Mark Catesby's work files the plants and animals he saw while travelling in North America and the Caribbean
By Tim Boddy
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The rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus)
Bodleian Library Publishing, University of Oxford, 2024
These impressive and detailed illustrations are the work of Mark Catesby, an English biologist and artist who made various sees to North America in the early 18th century, tape-recording the plants and animals he saw on his journeys.
His work is gathered in a brand-new book, Catesby's Natural History by Stephen A. Harris, an expedition of the biologist's landmark writing, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands“Catesby provided his readers with illustrations of a large variety of plants and animals that were being found by Europeans in North America and the Caribbean,” states Harris. “Many of these were shown for the very first time– Catesby ended up being the de facto authority on them.”
Huge hermit crab (Petrochirus diogenes)
Bodleian Library Publishing, University of Oxford, 2024
Including more than 400 types, a few of which are now extinct, a number of plates illustrate a plant and an animal in one image, such as the rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivusrevealed top, curling around an American beautyberry shrub (Callicarpa americana. In a comparable vein, a huge hermit crab (Petrochirus diogenessits on top of what, composes Harris, is “most likely” an angular sea whip (Pterogorgia ancepsrevealed above.
Mutton snapper
odleian Library Publishing, University of Oxford, 2024
Imagined above is a vibrant mutton snapper (Lutjanus analisand the deciduous plant Spanish jasmine (Plumeria rubrais envisioned listed below.
Spanish jasmine (Plumeria rubra)
Bodleian Library Publishing, University of Oxford, 2024
Catesby “wanted to promote interest in nature– beyond the boundaries of the library”, states Harris. “His work speaks with modern-day styles of landscape and environment modification, altering types' circulations and termination and the worth of conventional understanding held by Indigenous individuals.”
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