Lee Raye

Old World societies with bovids (sheep, taurine cattle, goats, zebus, gayals, water buffaloes, Bali cattle, yaks). 🐄 🐐 🐑
🤝
New World societies with nightshades (tomatillos, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, tobacco). 🍅 🥔 🫑

Domesticating the same family of organisms a ton of times.

The goddess Selene (Diana Luna) on a medallion held by a two-headed snake bracelet, in gold. Selene holds the "night" above her head in the manner of Nyx, with stars beneath the covering. From Pompei, First Century CE. 1/

Old Irish Goats Are Ireland's Only Indigenous Breed, and Trace Back 3,000 Years - Bytes Europe In the wilds of Ireland live a fascinating yet dwindling breed of goats known as Old Irish Goats. The species is the only indigenous breed to the Emerald

Old Irish Goats Are Ireland’s Only Indigenous Breed, and Trace Back 3,000 Years

https://www.byteseu.com/1831804/

In the wilds of Ireland live a fascinating yet dwindling breed of goats known as Old Irish Goats. The species is the only indigenous breed to the Emerald Isle, and new research may …

Breaking news: planty fella
found some Lycopodiella
Someone saw it here before,
back in 1854
Since that day, the span of time
with no report of any sign
of such a species growing here
led to thoughts of “dear oh dear”
until this dazzling display
of yellow-green was seen today!

I think they are still pretty widespread although abundance might be different. Someone told me they are even found in deeper water which makes me laugh. Like a carpet of lobsters on the Atlantic seabed! 😹

Map showing where lobsters were recorded between 1529 and 1772. There are records from every region of Britain and Ireland, and clusters of records in several areas, especially the Inner Hebrides, the Isle of Wight and Devon.

Here are all the places I know of that common lobsters were recorded by the early modern natural history authors. This map makes me laugh - there are so many records compared to other species! My sources were VERY interested in lobsters I see! 😅🦞

An image of various beasts said to live near the Nile, such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses, lions, leopards, panthers, basilisks, tigers, dragons, snakes, asps, and the Cathoplebas, which can kill any animal just by looking at it. Thankfully, this latter creature is so lazy and ponderous that it can barely lift up its head. From 'Les Secretz de l’histoire naturelle", a translation of the Benedictine scholar P. Bersuire’s encyclopedic Reductium morale (ca. 1340).

🦁 For #caturday spot the miniature lion! This is supposed to be Lower Egypt with animals & the Cathoplebas monster living near the Nile.

🦄 The artist clearly never saw any of the animals, other than the parrot perhaps? 🦜

🗃️ #arthistory #art #cat #lion #medievalsky #bird

Eagle folklore: Implications for species’ conservation and extinction Tracey Hayes’ PhD research seeks to investigate the folk beliefs, narratives and traditions related to eagles in Ireland’s National Folklore Collection, housed in University College Dublin.

EAGLE FOLKLORE: IMPLICATIONS FOR SPECIES’ CONSERVATION AND EXTINCTION #Folklore
www.york.ac.uk/anthropocene...

The image is a drawing of a Kalmyk and his horse by Élisée Reclus, from his series "L’Homme et la Terre." Reclus was a French geographer and writer in the 19th century.

1/4
Throughout the Kalmyk oral epic, Jangar, the essential role of the horse is stressed over and over again. Each hero has a named horse who at times, acts as a character in its own right. Early on, when a young Jangar is wounded, he is saved by his horse Aranzal:

#history #folklore

First Solid Evidence of Hannibal's Infamous War Elephants Discovered in Spain Elephants are not exactly commonplace in the European landscape, so when archaeologists uncovered an elephant foot bone among the rubble of an Iron Age dig in Spain, they knew it could be something sp...

First Solid Evidence of Hannibal's Infamous War Elephants Discovered in Spain : ScienceAlert
www.sciencealert.com/first-solid-...

Part of a hand-coloured engraving of a Roman mosaic showing a white leopard with yellow spots in profile running to the right. The animal is flanked by trees with colourful, lotus-like leaves.

For this #MosaicMonday, continuing the homage to the Withington Orpheus mosaic. Some of the animals are now excitingly on display @coriniummuseum.bsky.social, including this colourful leopard who is among those recently let out from the BM's store. 1/2

Otter is Cambridge University’s latest furry fresher The apex predator has taken up residence along the banks of the river Cam in big win for local conservation efforts

‘Lord #Byron, prohibited as a student from bringing a dog into [Trinity] College, #Cambridge, instead brought a bear.

