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  • News
  • Featured Books
    • All Featured Books
    • Book of the Month Series
    • BHL at 20
  • User Stories
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    • Fossil Stories
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    • Monsters Are Real
    • Page Frights
    • Her Natural History
    • Earth Optimism 2020
  • Tech Blog
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Biodiversity Heritage Library - Program news and collection highlights from BHL
BHL News, Blog Reel

Groundbreaking News!

View Full Size ImageBHL is thrilled to announce that construction has already begun on our brand new brick-and-mortar library that will house a physical copy of each of the over 159,000 volumes currently digitized and, until now, only available online. Demand for physical access to the digitized copies has been steadily growing over the years, so in an effort to reach users without access to the Internet, we’ve begun the painstaking process of transcription. We realize that much of the value of the BHL collection is derived from the sense of history that one receives while researching these texts–many 300 and 400 years old. In order to preserve that sense, we are replicating the publishing processes and techniques that were common during and before the peak of the industrial revolution.

It’s not cheap and it’s far from easy, but we think you’ll understand why we have gone to all the trouble as you enter the lobby of our new building. The card catalog alone sprawls an impressive half acre. Librarians will be on hand to begin issuing BHL library cards for lending as early as next Fall. See You Soon!

BTW, April Fool’s! šŸ˜‰

April 1, 2010by jwinberry
BHL News, Blog Reel

Return of the Dodo?! BHL joins the larger scientific community in expressing shock, excitement!

Portrait version of the Biodiversity Heritage Library logo.

View Full Size ImageWhat appears to be a male Dodo bird (Raphus cucullatus) approximately 2 and a half feet tall has been discovered today, April 1, nesting among the bushes in the butterfly garden of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. How the creature, that hasn’t been seen since the 17th century, has come to reside Washington, DC remains a mystery. Smithsonian Security was alerted to the presence of the bird by an alert tourist who heard the loud syncopated calls of the once thought extinct bird. Nicknamed ā€œLazarus,ā€ the Dodo exhibits a friendly curiosity about humans, clearly enjoying the excitement and attention its presence is generating.

Orthinologists and evolutionary biologists from around the world are currently pouring into Washington to investigate.


The Biodiversity Heritage Library contains a number of references to the Dodo’s current taxonomic name (Raphus cucullatus), as well as over two hundred references to the earlier scientific synonym (Didus ineptus). You can also find references to the taxonomic family (Raphidae) and 400 plus references to Didus, the synonym for the genus.

The description, by Linnaeus, can be found in the 1766 edition of Systeme naturae.

A few of illustrations of the Dodo from the BHL can be found here:

  • 1829. Illustration from John V. Thompson’s article (above)
  • 1889. Facsimile of Piso’s figure of the Dodo
  • 1900. Fig. 66.— Dodo, Didus ineptus. (After Savery’s Vienna picture.)

Of particular interest is this short article by John V. Thompson. “Art. IV. Contributions towards the Natural History of the Dodo (Didus ineptus Lin.), (Fig. 107.) a Bird which appears to have become extinct towards the End of the Seventeenth or Beginning of the Eighteenth Century” in Magazine of natural history and journal of zoology, botany, mineralogy, geology and meteorology (volume 2, 1829), pp.442-48. At the time the article was written, there was still debate on the topic of extinction and if species known to contemporary humans could cease to exist. Thompson’s article also includes an overview summary of the then known history of the Dodo.

Learn more about life at the Biodiversity Heritage Library!

Reported by Erin Thomas, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

April 1, 2009by [email protected]

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About BHL

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global “biodiversity community.”

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