Pl. XXIII. Wolf, Johann. Abbildungen und Beschreibungen merkwürdiger naturgeschichtlicher Gegenstände. 1818-1822. Atlas. Contributed in BHL from the Field Museum of Natural History Library.

Not many birds bedazzle as thoroughly as the adult male Painted Bunting. No matter how many you’ve seen or how often, every one remains a source of startlement, whether it is emerging shyly from a Florida thicket, swaying on a heavy grass halm in the deserts of Arizona, or chewing steadily at a feeder in snowy Massachusetts. This, the most gaudily colored bird north of Mexico, is guaranteed to create a stir.

Numb. LXVIII. Albin, Eleazar. A natural history of birds. 1731-1738. v. 3. Art by Elizabeth Albin. Contributed in BHL from the Smithsonian Libraries.

That stir was even greater three hundred years ago, when European natural historians first confronted this novel beauty. So colorful was the bird that the first scientists to describe it believed that it must be native to regions even more exotic than America. Eleazar Albin, in the notes accompanying his or his daughter Elizabeth Albin’s 1737 engraving of the species, reported that the bird had been brought to England from China for the pleasure “of a curious Gentleman” (Albin 1738). A dozen years on, Linnaeus, having failed to find the bird described or depicted in the handbooks available to him, diagnosed it as a new species, which he inscrutably named Emberiza ciris, and determined that with so brightly colored a plumage, the specimens could have come only from India (Linnaeus 1750).

Tab. VII. Linnaeus, Carl. “En Indianisk sparf.” Kongliga Swenska vetenskapsacademiens handlingar ser. 1, v. 11. 1750. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

With the benefit of nearly three centuries’ hindsight, such wild geographic speculation was strictly speaking unnecessary. As early as the 1720s, the natural historian Mark Catesby had seen, drawn, and described the Painted Bunting in southeastern North America, an account that he published in London in 1729 (Catesby 1729). Moreover, the Spanish in America had known the bird even before that, poetically naming it the “mariposa pintada,” the ultimate source of the species’ modern English name. (Coincidentally, it was by way of Spain that Linnaeus’s type specimen would later reach Sweden.) In their early publications, neither Albin nor Linnaeus reveals any awareness of these facts, but in 1758, Linnaeus included the colorful little finch in the tenth edition of the Systema with a citation to Catesby and, this time, an accurate, if not overly precise, statement of its range: “Habitat in America” (Linnaeus 1758).

Even as he corrected earlier misapprehensions about the bird’s geographic distribution, Linnaeus introduced a new confusion into the historical record of the Painted Bunting. In the 1758 Systema, the formal species diagnosis—based, of course, on the colorful adult male—is followed by a description of the female, which is “blue, with white on the belly only, [and] becomes almost gray in winter” (Linnaeus 1758). The only citation Linnaeus gives for this brief account of the female is Catesby, who, he says, depicted her on Plate 44 of his Natural History of Carolina under the name Liniaria caerulea (Linnaeus 1758).

T. 44. Catesby, Mark. The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. v. 1 (1729-1732). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

In fact, however, Catesby portrays only the male Painted Bunting on Plate 44 as published, and the accompanying text describes the female of that species quite differently, as “remarkable for her plain Colour, which is not unlike that of a Hen-Sparrow, but with a faint Tincture of Green” (Catesby 1729). Catesby treats his Liniara caerulea—the bird we know as the Indigo Bunting—as a distinct species, the Blew Linnet, the male of which is depicted on his Plate 45 and not, as Linnaeus erroneously indicates, Plate 44.

T. 45. Catesby, Mark. The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. v. 1 (1729-1732). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

It is easy to forgive the odd typographical error in the nearly 1,400 pages of the 1758 Systema. But Linnaeus’s erroneous “lump” of the two bunting species and his mistaken claim that both are depicted on the same plate in Catesby are more than mere slips of the pen. Instead, these misstatements complicate what is generally thought of as the direct and straightforward link between Catesby and Linnaeus (for example, Stone 1929), shifting attention instead to the Swedish taxonomer’s still under-appreciated reliance on a different, intermediate source—the ornithological works of George Edwards.

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In August of 1736, Linnaeus wrote to a botanical colleague that he had just returned from England, where he had spoken with Catesby “and the other botanists” (Linnaeus 1736). This was their only meeting. As prolific a correspondent as Linnaeus was, the sum total of extant letters between the two great naturalists is a single brief cover note accompanying a small shipment of plants Catesby sent to Sweden (Jarvis 2015). More surprising still, Linnaeus “almost certainly” did not own any of the volumes of Catesby’s Carolina, apparently consulting the Englishman’s work instead in the libraries of colleagues and patrons in Sweden and The Netherlands (Jarvis 2015).

The intellectual and personal relationship that bound Linnaeus and George Edwards ran far deeper—and centered not on botany but on ornithology. Linnaeus would eventually name nearly 350 species of birds on the basis of descriptions, paintings, and etchings furnished by Edwards over the years (Lederer 2019). A. Stuart Mason goes so far as to name Linnaeus as Edwards’s “admirer” (Mason 1992), an assessment amply vouched for in the preserved correspondence of the two naturalists. It is uncertain whether the two well-traveled colleagues ever met (James 1933), but Linnaeus clearly held Edwards and his work in considerable esteem.

Portrait of George Edwards. Edwards, George. A natural history of birds. pt. 1 (1743). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

In a 1759 letter introducing Edwards to Daniel Solander, the Swedish taxonomer names Edwards as preeminent among contemporary ornithologists, and pronounces himself happy to have lived to see the Englishman’s work with his own eyes (Linnaeus 1759). On the completion in 1764 of Edwards’s Gleanings of Natural History, Linnaeus would send his congratulations for having introduced to science “so very many extraordinarily rare birds, such a number as no one else has ever discovered or ever will, or far less will ever illustrate them so vividly that your birds are lacking only their song. They will sing your fame for as long as there are birds and men. Thanks to them, you have become an immortal ornament to our age…. Count me among your sincere admirers!” (Linnaeus 1765).

So great was Linnaeus’s respect for his English colleague that he had hung his portrait on the wall of his cabinet, where it served as a daily reminder of Edwards’s accomplishments (Linnaeus 1758b). Paintings, prints, and written descriptions passed between the two men almost non-stop, including both published and unpublished works (see, e.g., Edwards 1757 and Edwards 1760). The fact that Edwards sent Linnaeus “black”—that is to say, uncolored—plates from the Gleanings suggests that his gift was more than a simple ornamental courtesy, submitted instead for serious study.