In a letter in 1806, the poet wrote: “When I brought him here, they asked me what to do with him, and my reply was, ‘he should sit for a fellowship.’”

Japanese Archipelago Was Once a Refuge for Cave Lions | Sci.News Between 73,000 and 20,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene), the Japanese Archipelago was inhabited by cave lions (Panthera spelaea), according to a new genetic and proteomic analysis of fossilized felid r...

"...Japanese specimens formed a well-supported monophyletic group nested within the Late Pleistocene cave lion lineage... spelaea-1.

The authors suggest... cave lions persisted in the Japanese Archipelago for at least 20k years after their extinction in Eurasia..."

www.sci.news/paleontology...

This is King Ferdinand VI of Spain
Besides ruling one of the largest empires on Earth or attempting a full genocide on Spanish gipsy people, he hunted. A lot. And recorded the killings
OA PAPER Building historical biodiversity databases from royal hunts
Thread below
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Photo of the described owl art. It looks like muddy scratch marks on a mottled brown cave wall. The head is very round with two upright lines for ears and a line in the center for a beak. Numerous parallel lines suggest plumage on the wings.

The oldest known image of an owl:

More than 30,000 years ago, someone skillfully scratched the figure of a long-eared owl (Asio otus) into the soft outer layer of the walls of Chauvet Cave, France. The owl is looking backward over their wings, head turned 180 degrees
carnegiemnh.org/ancient-owl-...

Photo of described owl brooch. Its body is a metallic gray, shaped like a pear fallen on its side, with a tail like a shuttlecock, a sprig-like leg, and two large orange eyes. The center of the body is infilled with green enamel and almost peacock-like concentric circles of red, yellow, and black.

On the the island of Bornholm, Denmark, archaeologists unearthed this enchanting and unusually colorful Iron Age Roman owl brooch w/ a transfixing gaze. Made of bronze, finely decorated w/ enamel and glass, it was likely used to fasten a cloak or other garment.
www.sciencenordic.com/archaeology-...

My photo shows a roughly square-shaped piece of limestone with a relief carving depicting a front facing owl on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This relief represents the ancient Egyptian owl hieroglyph ‘m’. Limestone plaque dimensions H. 10.3 x W. 11.1 x D. 2.5 cm

Happy #SuperbOwlSunday!

Here’s a lovely limestone plaque carved with the face of an owl!🦉😍

From Egypt, Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, 400–30 BC.

Met Museum www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

📷 by me

#Archaeology

"Owl makes nest in mouth of dinosaur statue at Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, Britain - 24 Nov 2014"

Let's meet one of the earliest fossil owls, Berruornis orbisantiqui.

The name means "old-world bird from Mont Berru (France)".

It was ENORMOUS, with wing-span up to 1.5 m (5 ft), but I need to bend your brain a little.

See, the earliest owls VERY NEARLY OVERLAP with dinosaurs like T. rex.

Cats to Blame for Octopus Deity Enshrinement Delay Hayasuhime Shrine in Oita prefecture is a rarity in Japan because it is dedicated to the octopus. When local sculptor Kousei Hashimoto was tasked with creating a new deity to be enshrined, he expected for it to be completed by the end of the year. But the neighborhood cats had different plans.

"Cats to blame for octopus deity enshrinement delay"

spoon-tamago.com/cats-to-blam...

Making Tracks: Bargoed and Gilfach Fargoed Jon Gower The Bargoed coal tip in the Rhymney valley used to be the biggest in Europe, so big in fact that some locals called it a mountain. This huge mound of spoil was the consequence of Bargoed col...

The Bargoed coal tip used to be the biggest in Europe, so big that some locals called it a mountain. Now it’s surrounded by pockets of ancient woodland, is home to otters, kingfishers, and cormorants, and is still the subject of artwork and literature ✍️ Jon Gower

Image by/for the official LGBT+ History Month project founded by School's out. Shows Robert Boyle (25th January 1627 - 31 December 1691). There is a portrait of him with long curly hair and a lacy collar, with the LGBT+ History Month logo for 2026 - a test-tube with a rainbow exploding from it.

Happy LGBT+ History Month!
Robert Boyle (1627-1691) one of the founding members of the @royalsociety.org will be remembered this year. A bit of a queer black sheep, he was strongly against relationships with women, much to the dismay of his friends... 🏳️‍🌈🧵
#LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

This is the best article I found for understanding the queer history of Robert Boyle but it's paywalled... @historyofscience.bsky.social would you please consider making it open access just for LGBT+ history month this year, since Robert Boyle is a 2026 theme? 💜 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I had ever so much fun going through these materials, so thanks for making Robert Boyle one of the figures for the year @lgbthm.bsky.social!

