water spout arches above the dolphin’s head, indicating its aquatic nature. The style is detailed and textured, typical of 18th-century natural history engravings.

🐬 Gemeinnüzzige Naturgeschichte des Thierreichs bd 2 plates
Berlin ;bei Gottlieb August Lange, 1780-1789.

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Yes Webster!

Lithograph print of a lemur in a tree

Sharing this lovely lithograph of a #lemur from Voeltzkow’s Säugetiere von Madagascar and Sansibar (1898). Loving its facial expression, fur detail and weird toe nail?!!? #zoologicalart

An engraving of the skeleton of an elephant

Has been a bit of a #bony day today in the collections - these two plates published in A series of engravings representing the bones of the human skeleton .. by John Barclay in 1819 perhaps being my favourites. Both engraved by E. Mitchell #rarebooks #skeletons #barebones

A unicorn watermark in one of the oldest European paper sheets. Source: https://memoryofpaper.eu/apccv/apccv.php?Signatura=1475.1

Just a 1399 unicorn watermark from a paper manufacturer from Valencia to make your day. Friends of #paperhistory know that these paper sheets of around 1400 are among the first sheets of European paper to appear on the market. European #bookhistory was a different game afterwards. #skystorians

Illustration of a lemur perched on a bare tree branch, holding onto a smaller branch with its hands and feet. The lemur has a rounded body covered in brown fur, a pale face with large, dark eyes, and small rounded ears. The tree trunk is depicted with detailed bark texture and small green leafy sprigs emerging from it. The background is plain, focusing attention on the lemur and tree. The style is a scientific, naturalist drawing from the late 18th century, showing anatomical features clearly for identification.

🦧 The naturalists' miscellany: .
London: Printed for Nodder co, 1789..

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Even more #cyanotypes from over 150 years ago by the pioneering Anna Atkins (1799-1871) - her 3 volumes of cyanotypes of British Algae created between 1843-53 preserved @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social all digitised & freely available to view nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44... #photography

An exhibition case of different objects

A rolled up snakeskin

A humorous display label

A herbarium sheet of the Banksia genus

“Wonder” the new #exhibition @linneansociety.bsky.social - wonder in title and wonderful in choice of objects, humour and celebration of all things natural world-
y! And what's even better is that it is
free to go see! www.linnean.org/research-col... #collections #proudtrustee #HarryStyles #science

Happy Departmental #Birthday to us! Our shelves are still happily full of wonderful books but I’m just wondering how on earth the ones on the top shelf got there or were retrieved?!? (Loving the ladder too even though a H&S nightmare … ) #libraries #books #NHM #Collections

Botanical drawing of a plant

Botanical drawing of a Cedar branch

For anyone needing a little lift today, here’s a link to the botanical drawing #master that is Georg Ehret (1708-1770) and some of his watercolours held by nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social all freely available to view and make you #smile nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fu... #botanicalart

Delighted to have come across this lovely book for a patron visit - Isabella Sinclair’s Indigenous Flowers of the #Hawaiian Islands (1855). The first book published with colour images of Hawaiian flowering plants. A great blog here blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2019/03/isab... #rarebooks #flowers

Mycologist Arthur Peck (1870-1940) was such a fun guy (sorry, not sorry) we've added his 150+ images of British fungi to our Digitised Special Collections buff.ly/DwrpsMW. #NaturalHistoryMuseum #SpecialCollections #NatureInArt #Photography #SciArt #Mushrooms
Alt text: Reel of sepia photos of fungi

Large fold-out plate of the whole aye-aye.

The aye-aye at the waterside

The aye-aye's distinctive spindly digits.

Surely one of the most exquisite zoological publications of the nineteenth century: Richard Owen's Monograph on the Aye-Aye (1863), with plates drawn by Joseph Wolf and lithographed by James Erxleben. Also a key statement of Owen's conception of evolution. (The @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social copy.)

The original drawing will go on display in the NHM’s Images of Nature gallery in the second rotation of Richard Owen: A Natural Legacy from January (it too, as you can imagine is rather exquisite)

Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope* Abstract. As the Cape of Good Hope was integrated into early modern colonial world-making projects, it came to be regarded as ‘the western part of the East

New on advance access: "Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope"

by @gianamar97.bsky.social‬ (@uvahumanities.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

academic.oup.com/past/advance...

BIG NEWS: For the first time in six years, Britain's rarest breeding bird has successfully nested in the UK!

A pair of Montagu's Harriers have raised four healthy chicks, all of which have taken their first flights.

One of the cuddliest, fluffiest predators on the planet.

Hyperechia consimilis (Asilidae), female. This beauty was collected from Mulanje Massif, or Mt Mulanje in southern Malawi. She is over a hundred years old....

@dipterists.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social #digitising

I’m getting “oh really” or “do I have to listen to this for the umpteenth time” vibes from this marmoset drawn by Weber in Wagner’s Die Säugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur (pl.13, supplementband, 1855). #animalexpressions #specialbooks #illustration

Richard Owen was born #OTD 221 years ago .. Also born on 20th July: Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Jimmy “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” Kennedy (1902-1984), Mad Dog Coll (1908-1932), Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), Ted “3-2-1” Rogers (1935-2001), Diana Rigg (1938-2020) and Chris Cornell (1964-2017) #birthdays

You can also now see it as part of the Richard Owen: A Natural Legacy display in the @nhm-london.bsky.social ‘s free Images of Nature gallery alongside other original #illustrations from Owen’s fascinating drawings collection #naturalhistory #art #gallery #echidna #anatomy

Currently prepping these wooden beauties for a new display on Richard Owen’s science, art and legacy going into the NHM’s Images of Nature gallery tomorrow! #woodengraving #megatherium #bones #specialcollections

Fantastic news Paul! Congratulations 🥳

A quokka standing on its hind-legs

One of the earliest European accounts of an Australian mammal was of a #quokka, by Willem de Vlamingh in 1696, here on #Rottnest - in fact, he named the island after them (Rottnest means Rat's nest in Dutch - of course it already had a Noongar name: Wadjemup). The account of the voyage... 1/2

YouTube video by Natural History Museum Creating a bronze dinosaur for the Natural History Museum gardens | The story behind Fern

Celebrating the first anniversary of Fern the Diplodocus in our garden @nhm-london.bsky.social , here's a little movie explaining exactly how we did it, starring yours truly: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Xb...

A true privilege to be able to observe such iconic wildlife up close in the wonderful Galápagos Islands - especially my all time fav, the blue footed booby. So very special to appreciate how humans and wildlife can thrive together #santacruz #sancristobal #respect

hello. if you work at a university please ask your library to buy my book. it is all about books and libraries and also plants, museums, the Royal Society, and the ways we learn. I think it will be interesting to lots of people, hopefully. thank you www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

Morning all. Meet Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae, a new neornithishian dinosaur from the Morrison Formation. It goes on display @nhm-london.bsky.social from tomorrow. Paper by @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social and I in @royalsocietypublishing.org Open Science.
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...