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In addition to his own significant accomplishments, George Edwards played a major role in preserving and promoting the works of Mark Catesby, whom he outlived by nearly a quarter of a century. The connection of the two men was both a personal and a professional one: not only did Catesby share certain of his specimens with Edwards (Edwards 1747), but he was so generous as to offer to teach Edwards, his “nearest rival” and his “good friend” alike, to etch his own plates for publication (Mason 1992). In turn, Edwards would see a second, posthumous edition of Catesby’s Carolina through the press beginning in 1754—and he would serve as his friend and mentor’s literary and artistic executor, preparing Catesby’s Nachlaß for auction to the benefit of the elder artist’s widow (McBurney 2015).

Edwards was clearly ideally situated to serve as the point of transmission between his two friends Catesby and Linnaeus, particularly so, of course, after Catesby’s death in 1749. With no convenient access to Carolina, the great Swede would quite naturally have relied on his London colleague’s intimate familiarity with Catesby’s work. Edwards, however, was not a transparent conduit, passing Catesbiana on to Upsalla verbatim. Instead, much of what he provided Linnaeus—and much of what is attributed in the Systema straightforwardly to “Catesby”—was in fact decidedly second-hand, filtered through Edwards’s own use, and in some cases his own reassessment, of Catesby’s American material in his ornithological works.

This should be unsurprising given the structure, chronological and geographic, of the network binding Linnaeus, Catesby, and Edwards, but until now it seems that the citations to “Catesby” in the Systema have been accepted at face value, as direct and unmediated references to that author’s Carolina. That assumption explains the persistent puzzlement in the scholarship as to “why Linnaeus omitted a number of Catesby’s birds” from the 1758 edition of the Systema, birds Catesby had illustrated, described, and published a generation earlier (Stevens 1936). O.A. Stevens counted ten such mysterious omissions, birds present in the first edition of Catesby’s Carolina but for some reason not taken over into the 1758 Systema.

If we accept that Linnaeus was not making direct use of Catesby but was instead relying on Edwards’s reception of Catesby, the matter is easily explained: of the ten species of Catesbeyan birds Linnaeus ignored, all ten—the Blue-winged Teal, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Tufted Titmouse, Gray Catbird, American Robin, Red-Winged Blackbird, Orchard Oriole, and Indigo Bunting—had also been excluded from Edwards’s Natural History of Birds. Had Linnaeus directly consulted Catesby’s Carolina, he would have had no reason to leave those species aside; depending entirely on Edwards, however, he would have had no reason to even suspect their existence.

Title Page. Edwards, George. A natural history of birds. Pt. 1 (1743). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

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That this was in fact the true chain of transmission—from Catesby to Edwards to Linnaeus, and not, as has long been assumed, directly from Catesby to Linnaeus—is demonstrated as well by the twisting career of the Painted Bunting in the ornithological works of all three authors.

As pointed out above, Linnaeus’s account of this species in the 1758 Systema introduces certain inconsistencies with his claimed source, Catesby’s Carolina. First, Linnaeus asserts that the female Painted Bunting is blue with a white belly, turning gray in the colder season; Catesby had described her quite differently, as dull-colored and sparrow-like, with an overtone of green. Linnaeus then goes on to cite Catesby’s Plate 44 as the authority for his description; in fact, though, that plate depicts only the male Painted Bunting, while the bird Linnaeus mistakes for the female, in reality a male Indigo Bunting, is shown on the following Plate 45.

These errors, at first regard trivial, are in fact revelatory of George Edwards’s crucial role as the link between the ornithologies of Catesby and Linnaeus. In his Natural History, published the year after Catesby’s death, Edwards corrected what he believed was his friend and mentor’s misapprehension. Edwards wrote that the tricolored bird of Catesby’s Plate 44—a Painted Bunting—and the blue bird of Plate 45—an Indigo Bunting—“are both the same; the one not arrived at its perfect Colour, and the other perfect…. This Bird in its first State resembles a Hen Sparrow, its second is Blue, and its last as the above described [that is to say, the particolored adult male Painted Bunting], with many intermixed Stages between each of these” (Edwards 1750).

Page 130. Edwards, George. A natural history of birds. v. 3 (1750). Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

In London, Edwards had studied a cageful of buntings of various colors, brought to Lady Anson from Mexico by Admiral Knowles; the conclusions he drew about the species’ plumage sequence were affirmed by his friend and patron John Monro (Edwards 1750). Linnaeus’s citation to “Catesby” notwithstanding, it was Edwards’s assessment of the buntings as “both the same,” and not Catesby’s original identification of two distinct species, that entered Linnaeus’s Systema in 1758.

Edwards must be held responsible, too, for Linnaeus’s erroneous reference to Catesby’s Plate 44 for the “female” of the Painted Bunting (in fact, the male of the Indigo Bunting). As already noted, the plate published as number 44 in Carolina depicts only a male Painted Bunting—but a watercolor painted in preparation for that plate, one of the unpublished works the sale of which Edwards facilitated on Catesby’s death, shows two birds sharing a perch in a magnolia (RL 25875). The upper individual is a brightly colored male Painted Bunting; the lower is an adult male Indigo Bunting. Each is labeled, in Catesby’s hand, as an apparently distinct species: the Painted Bunting as “Tricolor. Ligurinus,” the Indigo as “Linaria Cœrulea.” At least the upper inscription antedates the trimming and mounting of the sheet. Most tellingly, Catesby also numbered his painting, “44.”

Illustration by Mark Catesby of Painted bunting Passerina ciris (L.), indigo bunting Passerina cyanea (L.), and sweet bay Magnolia virginiana (L.). Sourced from the Royal Collection Trust. Image metadata reads: “Inscribed on the recto in pen and ink in Catesby’s hand, upper right: ‘Tricolour. Ligurinus’; lower right: ‘Linaria Caerulea’; upper right corner ’44’. The Painted Finch appears in Volume I, Plate 44, and the Blue Linnet in Volume I, Plate 45, of Catesby’s The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.” Source link: https://www.rct.uk/collection/925875/recto-the-paintednbspfinch-the-blue-linnet-and-the-sweet-flowering-bayverso-the

That number is clearly a reference to the Plate 44 that Catesby would subsequently publish in his Carolina. Plate 44 depicts only one bird, an adult male Painted Bunting. That bird is clearly based on the individual in Catesby’s earlier painting, now perched somewhat more steadily in a somewhat more decorative magnolia. The Indigo Bunting figured in the painting was also taken over into the published work, but on a separate plate—Plate 45—where it balances tremulously on the leaf of a trillium.

