Bibliotheca Herpetologica 19(9)

Lavilla, E. O. 2025. Science, Myth, and Otherness: Herpetological Readings of Linnaeus’s Lapland Journal. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 19(9):116–121.

After a turbulent beginning to the 18th century—marked by wars, famine, plague, and foreign invasions—Sweden began a slow process of reconstruction in 1721. It was in this context that Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) emerged, a figure who would not only reshape natural science but also wield considerable influence on Swedish economic policy well into the 1770s. Linnaeus promoted an innovative idea for the time: to reduce imports by identifying and acclimatizing useful plants from abroad, making them grow in the harsher environments of the Baltic states.

To achieve this goal, Linnaeus and his select group of students undertook scientific expeditions both in Sweden and across the globe. Their twin objectives were to understand the country’s ecology and to collect seeds and plants suitable for cultivation. These journeys also produced a wealth of information on plants, animals, minerals and human societies from all corners of the world, meticulously recorded under Linnaeus’s guidance.

Between 1732 and 1749, Linnaeus embarked on five major journeys through Sweden: to Lapland (1732), Dalarna (1734), the Baltic islands of Öland and Gotland (1741), Västergötland (1746), and Scania (1749). This article focuses solely on the 1732 Lapland expedition—Linnaeus’s first and most iconic journey. It marked the transformation of the student into a field naturalist and left a lasting imprint on his scientific development. The content of this article is based on the manuscript of the Iter Lapponicum held at the Linnean Society of London in 1732 and on the transcription prepared by Ewald Ährling in 1889.

Just Published — Now Available

ISHBH contributed to the publication this, the 35th volume in the Contributions to Herpetology series published by the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. As a result ISHBH has a limited number of copies available for sale: ISHBH members $81.00 (plus postage), non-members $90.00 (plus postage). 

Savage, Jay M., Marcus Sparreboom and Gregory K. Pregill. 2025. The Dutch Indies Commission and the Herpetological Legacy of Heinrich Boie (1794–1827). SSAR, Villanova, xiv, 360 p. (7). Clothbound. $90 (ISHBH members $81) 

 Although never published, Heinrich Boie’s Erpétologie de Java, written two centuries ago, was one of the most influential herpetological works of the 19th century. Boie’s manuscript served as the basis for many descriptions of amphibians and reptiles published between the 1820s and 1850s by his brother Friedrich and leading herpetologists of the early 19th century like Schlegel, Fitzinger, Tschudi, Gravenhorst and Wagler. 

In this volume, Jay Savage, Marcus (Max) Sparreboom, and Gregory Pregill place Boie and his work in the context of The Natural History Commission of the Netherlands Indies — the larger scientific endeavour in which Boie was a participant — review Boie’s surviving manuscript text and accompanying plates housed in the archives of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, and trace Boie’s herpetological legacy through the generation of authors who were influenced by his work. The authorship of names attributed to Boie and the nomenclatural, taxonomic, and bibliographic details of the works that referenced Erpétologie de Java are also critically evaluated in a series of 16 appendices, resolving many nomenclatural issues relating to Southeast Asian reptiles and amphibians.