Biodiversity Heritage Library

It's #WorldSalmonDay, which is all about eating salmon (health benefits, #SustainableFishing, etc), so, we thought we'd recycle our #FatBearWeek posts. Bon appetite! 🐟 #NationalSalmonDay #ILoveBHL

We're going a bit batty in celebration of #BatAppreciationMonth. Archibald Thorburn's "British Mammals" (1920-1921) contains some of our favorite bat #SciArt in #BHLib. Check it out thanks to #FieldMuseum
➡️ www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48418555 #BatMonth 🦇 🧪

A colour illustration of Vampyroteuthis infernalis. The main body is painted black, with eyes painted to look bioluminescent

From our rare books collection we have this illustration of Vampyroteuthis infernalis, also known as the vampire squid from hell. In an order of its own, we don't really think the vampiric moniker is fair either as they actually feed on detritus and not blood #EYAMonsters

Did you know that BHL has #FullTextSearch? You can search for scientific names, places, etc, but you can also find all the things that "Alfred Russell Wallace" found "delicious" in his travels (search for "delicious" and then narrow search results by author). #ILoveBHL www.biodiversitylibrary.org 🧪

To all our UK colleagues, happy #NationalBadgerDay! These badgers are based on a painting by Henry Hamilton Johnston & published in his "British Mammals" (1903), freely available in #BHLib via @amnh.org: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/9409345 #WorldBadgerDay #MammalMonday #LoveBadgers #ILoveBHL

Drawing of bats from 1870 from the Biodiversity Heritage Library collections. There are three large bats in the foreground, hanging upside down and then several smaller bats in background. Drawings are in black. Bat in the middle has wings cutely closely around his body, the top bat is sort of climging a branch, and bottom most bat looks like he's scratching an itch.

It's Bat Appreciation Month! To celebrate, I'm gonna try to share a bat a day. I'm three days late, but better late than never. Plus, I appreciate bats 24/7, 365. First up, here's a great image of bats from the Biodiversity Heritage Library which is currently directed by @treiceratops.bsky.social!

A profile black and white photograph of Jane Goodall

BHL joins the world mourning Jane Goodall. In 1999 she was awarded the David S Ingalls Jr Award for Excellence for her extraordinary contribution to science & conservation: she was even then “the most widely known & respected woman scientist in the world” www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/51810328 🧪

Happy #RaccoonAppreciationDay! Raccoons are highly intelligent and play an important role in our #ecosystem. This raccoon #SciArt is from Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle (1847-1849) www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/19537971 #ILoveBHL

Screenshot of query results with Biodiversity Heritage Library images of bird, fish, plants and flowers.

I've been testing my extremely rudimentary SPARQL skills and created this basic @wikicommons.bsky.social query w.wiki/FVMn It returns all those @biodivlibrary.bsky.social images with both a BHL page id and depicts statements in their structured data. #BHL #WikiCommons #PrettyPictures

Dinosaur found with a crocodile in its jaws named as new species A fossil from about 66 million years ago reveals a species of dinosaur that is new to science, with claws that would have ripped through its prey's flesh

A fossil from about 66 million years ago reveals a species of dinosaur that is new to science, with claws that would have ripped through its prey's flesh

🐜🔥 The Bull Ant is getting ready… are you?

Only 25 days to go until the Great Southern BioBlitz 2025! 🌍✨
From ants to whales, every observation counts. Grab your camera, phone, and join nature lovers across the Southern Hemisphere.

📅 24–27 October 2025
👉 buff.ly/nhAd2B1

Happy Black-footed Ferret Day! The BFF was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered on September 26, 1981. This illustration is from the species' first published description in "The quadrupeds of North America" (1851) by #Audubon & Bachman. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34896869 #BFFDay

Cover of the January-February 2021 issue (v.74) of African Violet Magazine, the journal of the African Violet Society of America (avsa.org). Image is of profusely blooming lavender blue standard variety "Optimara Manitoba," exhibited by: Mary Corondan, hybridized by: Holtkamp. Photo Credit: Winston Goretsky Streptocarpus sect. #Saintpaulia Usambaraveilchen (Usambara violets)

TIL: The @biodivlibrary.bsky.social has digitised, downloadable copies of every issue of #AfricanViolet magazine from vol. 1 in 1947-48 to vol. 74 in 2021, courtesy of the Chicago Botanical Garden Lenhardt Library.

www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography...

