All posts by Grace Costantino

For this week’s book of the week, we feature the beautiful illustrations of André Marie Constant Duméril’s Erpétologie générale, ou, Histoire naturelle complète des reptiles, found within the 1854 Atlas volume. In this nine volume work, 1,393 species of reptiles and amphibians are described, and “their anatomy, physiology and bibliography are specified.

While much of the focus today has been concentrated on the existing life on planet Earth, and how to protect and preserve it, there is still a great deal of interest, and indeed things to be learned, from that life which has ceased to exist on our planet. With this in mind, we focus this week on the title Animals of the Past (1901) by Frederic A. Lucas.

Last summer, 2010, we implemented a scanning request form by which our user community can request titles to be scanned and added to our ever-growing online collection. The feature was a runaway success, with 787 requests received to date. As we work to fulfill these requests, we thought it might be nice to highlight just a few of the rare item requests we’ve scanned thus far.

Are those snails in your salad?

Apparently this is the question that our book of the week, The Field and Garden Vegetables of America, suggests that dinner guests will ask their host or hostess should Medicago obicularis be playfully added to the plate. However, rest assured, Medicago obicularis, more commonly known as Button Clover or Button Medick, will not threaten to ooze snail slime all over the salad greens.

It is no secret that the Biodiversity Heritage Library project has grown on a global scale, with BHL projects springing up in Europe, China, Australia, Brazil, and Egypt. Many of our new partners rely of the experience of BHL-US, as the original BHL project has come to be known, for insight and suggestions. One such partner is BHL-Europe, and a recent BHL-EU meeting in London proved to be a valuable opportunity to not only allow our European partners to gather and discuss various technical and workflow issues, but also to allow representatives from BHL-US to provide input based on our experience.

The concept of threatened and endangered species is not a new idea for most of the world. Most are now well aware of the shadow that looms over so much of the magnificent life on our planet. While many efforts are underway around the globe to protect the species that are threatened, it is important to continue to raise awareness of the plight faced by so many of the creatures that share our planet.

So, our last book of the week took a look at Darwin’s voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle through the eyes of a child. We thought it fitting this week to continue with the theme of the H.M.S Beagle, wrapping it together with one of the featured species on EOL this week, the Sphoeroides angusticeps, or the Narrow-Headed Puffer.