Linnaeus’s citation to Catesby’s Plate 44 for his description of the female Painted Bunting makes sense only if it in fact refers to the preliminary painting, not to the published plate. The painting certainly passed through Edwards’s hands as he prepared the Catesby estate for auction, and it is reasonable to conclude that the information he supplied Linnaeus was based on that “44,” not on the published plate assigned that number. The painting’s confrontation of the two buntings—in spite of Catesby’s labels—could be read as confirmation of Edwards’s theory of conspecificity, a theory he had illustrated himself, wordlessly, in a whimsical 1732 painting depicting what we now recognize as a Painted and an Indigo Bunting posed intimately on the same branch.

Edwards’s bunting painting, from Mason, “The Bedell and His Birds”. Source: Rick Wright on Flickr.

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In reliance on Edwards’s initial understanding of the species’ status and plumages, Linnaeus again identified the male Indigo Bunting as a female Painted in the eleventh, 1760 edition of the Systema naturae (Linnaeus 1760). The truth would out, however, and in 1766, in what was the first major revision since 1758, the twelfth edition of the Systema “split” the buntings to recognize the Indigo as a separate species, Tangara cyanea, for the first time; describing only the adult male (“blue, with blackish rectrices”), Linnaeus now cites the correct text page and plate from Catesby’s Carolina (Linnaeus 1766).

Linnaeus’s change of view had been preceded, half a dozen years earlier, by another reassessment of the buntings: that in George Edwards’s Gleanings of Natural History. In the second, 1760 volume of this continuation of his Natural History of Birds, Edwards provided a new and accurately labeled plate of the Painted Bunting, showing both a colorful adult male and a female, the latter “wholly of a parrot green colour” (Edwards 1760b).

Plate of Painted Buntings. Edwards, George. 1758-1764. Gleanings of natural history. Part II. Contributed in BHL from the National Library Board, Singapore.

The addition of the female figure, and Edwards’s description of the other, non-adult and non-male age and sex classes “as plain-coloured as a hen Sparrow” (Edwards 1760b), reveal that his rethinking was the result of a renewed consultation of Catesby’s Carolina, which had described the female Painted Bunting in much the same words. This is no coincidence. Just as Linnaeus’s earlier “lump” of the Indigo and Painted Buntings was the result of his relying on Edwards’s interpretation of Catesby, so too did his “split” of the two birds in 1766 reflect Edwards’s re-evaluation of their status.

No one can deny the significance of Mark Catesby’s work to the natural historical enterprise of the eighteenth century in general, or to the Linnaean tradition specifically. But an examination of the other bird species attributed by the Systema to “Catesby” would likely confirm what the case of the buntings so cogently suggests: that not Catesby but his “good friend,” pupil, and literary executor George Edwards was Linnaeus’s direct source for the North American birds credited to him.

Works Cited

Adler, K. 2015. “Ctesby’s Fundamental Contributions to Linnaeus’s Binomial Catalogue of North American Animals.” Pp. 251-264 in Nelson, E. Charles, and David J. Elliott, eds. The Curious Mr. Catesby: A “Truly Ingenious” Naturalist Explores New Worlds. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Albin, E. 1738. A Natural History of Birds. Vol. 3. London: privately published.

Catesby, M. 1729 [1731]. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. Vol. 1. London: privately published.

Edwards, G. 1747. A Natural History of Birds. Vol. 2. London: College of Physicians.

——-. 1750. A Natural History of Birds. Vol. 3. London: College of Physicians.

——-. 1757. George Edwards to Carolus Linnaeus. October 15, 1757. In Linnaean Correspondence. 

——-. 1760a. George Edwards to Carolus Linnaeus. August 12, 1760. In Linnaean Correspondence. 

——-. 1760b. Gleanings of Natural History. Pt. 2. London: College of Physicians.

James, T.E. 1933. “George Edwards, F.R.S. (1694-1773): An Eighteenth-century Naturalist.” Science Progress in the Twentieth Century (1919-1933) 27.107: 486-493.

Jarvis, C.E. 2015. “Carl Linnaeus and the Influence of Mark Catesby’s Botanical Work.” Pp. 189-204 in Nelson, E. Charles, and David J. Elliott, eds. The Curious Mr. Catesby: A “Truly Ingenious” Naturalist Explores New Worlds. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Lederer, R. 2019. The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art Through Forty Artists.

Linnaeus, C. 1736. [L5980. Carl Linnaeus to Johannes Burman.] The Linnaean Correspondence. Ferney-Voltaire: Centre international d’étude du XVIIIe siècle. On line at linnaeus.c18.net.

——-. 1750. “En Indianisk sparf.” Kongliga Swenska vetenskapsacademiens handlingar ser. 1, vol. 11: 278-280.

——-. 1758a. Systema naturae. 10th ed. Vol. 1. Stockholm: Lars Salvius.

——-. 1758b. Carolus Linnaeus to George Edwards. March 20, 1758. In Linnaean Correspondence. On line at tinyurl.com/LynnEdw1758.

——-. 1759. Carolus Linnaeus to George Edwards. April 12, 1759. In Linnaean Correspondence. On line at tinyurl.com/LinnEdwApr1759.

——-. 1760. Systema naturae. 11th ed. Vol. 1. Halle/Saale: Johann Jacob Curt.

——-. 1764. Carolus Linnaeus to George Edwards. April 12, 1764. In Linnaean Correspondence. On line at tinyurl.com/LinnEdw1764.

——-. 1766. Systema naturae. 12th ed. Vol. 1. Stockholm: Lars Salvius.

Mason, A.S. 1992. George Edwards: The Bedell and His Birds. London: Royal College of Physicians.

McBurney, H. 2015. “Mark Catesby’s Preparatory Drawings for The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.” Pp. 141- 154 in Nelson, E. Charles, and David J. Elliott, eds. The Curious Mr. Catesby: A “Truly Ingenious” Naturalist Explores New Worlds. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Stevens, O.A. 1936. “The First Descriptions of North American Birds.” Wilson Bulletin 48: 203-215.

Stone, W. 1929. “Mark Catesby and the Nomenclature of North American Birds.” Auk 46: 447-454.

Title page. Vroeg, Adrian. Beredeneerde catalogus van eene, by uitstek fraaye en weergaalooze verzameling, zoo van inlandsche als uitheemsche vogelen, viervoetige en gekorvene dieren. 1764. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

As an early work in the history of Linnaean taxonomy, Beredeneerde catalogus van eene, by uitstek fraaye en weergaalooze verzameling, zoo van inlandsche als uitheemsche vogelen, viervoetige en gekorvene dieren (i.e. Vroeg’s Catalogue, 1764) by Adrian Vroeg is the source of dozens of new species of birds [1]. Published just six years after the 10th edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae — considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature — the work is extremely rare, with only a handful of copies known to exist worldwide.

