All posts by Grace Costantino

So, many of you participated in our BHL User Survey 2010, and we greatly appreciate your contributions! One of the most prevalent themes throughout the range of responses that we received was that our users want to be able to submit requests for scanning. So, you spoke; we listened. Introducing the new scanning request form on BHL!

Imagine that you are strolling through the forest on a fine summer morning. The birds are chirping merrily above your head, and an occasional squirrel scurries across the path in front of you. Suddenly, you reach a clearing, in the midst of which is a large pond. As you take a moment to look around, you suddenly notice a log floating carelessly through the water. Except, this is no ordinary log! Indeed, it appears to be moving! On closer inspection, you realize that this is not just a log, but a log covered with as many as 50 painted turtles, all basking in the warm summer sun. While you may never have experienced this yourself, this is indeed a sight which you might see should you find yourself around freshwater anywhere in North America from Southern Canada to northern Mexico. It is the sight of Chrysemys picta, also known as the Eastern Painted Turtle – the most common turtle in North America and one of the featured species this week on EOL.

Spring is in the air, and that means blooms are just around the corner! And this, of course, means that all you gardeners out there can dig your potting tools out of the shed and get ready to get your hands dirty. We thought we’d help by highlighting one of the many valuable gardening guides in our collection. As we sifted through our collection, one book in particular caught our eye.

To all you chocolate lovers out there: one of the featured species on EOL this week was Theobroma cacao, better known as Cacao, from whence chocolate is created. So, in the spirit of collaboration, and with a desire to feature something as deliciously addictive as chocolate, we thought we’d pull some inspiration from this featured botanical delight and showcase Theobroma cacao in this week’s book of the week. So, check out To the River Plate and back : the narrative of a scientific mission to South America, with observations upon things seen and suggested (1913), by W.J. Holland.

The lure of Antarctica has been captivating humans for hundreds of years, centuries even before the discovery of such a landmass occurred. Discussions about the existence of such a place were proposed as early as the first century AD, when Ptolemy suggested that there must be a giant landmass to the south serving to counterbalance the mass of the giant northern lands (Europe, Asia and North Africa) and preserve symmetry in the world. Following such proclamations, maps constructed as early as the 1500s began portraying a giant continent in the mysterious southern reaches of the globe. However, while belief in the existence of this southern continent permeated antiquity, it was not until the 1800s that confirmation of such a place actually occurred.

The history of botanical taxonomic literature began in a textual format as far back as the 400s B.C. Such prestigious names as Hippocrates, the “father of medicine,” and Theophrastus of Eresius, the “father of botany,” are among those to have first written about botany. These early writings, however, lacked the illustrations which are so important to botanical (and all other forms of biodiversity, for that matter) identification. Even when illustrations entered the scene, they were rare and costly, as they had to be reproduced by hand. It was the introduction of the printing press that changed this situation, as this allowed woodcuts producing line illustrations to be inserted into botanical books.

Timothy Abbott Conrad (1803-1877) enjoyed a remarkable career, and, although he is best known as an American geologist, malacologist, and carcinologist, he began his professional career as a clerk in his father’s printing and publishing house. It was not until 1831, also the year in which Conrad was elected a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, that he published his first volume, American Marine Conchology, or Descriptions and Colored Figures of the Shells of the Atlantic Coast (several plates from which are pictured here). Intending with this volume to “supply a deficiency which [had] long been felt by the cultivators of American natural history,” this volume contains seventeen plates, all illustrated by Conrad and hand colored by his sister, that depict the abundance and variation of the shells found along America’s coastline.