wonders of the natural world, illustrated

of course the biggest New World mammals were [probably] hunted to extinction long before Europeans ever made it over

http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/small_1x_/public/import/2013/images/2011/01/mammoth.jpg

this is an excellent revive

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23354/23354-h/images/fig203m.jpg
Monstrous pear, showing extension and ramification of the succulent floral axis. The bases of the sepals are also succulent

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23354/23354-h/images/fig162m.jpg
in Papaver bracteatum a considerable number of the stamens sometimes become developed into pistils, especially those which are nearest to the centre of the flower, and in these flowers the filaments are said to become the ovaries, while the anthers are curled so as to resemble stigmas

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23354/23354-h/images/fig058s.jpg
Receptacle of strawberry prolonged into a leafy branch

whoops :-(
if you want to check em out...

Vegetable Teratology: An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants

...they were considered as monsters to be shunned, as lawless deviations from the ordinary rule, unworthy the attention of botanists, or at best as objects of mere curiosity. By those whose notions of structure and conformation did not extend beyond the details necessary to distinguish one species from another, or to describe the salient features of a plant in technical language; whose acquaintance with botanical science might almost be said to consist in the conventional application of a number of arbitrary terms, or in the recollection of a number of names, teratology was regarded as a chaos whose meaningless confusion it were vain to attempt to render intelligible,—as a barren field not worth the labour of tillage.

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_vault/2015/04/17/LgWildflowerMap.jpg

some great portraits in this slideshow:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/04/01/an-evolving-view-of-animals/

not exactly related but this person seems to really embrace the same aesthetic/scientific intersection as the people who sell pages from a botanical illustration book on etsy

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150512/humboldt-park/traveling-taxidermy-instructor-opens-chicago-storefront-niche-lab

there is a $400 make your own taxidermied baby skunk class

i think i finally decided that i do want an ernst haeckel-inspired tattoo

it only took me almost 14 years!!

also this thread is a treasure -- i had no recollection of posting so much lol

i was about to say before i even read your comment LL, this is a glorious thread

Tattoo appt is this week!! Could not be more excited.

It’s done. Now I want like 60 more.

Cool! What did you get?

A radiolarian! If you go to the Project Gutenberg link w Haeckel’s illustrations from the Challenger expedition, it’s top left on plate 81

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44527/44527-h/images/plate081.jpg

To clarify—It’s my artist’s rendering of the Haeckel illustration.

Oh, brilliant - I bet that looks amazing.

an oldie

Always enjoy sharing these brainstem reconstructions by Lewis Weed (1914) - made by tracing outlines on transverse sections, making paper cutouts, stacking them in register and drawing the result ... pic.twitter.com/KmFu7N2Abu

— Matt Kirkcaldie (@MKirkcaldie) October 31, 2021