Because of the work’s age and rarity, first-hand access to the title has been difficult, and many researchers have had to rely on secondary sources for Vroeg’s names, which may have introduced errors or even overlooked the priority of a name established by Vroeg.

“It is absolutely rare that the scientific community gets access to such an early work in which new names were established after 1758,” explains Dr. Francisco Welter-Schultes of the Zoological Institute of Göttingen University in Germany. “Imagine being able to finally view an original spelling of a name that might not have been verified for more than 100 years. Generations of scientists never reliably saw the correct spellings of these names.”

Dr. Francisco Welter-Schultes of the Zoological Institute of Göttingen University in Germany.

Between 2008-2011, during his time on the BHL Europe project, Welter-Schultes served as the Lead of the Project Group for AnimalBase, which “was originally established to link the early literature with the names of the animals described therein” [2]. The database provides original and corrected spellings of names, type localities, citations for the original descriptions, and, where, possible, links to digitized copies of these descriptions in the literature — many from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

A major reference for the Project Group’s work was Sherborn’s Index Animalium (1902), “a compendium of zoological taxonomic species nomenclature from 1758 to 1850” [3]. Where possible, the Project Group compared the Index with the original works to verify the accuracy of the names and make any necessary corrections. If it was not possible to consult the original work, the Group had to rely on Sherborn’s Index.

The question, of course, is whether Sherborn himself was able to verify every name against the original source or whether he, too, had to rely on secondary sources in some instances.

“I knew immediately after realizing the date of Vroeg’s publication that new names which were cited in secondary sources like Sherborn’s Index Animalium were not very reliably cited,” explains Welter-Schultes. “If a work is that rare, then the likelihood is greater that Sherborn may never have seen the original. Did Sherborn just copy errors from other lists, and we just copied Sherborn’s forwarded errors to AnimalBase?”

In the hopes of being able to verify the names published by Vroeg in 1764, Welter-Schultes submitted a scan request to the Biodiversity Heritage Library for Vroeg’s Catalogue in 2010. At the time of the request, no BHL partner library appeared to hold the title. So, the request remained in the queue in the chance that, with the addition of new partners in the future or the growth of existing partners’ collections, it might be possible to digitize the work at a later date.

A few years later, whilst reviewing outstanding requests in the queue, Smithsonian Libraries staff discovered that its Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History had since cataloged the item after it was transferred from the Libraries’ general collections. The Smithsonian Libraries is not only the sole BHL partner to hold this work, but the Libraries’ copy is also one of only a few known copies worldwide, with the others being in Denmark (2), the Netherlands (2), and Germany (1) [4].

The catalog record provides insight into the interesting provenance of the Smithsonian Libraries’ copy of this very rare book, which was previously owned (and donated) by Charles Wallace Richmond, a Smithsonian ornithologist and bibliographer who served as Assistant Curator, Associate Curator, and Curator in the Division of Birds of the United States National Museum (USNM) (now the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History) between 1894 and his death in 1932 [5]. Richmond’s signature can be seen on the verso of the title page, dated Aug. 31, 1905, and a book dealer’s mailing label to Richmond from Frederik Muller & Co. of Amsterdam is bound into the volume.

Richmond’s signature on the verso of the title page of the Smithsonian Libraries’ copy of Vroeg’s Catalogue.

Book dealer’s mailing label to Richmond from Frederik Muller & Co. of Amsterdam in the Smithsonian Libraries’ copy of Vroeg’s Catalogue.

An avid book collector, Richmond’s personal library consisted of over 200 publications and auction catalogs in German, Italian, French, Spanish, Latin, and English on various natural history topics — many quite rare as Richmond specifically sought out obscure books, particularly those with new species names. Richmond donated the contents of his library to several institutions, including not only the Smithsonian but also the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Library of Congress, and the California Academy of Sciences — all of which are BHL partner institutions [6]. His donation of taxonomic books to the Smithsonian became the foundation of the Bird Library at the National Museum of Natural History [7].

Unfortunately, the Smithsonian’s copy of Vroeg’s Catalogue was in need of conservation before it could be scanned. The item was added to the Smithsonian Libraries’ preservation queue, and once the necessary treatments were completed, it was added to the Libraries’ queue for folio digitization.

Finally, in 2018 — eight years after the initial request, Vroeg’s Catalogue was digitized by the Smithsonian Libraries’ digitization team and made freely available online through the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Several Smithsonian Libraries staff members were involved in completing this book’s journey from shelf to screen, including Digital Library staff Jacqueline Chapman, Adriana Marroquin, and Stefaan Hurts; Special Collections staff Leslie Overstreet, Daria Wingreen-Mason, and Alexandra Newman; Cataloging staff Julia Blakely; Preservation staff Katie Wagner; and BHL Secretariat staff Bianca Crowley and Grace Costantino. We extend our thanks to all involved for making this extremely rare book freely available to the world.

And because this work is now easily accessible to researchers, it can be used to empower global research, such as that of Welter-Schultes. His response to Jacqueline Chapman’s email notification that the work had been digitized was swift: “This was really very, very useful. I immediately spent two hours exploring this interesting work.”

With the digital copy of the Smithsonian Libraries’ Catalogue, Welter-Schultes was able to uncover taxonomic errors that had persisted for at least a century and improve the accuracy of the names data available through AnimalBase.

“It was easy for me to verify our data set of names, and in fact it turned out that Sherborn must have relied on a third source,” explains Welter-Schultes. “There were so many inaccuracies in the spellings of the names that we must assume that Sherborn, who in his work (published in 1902) had a very low average error rate, did very probably not extract those names from an original copy of the 1764 work.”

New bird species introduced in Vroeg’s Catalogue. Vroeg, Adrian. Beredeneerde catalogus van eene, by uitstek fraaye en weergaalooze verzameling, zoo van inlandsche als uitheemsche vogelen, viervoetige en gekorvene dieren. 1764. Contributed in BHL from Smithsonian Libraries.

Knowing that their work is so valued and impactful is also very encouraging for the staff who dedicate so much time and energy to addressing the needs of BHL’s user community.

“It is rare that we hear from users that the items we digitize in response to these older requests are so immediately relevant and impactful on current research,” shares Chapman. “And it is so fulfilling!”

Thanks to the efforts of the staff at Smithsonian Libraries and other BHL partners around the world, researchers can now easily access original species descriptions and other rare literature that underpins the work of taxonomists today.