'What an unhappiness is it for a person who (having spent his time in your service...) is by that tyrannous usurper, custom, subpoenaed into company, where the very intention of meeting is to spend that time you have taught him to be so thrifty of and where the discourse is commonly such trifling wit or such irreligious seriousness that (like a spider & his cobweb) I may, without wronging them say their finespun threads are altogether useless & that which seems more solid, poisonous.'

Boyle wrote another AMAZING pamphlet called 'Scaping into his Study, out of a Crowd of extraordinarily vaine Company of both Sexes' which I feel is an iconic title which might resonate with many of us queer introverts & outcast party-poopers. 🐱📖 www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/display/10.1...

This made John Evelyn rather plaintively complain (Sep 29, 1659) that, nooo marriage is great! 😭 Being a 'seraphim', is an okay lifestyle for SOME people but, not for YOU Robert Boyle! Please stop being so indifferent to romance and get married! 🙄
emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/w/956215 #asexualhistory?

'And this truth, Lindamor, the very fickleness of lovers concurs to testify. For what men call, and think, 'inconstancy' is nothing but a chase of perfect beauties which our love fruitlessly follows and seeks in several objects, because it finds it not entire in any one. For creatures have but small and obscure fragments of it which cannot fix, not satisfy an appetite born for and (though unwittingly) aspiring unto God, who is proclaimed the true and proper object of our love, as well as by men's fickleness to women, and the angel's constancy to him.'

He later wrote this pamphlet on 'Seraphic Love'. He describes how love for god is much better than any romantic or erotic love which is always delusional (putting your partner on a pedestal) and dangerous for you health & wellbeing. Romance is fickle by nature! 👼💘 archive.org/details/bub_...

'Nor did he sometimes scruple, in his governor's company, to visit the famous-est bordellow, whither resorting out of bare curiosity, he retained there an unblemished chastity, and still returned thence as honest as he went thither, protesting that he never found any such sermons against them as they were against themselves; the impudent nakedness of vice clothing it with a deformity description cannot reach and the worst of epithets cannot but flatter. But though Philaretus were [Robert Boyle was] no fuel for forbidden flames he proved the object of unnatural ones; for being at that time in the flower of youth and the cares of the world having not yet faded a complection naturally fresh enough, as he was once unaccompanied diverting himself abroad, he was somewhat rudely pressed by the preposterous courtship of two friers whose lust makes no distinction of sexes, but that which its preference of their own creates. And not without difficulty and danger [he] forced a scape from those gowned sodemites, whose goatish heats served not a little to arm Philaretus against such people's specious hypocrisy, and heightened and fortified in him an averseness for opinions, which now the religious discredit as well as the religion.

Here's a famous description from his autobiography of his feeling of disgust as a teenager visiting a brothel for the first time, and equal disgust at the attempts of two friers to seduce him. 🙅‍♂️🤢🖤 #queerhistory
archive.org/details/bub_...

Image by/for the official LGBT+ History Month project founded by School's out. Shows Robert Boyle (25th January 1627 - 31 December 1691). There is a portrait of him with long curly hair and a lacy collar, with the LGBT+ History Month logo for 2026 - a test-tube with a rainbow exploding from it.

Happy LGBT+ History Month!
Robert Boyle (1627-1691) one of the founding members of the @royalsociety.org will be remembered this year. A bit of a queer black sheep, he was strongly against relationships with women, much to the dismay of his friends... 🏳️‍🌈🧵
#LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26

My photo shows the left side profile of a head of a cave lion skilfully carved from mammoth ivory some 40,000 years ago (Aurignacian culture). Carved details include muzzle, nose, eye, raised ears, and cross-hatching on the neck to indicate a mane. The ivory is a light creamy brown in colour with a surface sheen, and darker patches caused by time spent buried in the ground. It is displayed against a dark background. The head measures 2.95 cm in length x 2.11 cm in height. On display Landesmuseum Württemberg Stuttgart.

Wonderful Ice Age art!

Some 40,000 years ago, this tiny head of a cave lion was skilfully sculpted from mammoth ivory. It is one of the oldest known works of figurative art!

📷 by me

#Archaeology

#FrescoFriday

The painted #garden scenes from the Villa of Livia gives insight into the #flora and #fauna of ancient #Rome umbrella pine, oak, red fir, quince, pomegranate, myrtle. As well as the #bird species for the keen #Roman #birdwatcher. 😉