Each year more content moves into the #publicdoman and hence @biodivlibrary.bsky.social can make more articles freely available. Today I've added articles from the Annales of @socentomolfr.bsky.social 1923-1928 to BioStor biostor.org/issn/0037-9271 and these will appear in BHL shortly.

A fat brown bear standing in front of a river with its front paws on a rock. There are snow covered mountains in the distance.

It's #FatBearWeek! To celebrate, here's a nice #FatBear from BHL's image collection. For more historic #SciArt of bears (of all sizes) see our BHL Flickr collection: www.flickr.com/photos/biodi.... For this year's fattest bears, see www.explore.org/fat-bear-week 🐻

From Collections to Commons: Announcing a Wikimedian in Residence at Manaaki Whenua From Collections to Commons: Announcing a Wikimedian in Residence at Manaaki Whenua Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research Group now have a Wikimedian in Residence on board, […]

Manaaki Whenua have appointed Siobhan Leachman as their Wikimedian in Residence!

Supporting staff to share their expertise, @siobhanleachman.bsky.social will be assisting the group with contributing content from their nationally significant collections to openly accessible Wikimedia platforms.

The first scientific description of the gorilla was published in 1847 by American physician Thomas Staughton Savage & naturalist Jeffries Wyman in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. #WorldGorillaDay #sciart #apes #skull #illustrations www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32267712

New this week! We’ve recently uploaded the “Handbook of forest trees for Victorian foresters”. The work of botanist Alfred Ewart, this book had an intended audience of forest officers & students of botany and forestry.

Explore the volume here:

www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/65053311

No, you cant. The Biodiversity Heritage Library is like nothing else in the history of the world.

Thank you for sharing @julietalbot.bsky.social !

Drawings of an array of reptiles in black and white with a sepia background that screams "old scientific journal article".

As I'm preparing new lecture material, I'm reminded again of what a wonderful ressource the @biodivlibrary.bsky.social is! It's the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives and it is well worth a visit (the images and the thematic collections are amazing)💚

#SciArt from "The book of the animal kingdom" by William Percival Westell, London, 1910. 📖 🧪 🦣 www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10102652

A large orange-red shaggy mammoth with big white rusks, walking through the snow. There are trees and a rhino in the background.

The BHL online collection just hit 200,000 titles! A title could be a single rare book or an entire 200-year journal run, so 200,000 titles is huge (63+ million pages!). Check out BHL's MAMMOTH collection here: www.biodiversitylibrary.org 📖 🧪 🦣 #OpenAccess #OpenScience #ILoveBHL

#Sciart from Curtis's Botanical Magazine (1811): Carolinea minor, now called Pachira minor. More familiarly known as the #MoneyTree: www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/476968

BHL's future is uncertain, but hopeful. Securing its future requires new partners & sustained investment. For more information, follow along here & on the #BHLblog: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/tag/transition. Help us safeguard the world’s collective biodiversity knowledge. #ILoveBHL 🧪 📖 🌱 🌏

Can’t overstate how valuable a resource BHL is

The Australian branch of BHL regularly adds in-copyright content to BHL that is not available anywhere else online (alongside their digitisation of #RareBooks, #HistoricJournals & #Archives). Follow along here: @bhl-au.bsky.social. 🇦🇺 🦘 🐨 🌏 📖 🧪

YouTube video by Tiago Lubiana The BHL Image Explorer — A search tool for public domain biodiversity images

My amazing #Wiki colleague @tiagolubiana.bsky.social has released this lovely video on the #BHLImageExporer. This tool (bhl-gallery.toolforge.org) explores @biodivlibrary.bsky.social images in #Wikicommons. It facilities image reuse in the #Wikiverse. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK9i... #ILoveBHL

🧡💀Cover Spotlight!💀🧡

Spooky Season starts with the cover of The Salvage by Anbara Salam (10/7/25)!

Designed by Beth Steidle using image Callistoctopus macropus (White-spotted Octopus),1896; Biodiversity Heritage Library.

🧡💀 More info about The Salvage & preorder: bit.ly/TheSalvageBook

Today is #ThreatenedSpeciesDay, which marks the anniversary of the death of the last #thylacine in Hobart zoo in 1936. Their part in the record of Australian culture is long: there are examples of rock art that depict the marsupial.