“Today, thousands of names in online data resources are equipped with links to their original descriptions in BHL,” lauds Welter-Schultes. “What we did 10 years ago with AnimalBase was pioneering work — many others followed and did the same. Today, providing a link to a BHL source is something absolutely usual and taxonomists can probably not imagine life anymore without BHL.”

We are grateful to Dr. Welter-Schultes for sharing this example of how BHL is impacting real research today. We also extend our sincere thanks to all of our partners for making BHL the essential resource that it is today. The dedication and diligence of the staff at our partner libraries to support the scientific and research community — whether that involves more straightforward digitization projects or complex, multi-year undertakings —  ensures that the Biodiversity Heritage Library will continue to empower global research for decades to come.

References

[1] AnimalBase. 2018. “Taxa described as new in Vroeg 1764.” Accessed on 29 November 2018. http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/zooweb/servlet/AnimalBase/list/taxa?from_reference=1908.

[2] AnimalBase. 2018. “About.” Accessed on 29 November 2018. http://www.animalbase.org/.

[3] Smithsonian Libraries. 2018. “About this Project: Index Animalium.” Accessed on 29 November 2018. http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/indexanimalium/about/.

[4] Leslie Overstreet, email message to author, 24 September 2018.

[5] Stone, Witmer. 1933. “In Memoriam: Charles Wallace Richmond.” The Auk, 50(1): 1-22.

[6] Smithsonian Institution Archives. 2011. “Record Unit 7382,  Richmond, Charles Wallace, 1868-1932, Charles Wallace Richmond Library Catalog and Lists, 1906-1908 and undated.” Collections, 19 August. Accessed on 29 November 2018. https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_217538.

[7] Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. 2018. “Charles W. Richmond (1868-1932).” Department of Vertebrate Zoology: Division of Birds. Accessed on 29 November 2018. http://vertebrates.si.edu/birds/Hall_of_fame/CharlesRichmond.html.

Deep within the rainforest canopy of the Aru Islands, just west of New Guinea, two male Greater Birds-of-Paradise dance among the branches in carefully coordinated steps, their magnificent yellow, white, and maroon plumage undulating gracefully to the rhythm of their own unique song.

Carl Linnaeus named this species Paradisaea apoda, meaning “legless bird-of-paradise.” The misnomer was based on early trade-skins prepared and shipped to Europe without feet, feeding a notion that these “visitors from paradise” glided endlessly through the air, remaining aloft until death.

Naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace (who simultaneous to Darwin developed the concept of evolution by means of natural selection), spent extensive time in the Aru Islands during the mid-1800s, collecting and describing many species, including P. apoda. Upon receiving a specimen, Wallace declared the bird “the most perfectly lovely of the many lovely productions of nature,” but lamented that, should “civilized man” ever reach these “virgin forests,” he would surely disturb nature’s balance and cause the creature’s extinction.

Paradisaea apoda. Elliot, Giraud Daniel. A Monograph of the Paradiseidae. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44792765

Daniel Giraud Elliot, one of the most important American ornithologists and naturalists of the nineteenth century, was enthralled with Wallace’s work, and his descriptions of birds of paradise. While Wallace was not the first western naturalist to see Birds-of-Paradise in the wild (a distinction held by René Primevère Lesson during the 1822-25 circumnavigation voyage of the French La Coquille), his accounts are poetic and highly detailed. They provided inspiration for one of Elliot’s crown-jewels, A Monograph of the Paradiseidae.

Epimachus ellioti (named after Elliot). Elliot, Giraud Daniel. A Monograph of the Paradiseidae. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44792854

Born in 1835, Elliot achieved many prestigious accomplishments over his lifetime. In 1869, he became one of the scientific founders of the American Museum of Natural History (for which his personal collection of North American birds comprised some of the museum’s first accessioned specimens). In 1894, Elliot became the curator of the Department of Zoology for the Field Museum of Natural History. He also traveled extensively, often for years at a time, and published hundreds of papers and multiple monographs relating his findings and experiences. These considerable accomplishments are even more impressive considering Elliot’s limited formal education.

While Elliot produced many works on mammals, his true passion was birds. He became famous for his monographs on bird families, which summarized previous taxonomic information about the species included, while also providing new observations and analysis based on his travels and museum specimens. He used his own wealth and formidable connections with elite European contacts to finance these publications.

Cicinnurus regius. Elliot, Giraud Daniel. A Monograph of the Paradiseidae. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44792836

A Monograph of the Paradiseidae, published in London in 1873, is a large folio with 37 lithographs (36 of which are hand-colored) detailing typical Bird-of-Paradise species from the Paradiseae family, as well as members of the Epimachinae (now Epimachus genus) and Tectonarchinae (now Ptilonorhynchidae) families. His fourth illustrated monograph, Elliot chose the Birds-of-Paradise as his subject in order to finally present a “correct idea” of the birds’ appearance. At the time of his writing, quality specimens were finally making their way to Europe, replacing the “mutilated” skins that naturalists has previously relied upon. Elliot also acknowledges the contributions of Prof. Schlegel from the Museum at Leyden, John Gould, and M.J.P. Verreaux, all of whom allowed him to examine their own specimens to inform his publication.

The original watercolor paintings on which Paradiseidae’s lithographs are based were created by German artist Joseph Wolf, who also executed work for David Livingstone, Henry Walter Bates, John Gould (think the incredible Birds of Asia masterpiece), and Wallace himself. Of Wolf, Elliot wrote, “The drawings of Mr. Wolf will, I am sure, receive the admiration of those who see them; for, like all that artist’s productions, they cannot be surpassed, if equalled, at the present time.” The lithography for the work was performed by Joseph Smit, with coloration undertaken by John Douglas White.

Cicinnurus respublica. Elliot, Giraud Daniel. A Monograph of the Paradiseidae. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44792828

Elliot’s regard for Wallace cannot be mistaken. For the book’s dedication, he writes, “To Alfred Russel Wallace, whose fame as a traveler is only eclipsed by that which he has gained as a naturalist; and to whom we are indebted for nearly all our authentic information regarding the habits of the many species of the Birds of Paradise.”

Elliot’s A Monograph of the Paradiseidae is one of the “most admired bird books ever produced.” As a commodity, it is also very valuable, fetching a hefty $45,924 USD price tag at a 2007 Christie’s auction. Thanks to the Smithsonian Libraries, however, you can view and download this book for free in BHL.

The digitized Smithsonian copy comes from the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History, which holds the Smithsonian’s collection of over 10,000 rare books in anthropology and the natural sciences. The full collection of illustrations can also be found in the BHL Flickr.

Paradisaea raggiana. Elliot, Giraud Daniel. A Monograph of the Paradiseidae. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44792727

Today, there are 41 recognized species of birds of paradise. They are all found almost exclusively in New Guinea and its satellites, with a few exceptions in the Maluku Islands and eastern Australia. Fortunately, Wallace’s prophecy has not come true. The Greater Bird of Paradise is common throughout its range, evaluated as a species of “least concern” by the IUCN. Currently, only 3 of the 41 recognized species are listed as “threatened”: Wahnes’s Parotia, the Blue Bird of Paradise, and the Black Sicklebill. Several are “near-threatened,” however, and hunting and habitat loss continues to be a concern.

As you enjoy the spectacular Paradiseidae illustrations, remember that awareness is a key component in conservation. We can all play a part in mitigating factors that contribute to species loss. And a tax-deductible gift to BHL can help us continue to provide scientists with the information they need to identify and protect our biodiversity. Let’s ensure that these beautiful birds are here for generations to come!

Seleucidis melanoleucus. Elliot, Giraud Daniel. A Monograph of the Paradiseidae. http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/44792862

It’s that time of year again! That special week set aside to celebrate the fabulously diverse Selachimorpha clade: Shark Week!

If you were to ask an average person to differentiate between a tiger shark, Great White, whale shark, bull shark, or mako, most could probably do so, or would at least be aware that such varieties existed. This wasn’t always the case. A mere six hundred years ago, sharks were known only by the bizarre personas recounted by animated sailors. And even when more accurate depictions and accounts began to circulate, the world was completely ignorant of the vast diversity of these creatures. A shark, generally, was a shark. It took an army of people, and several hundred years, to even begin to comprehend these magnificent fish, and we’ve still only scraped the surface.

The Shark in Myth

A selection of monsters that supposedly plagued the Atlantic Ocean. By Abraham Ortelius. 1570. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.

Eleven hundred years ago, man was just starting to venture boldly into the open oceans. At that time, and throughout the Middle Ages, the sea was a place of mysticism and superstition, with countless tales of leviathans, monsters, and spirits plaguing the waters. Researchers believe many of these tales were actually based on real creatures, however exaggerated. Some of the beasts may have been at least partially informed by shark sightings.

Conrad Gessner (the man behind our strange walrus a few weeks ago) depicted the Ziphius in his 1560 work Icones Animalium. Many researchers believe the beast with the back fin may be a Great White, due in part to the unfortunate seal in its jaws. The porcupine-fish taking a bite out of the Ziphius’ side? The jury’s still out on that one…

The Ziphius. Conrad Gessner. 1560. Icones Animalium.

Caspar Schott’s 1662 beast is equally fanciful, but the teeth and jaws suggest that it may be inspired in part by a shark.

A shark? Caspar Schott. 1662. Physica Curiosa.

Despite limited contact with sharks, or perhaps because of it, artists generally portrayed the fish as ravenous man-eaters. Olaus Magnus’ 1539 Carta Marina shows a hapless man besieged by a gang of sharks. Fortunately for him, a kind-hearted ray-like creature has come to the rescue.

Olaus Magnus. 1539. Carta Marina.

Also in the Middle Ages, fossilized shark teeth were identified as petrified dragon tongues, called glossopetrae. If ground into a powder and consumed, these were said to be an antidote for a variety of poisons.

The Shark as a Sea Dog

By the time of the Renaissance, the existence of sharks was more generally known, though their diversity was woefully underestimated. Only those species that were clearly distinct based on color, size, and shape – such as hammerheads, blue sharks, and smaller sharks such as dogfish – were distinguished. As for the Lamnidae – Great Whites, makos, and porbeagles – these were identified as a single species.

In the 1550s, we see the Great White debut to an audience that would remain captivated by it for hundreds of years, though under a rather strange monicker.

In 1553, Pierre Belon, a French naturalist, published De aquatilibus duo, cum eiconibus ad vivam ipsorum effigiem quoad ejus fieri potuit, ad amplissimum cardinalem Castilioneum. Belon attempted the first comparative analysis of sharks, and presented 110 species of fish in a much more realistic light than previously provided. In addition to a hammerhead, Belon included a woodcut of a shark he named Canis carcharias.

Canis carcharias. Pierre Belon. 1553. De aquatilibus duo.

Some readers may recognize that “Canis” is the genus currently assigned to dogs. Belon was not attempting to classify sharks with dogs by asserting this name. Indeed, systematic classification based on ranked hierarchies would not come onto the scene for over two hundred years. The common practice at this time was to choose descriptive names based on physical characteristics. Colloquial speech referred to sharks as “sea dogs,” and carcharias comes from the Greek “Carcharos” (ragged), which Belon associated with the appearance of the shark’s teeth.

De Lamia. Guillaume Rondelet. 1554. Libri de Piscibus.

In 1554, French physician Guillaume Rondelet gave us another illustration of a Great White, under the name De Lamia (a child-eating demon in Greek mythology). Publishing Libri de Piscibus Marinis, Rondelet described more than 440 species of aquatic animals. Along with his illustration, Rondelet conveyed a tale of one specimen found with a full suit of armor in its belly. He also proposed that it was this fish, and not a whale, that was the culprit behind Jonah’s Biblical plight. A whale, he postulated, did not have a throat wide enough to swallow a man whole and regurgitate him later.

Hammerhead and Catsharks. Ippolito Salviani. 1554. Aquatilium Animalium Historiae.

That same year, Ippolito Salviani published another book on fish, Aquatilium Animalium Historiae, replete with engravings that included the hammerhead and (most likely) catsharks.

Though Conrad Gessner may have published accounts of many mythical beasts (such as the Ziphius in 1560), his 1558 work Historia Animalium (2nd edition linked here) was an attempt to give a factual representation of the known world of natural history. Within it, he included a much more recognizable illustration of the Great White (under both names Lamia and Canis carcharias). The study was based on a dried specimen, thus accounting for the rather desiccated appearance.

Gessner’s Lamia. Conrad Gessner. 1604. Historia Animalium (2nd edition).

Finally, in 1569, the word “Sharke” finally finds its place in the English language, popularized by Sir John Hawkins’ sailors, who brought home a shark specimen that was exhibited in London that year.

Influenced by the violent, and commonly exaggerated, stories circulated by sailors and explorers, general perception pegged sharks as ravenous beasts intent on devouring everything in sight.

Sharks and the “Modern” Era

By the 1600s, a more widespread attempt to classify fish according to form and habitat, and a fresh curiosity in shark research and diversity, found a footing in scientific research.

In 1616, Italian botanist Fabio Colonna published an article, De glossopetris dissertatio, in which he postulated that the mystical glossopetrae were actually fossilized shark teeth. The article had little impact, but in 1667, following the dissection of a Great White shark head, Danish naturalist Niels Stensen (aka Steno) published a comparative study of shark teeth, theorizing for the first time that fossils are the remains of living animals and again suggesting that glossopetrae were indeed fossilized shark teeth.

In the mid-1700s, a famous figure emerged. In 1735, Swedish botanist and physician Carl Linnaeus published his first version of Systema Naturae, at a mere 11 pages. Within this first edition, he classified sharks in the group Condropterygii, along with lampreys and sturgeon.

Linnaeus continued expanding his classification system, and in 1758 he published the tenth edition of Systema Naturae – the work we consider the beginning of zoological nomenclature. Within this edition, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature, a naming scheme which identifies organisms by genus and species, with an attempt to reflect ranked hierarchies. This system provides the foundation of modern biological nomenclature, which groups organisms by inferred evolutionary relatedness.

Squalus carcharias. Carl Linnaeus. 1758. Systema Naturae (10th ed.).

Within Systema Naturae (10th ed.), Linnaeus identified 14 shark species, all of which he placed in the genus Squalus, which today is reserved only for typical spurdogs. He also presents his binomial for the Great White: Squalus carcharias. And he, like Rondelet before him, suggests that it was indeed a Great White that swallowed Jonah whole in ancient times.

Squalus carcharias. Marcus Bloch. 1796. Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische.

By the late 1700s, we see a greater attempt to distinguish between the varieties of white sharks. From 1783-1795, Marcus Elieser Bloch published twelve volumes on fish under the title Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische, with 216 illustrations. His Great White, perhaps the first in color, bears Linnaeus’ name. And in 1788, French naturalist Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre gave the porbeagle shark its first scientific name, Squalus nasus, distinguishing another “white shark” as a distinct species.

Squalus. Bernard Germain de La Cepede. 1798. Histoire Naturelle des Poissons.

French zoologist Bernard Germain de La Cepede grouped sharks, rays, and chimaeras as “cartilaginous fish,” identifying 32 types, in his 1798 work Histoire Naturelle des Poissons. He describes the “white shark” as the largest shark (a distinction truly held by the whale shark).

Selachians. Georges Cuvier. The Animal Kingdom (1837 ed.).

In his 1817 work The Animal Kingdom, French anatomist Georges Cuvier listed sharks as “selachians,” a term still in use today as the clade including sharks: Selachimorpha.

In 1838 we see the first use of the modern Great White genus name. Scottish physician and zoologist Andrew Smith proposed the generic name Carcharodon in a work by Johannes Müller and Fredrich Henle (linked here in Smith’s later 1840s publication), pulling together the Greek “carcharos” (meaning ragged and used in the association by Belon nearly 300 years earlier) and “odon” (Greek for “tooth”). Thus, Smith was proposing a name meaning “ragged tooth.”

Finally, in 1878, Smith’s genus name “Carcharodon,” and Linnaeus’ species name “carcharias” were pulled together to form the scientific name we know the Great White by today: Carcharodon carcharias.

Thanks to the dedication and curiosity of past naturalists and contemporary taxonomists, we’re now aware of the incredible diversity of sharks. There are over 470 species known today; that’s quite a leap from the mere 14 species identified by Linnaeus over 250 years ago!

Want more Shark content? Get over 350 free shark illustrations in the BHL Flickr collection, and browse dozens of historic books on sharks in our BHL and iTunes U collections. You can also explore the incredible diversity of sharks in the Ocean Portal.

Happy Shark Week!

“If you intend to work at 40°C you need a bathrobe, a glass of cold, crispy dry, white wine and WiFi to access BHL.” Dr. Eric Danell, Director, Dokmai Garden, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Nestled within the Hang Dong district, Chiang Mai, Thailand, is a 10 acre botanical garden called Dokmai Garden. Run by the Thai family Seehamongkol, it boasts over 1,000 plant species, including orchids, laurels, banana plants, birds-of-paradise plants, and gingers. The Seehamongkol family, and the garden’s biologist and Director, Dr. Eric Danell, have the lucky fortune of not only working in this garden, but also of calling it home.

While living amidst such a paradise is undeniably enchanting, for Dr. Danell, being a botanist in the Asian tropics also has its challenges. Access to taxonomic literature is scarce, and the closest library may still be many days away. Even if a researcher is able to gain access to local library collections, the breadth of these collections are often limited, lacking titles critical to enabling further research. For researchers in these situations, digital, open access projects like the Biodiversity Heritage Library are indispensable.

Dr. Danell began his botanical adventure in Sweden at an early age. “Born a botanist,” Eric spent the weekends of his youth at the Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, pursuing a lifelong love of plants that resulted in a PhD in Plant Physiology from Uppsala University in 1994. Following the degree, Danell taught at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences as an Associate Professor in Forest Microbiology.

Eric’s passion, however, is gardens. “Essentially, I am a gardener,” said Dr. Danell when asked about his chief area of interest. It comes as no surprise, then, that he left his teaching position for the opportunity to garden in the Asian Tropics at Dokmai Garden. Caring for over a thousand plant species (not to mention countless other varieties of birds, insects, reptiles and fungi that also call the ecosystem home), and conducting further botanical research, requires access to natural history literature collections, including many rare titles. As discussed, this access is often glaringly absent in developing countries.

Fortunately for Dr. Danell, a few years ago, he stumbled upon BHL via the Kew Gardens/Missouri Botanical Garden joint project,  The Plant List. It was love at first click. “[BHL] is a crucial tool since I am located in the Asian tropics. Although I have a private rare books collection in Sweden, I do not dare bring it here due to termites and moulds. Rare books can hardly be found at local university libraries,” articulated Danell.

Since discovering BHL, Eric uses it several times a week, typically verifying plant species descriptions online but occasionally also downloading PDFs. “We have frequent electricity cuts which would otherwise disconnect me from ongoing work,” explained Danell. “A laptop with battery keeps you focused in spite of tropical rainstorms!”

The true magic of BHL for Danell, however, is the truly global access it provides. “The fact that I can sit in a remote corner of the world and access rare books is awesome! BHL is my favorite.”

Being located in a developing country also provides opportunities for Dr. Danell to suggest improvements specific to users with varying Internet connectivity strengths. He suggests that the development of an interface specifically designed for old computers with poor Internet access would be particularly beneficial. This was a major discussion point at the recent BHL-Africa meetings, as much of Africa also has limited Internet connectivity. The development of a “BHL in a Box” application, which would allow some version of BHL to be installed on a local computer to limit the need for continuous internet availability, or the development of a text-based interface, were some options proposed. BHL and its African colleagues hope to pursue funding in the future to make this ambition a reality.

For many of our users, there is one special title in BHL that makes their knees weak and their hearts beat a little faster. For Dr. Danell, that book is Linnaeus Species Plantarum (1753, volumes 1-2). “This is the origin of plant research and so many important plants, also in the tropics, are described here. [Linnaeus’] spelling, his comments and his references are crucial to botanical research,” emphasized Danell.

Thanks to BHL, Eric can access his favorite eighteenth century botanical masterpiece while sitting in a fairy tale garden in the Asian tropics, dressed comfortably in his favorite bathrobe, sipping a glass of crisp white wine. All scientific research should be this perfect!

Queen Elizabeth I was rumored to have purchased a narwhal tusk for 10,000 pounds — in the 16th century this was roughly the price of a castle.

View more of Von Schreber’s mammals on Flickr.

The mysterious narwhal and its famed “unicorn horn” have long captured the popular imagination of man. In the middle ages, the tooth of a narwhal would fetch ten times its weight in gold because it was thought to carry magical and medicinal powers. It wasn’t until 1871, that Darwin conjectured in The Descent of Man, and Selection in relation to Sex that the tooth’s function was actually a Secondary Sexual Characteristic that determined things like social rank, mate selection and dominance in narwhal pods which, usually consist of groups of fifteen to thirty individuals.

The tusk has been the subject of much speculation over the centuries yet, we are still unraveling its mysteries. Who was right? Queen Elizabeth I and her medieval contemporaries or Darwin? I’m sure that many of you are betting on Darwin however, modern research has found that the tusk may actually have an entirely different and previously unimagined function.

See any human-like qualities?

To get a better idea of what the Narwhal looks like, we reference one of our absolute favorite illustrations of the narwhal here at BHL (pictured above). This image appears in Johann Christian Daniel Von Schreber’s Mammals in Illustration from Nature auf deutsch: Die Sugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur (1774), also our pick for Book of the Week.

The narwhal is included in Von Schreber’s majestic collection of over 700+ mammals; he commissioned artists to create the plates from his own scientific descriptions of each species. Many of the mammals that appear in the nine volume set were named for the very first time using Linnaean binomial nomenclature.

Because all of the illustrations in the book are drawn from Von Schreber’s written descriptions rather than from observation, you will notice that there is an element of the fantastical in the expressions of the animals. The mammals have distinctly anthropomorphic features, inviting the viewer into their world and giving us the sense that we aren’t so different from each other after all. The drawings are so unique that they have garnered much attention in art circles. Reprints of various plates can be found on art merchant websites and even on Ebay selling for hundreds of dollars.

The art world has dubbed the collection of plates “Schreber’s Fantastic Beasts.” Luckily, we no longer need to spend hundreds of dollars to view these beasts. The entire beautiful set is now online, digitized from the rare book room at the Ernst Mayr Library at Harvard University.

Johann Christian Daniel Von Schreber

Von Schreber, like his beasts, was a fantastic man in his own right. It only seems natural that he would be one of Linnaeus’ many students who would go on to achieve success yet, still remain devout to his teacher for the duration of his life. The correspondence between Von Schreber and Linnaeus was voluminous and it too has been digitized and made available for free by the Linnaean Correspondence Project.

If you can read Latin, its a highly recommended resource! Von Schreber studied medicine, theology and the natural sciences at Uppsala and Halle. It was at this time that he came under the tutelage of Linnaeus. He went on to become the director of the Erlangen Botanical Garden in 1773, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1787 and in 1791, he was knighted. Not bad, Von Schreber! He also served as editor to Linnaeus’ 8th edition of Genera Plantarum. Von Schreber even has a type of feather-moss named after him, Pleurozium schreberi. But we digress, let’s get back to the narwhal.

The Narwhal: Why do we know so little, when we are so fascinated by this creature?

The beluga whale, the other member of Monotinidae family

All that we have left of Schreber’s thoughts about the narwhal are from the minute descriptions he makes in his text describing the Monodon monoceros yet, he must have been stewed in a culture that was still hanging on to the idea that the narwhal tusk possessed magical powers. We wonder if Von Schreber clung to any of these superstitions himself?

One-hundred years later, Darwin refuted the idea of this type of magical nonsense. However, it wouldn’t be until 2005, that Harvard researchers would begin to unravel the mystery behind this one-toothed wonder. The main reason that so little is known about the narwhal and its behavior is because most of them die in captivity, which has made it very difficult to study them.

Unlike the narwhal’s relative, the beluga whale, both being the only extent members of the Monotinidae family, the narwhal is an incredibly shy creature preferring to stay away from your local Marine World. However with a tusk fossil in-hand, dental researchers have been able to gain new insights and get to the root of this toothy mystery:

“Dental experts put the tusk under an electron microscope and found new subtleties of dental anatomy…” making a “startling discovery: the tusk, it turns out, forms a sensory organ of exceptional size and sensitivity, making the living appendage one of the planet’s most remarkable, and one that in some ways outdoes its own mythology.”–Broad, 2005, New York Times

David Constantine, Mika Gröndahl/The New York Times

It seems that Queen Elizabeth I and Darwin were both slightly off-base… the Narwhal’s tooth is an incredible appendage but, its function is neither magical nor strictly used in sexual selection. Rather, who would have guessed that the spiraling tooth would actually be a highly sophisticated sensory organ, giving its owner unique insight into the temperature, pressure and gradients of the ocean? The discovery opens up a whole host of new and unanswered questions. It is no wonder that researchers are clambering to know more.

Clinical instructor at Harvard University’s School of Dental Medicine and principal investigator of the Narwhal Tooth Expedition and Research Investigation, Martin Nweeia remarks after his first Narwhal siting:

It’s one of the few times when the reality is more incredible than the fable – I have more difficulty believing a whale has a tusk like this than I do a unicorn.”

Here, here Martin! The Narwhal truly is a “fantastic beast” and human interest in the species will only continue to grow over time.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is World Oceans Day!

Lastly, don’t forget that tomorrow pack’s a double whammy for ocean conservation efforts, celebrations and observances: not only has Obama declared that June be National Oceans Month in the United States but, June 8^th also marks World Oceans Day.

Of course, these celebrations should include the beloved Narwhal, one of the most unique creatures the ocean has to offer. People all around the world are celebrating in creative ways. If you are interested in participating don’t forget to check the world event calendar and remember to respect, care for, and love the ocean. After all, we owe the air that we breathe to it and so much more!