Wahlgreniana volume 5

Tracing Amphibians:
Primary Sources in the Herpetological Works of Linnaeus
and His Disciples

Esteban Lavilla and Lászlo Krecsák

Tracing Amphibians is the definitive reference guide to the primary bibliographic sources cited by Carl Linnaeus and his disciples in their herpetological and zoological publications. Herpetologists and historians of science have long struggled with Linnaeus’s distinctive system of binominal abbreviations—a parallel to his binominal nomenclature for organisms—which compressed 15th–18th century book titles into abbreviated two-part citations that are often cryptic, inconsistent across editions, and difficult to resolve without knowing which edition Linnaeus actually consulted.

This volume systematically identifies and analyzes 166 primary sources containing 351 abbreviations and abbreviation variants relating to Amphibia (encompassing both amphibians and reptiles as Linnaeus defined the class) across the full corpus of Linnaean and disciplular zoological publications, including Systema Naturae (editions 10 and 12), Fauna Svecica, and student dissertations. For each source, the authors provide the full title as it appears in the original, all abbreviation variants used by Linnaeus, the Linnaean publications that reference the source, a content summary with herpetological emphasis, and critical commentary on edition identification-drawing on holdings of Linnaeus’s private library (now at the Linnean Society of London) and the library of the Academy of Uppsala. The work extends and corrects the two prior major assessments by Dundee (1994) and Heller (2007), identifying 21 cases where the edition actually consulted by Linnaeus differs from previous determinations

Hardcover, ISBN: 979-8-234-09728-6. x + 214 (2) pages.

Retail (includes postage): $92.00

ISHBH Members: $58.00

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To be published July 20, 2026 

Wahlgreniana volume 4: On Amphibians and Reptiles in Linnaeus’s Students’ Dissertation

Just published: 

Lavilla, Esteban O. 2026. On Amphibians and Reptiles in Linnaeus’s Students’ Dissertations. International Society for the History and Bibliography of Herpetology, Salt Lake City, Utah, vi, 136 pages.

Linnaeus oversaw 185 doctoral dissertations throughout his career. These theses, often overlooked in the vast Linnaean legacy, offer valuable insights into the scientific understanding of amphibians and reptiles during the 18th century.

Two of these theses, Siren lacertina and De Morsura serpentum, deal with amphibians and reptiles as central topics. Another three, Amphibia Gyllenborgiana, Museum Adolpho-Friedericianum, and Surinamensia Grilliana, describe collections that were duly donated to the University, all of which have a significant component of Amphibia in the Linnaean sense. Two more, Lignum colubrinum and Radix senega, deal with the identification and uses of supposed antivenins of vegetal origin. In addition to these seven, amphibians and reptiles were occasionally mentioned in another 25 dissertations.

This volume contains English translations of seven complete dissertations, plus the herpetological portions of twenty-five additional dissertations. The 466 added footnotes and an the extensive bibliography, place these translations in their original context and makes them accessible to the modern reader.

Available in Hardcover (ISBN: 979-8-218-88776-6) for $40 ($24 for ISHBH members), plus postage.

With this volume of Wahlgreniana, each volume will be published simultaneously in print and Open Access. An open access edition of this volume is available at: https://archive.org/details/linnaeuss-student-dissertations 

Print copies may be ordered through www.ISHBH.com or email Editor@ISHBH.com 

Beyond Herpetological Academics

 Just Published:

Dodd, Jr., C. Kenneth. 2026. Beyond Herpetological Academics: History, Biographies, Memoirs, Outreach, and Other Interests. Privately Published, Gainesville, Florida, 37 pages.

You might think research scientists had enough to do with planning, conducting, analyzing, and writing up the results of research projects, teaching, public service, seminars and conferences, and seemingly endless administrative duties, not to mention a home life, to keep them occupied. Despite these responsibilities, however, many professional scientists have gone beyond the workplace to write about the history of their profession or specialty, biographies of colleagues past and present, memoirs of their own careers and adventures, popular outreach print media, and other subjects that have interested them that may be far from herpetology, natural history or even outside the realms of science. To date, there has not been a compilation of these efforts, and the following bibliography seeks to recognize the efforts of herpetologists, regardless of their professional affiliation, in these often related but extracurricular undertakings. 

 

Available Open Access at: https://archive.org/details/beyond-academics-2nd-edition-revised 

 

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.

New Publication

 

PRESS RELEASE

 
 

Illuminating Natural History
The Art and Science of Mark Catesby

by Henrietta McBurney

Publication: 22 June 2021
368pp, 285 x 245mm, 250 colour & b-w illustrations
£40.00 hardback / Distributed by Yale University Press

This richly illustrated book explores the life and work of the celebrated 18th-century English artist, explorer, naturalist and author Mark Catesby (1683–1749). During Catesby’s lifetime, science was poised to shift from a world of amateur virtuosi to one of professional experts. He worked against a backdrop of global travel that incorporated collecting and direct observation of nature. As well as creating spectacular watercolours and prints, Catesby made important contributions to early theories of bird migration and introduced several North American plants such as the Catalpa and Magnolia grandiflora to English gardens.

The book shines new light on the role of art and the artist in the exploration of the natural world. Catesby was the first to show the interaction of birds and other animals in the wild in what we would now call ecological terms; he considered colour essential for ‘illuminating natural history’, and he made drawings in the field to capture the colours and ‘gestures’ of animals and plants. He watched with amazement in the Bahamas as the voracious barracuda devoured a blue tang in three mouthfuls; he painted and described several birds now extinct, including the spectacular ivory-billed woodpecker and the rainbow-coloured Carolina parakeet; and he developed his original observations on bird migration after hearing flocks of bobolinks fly overhead at night while he was lying on a boat off Andros Island.

Catesby spent two prolonged periods in the New World – in Virginia (1712–19) and, sponsored by the Royal Society, in South Carolina and the Bahamas (1722–26) – which he documented in The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731-43). These majestic volumes reflected the excitement, drama and beauty of the natural world, and were esteemed ‘a most magnificent work’ and ‘an ornament for the finest library in the world’. Indeed, the majority of the watercolours Catesby made for his Natural History are housed today in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, where they are among the most prized sets of natural history drawings in the Royal Collection. Selections of Catesby’s watercolours have been displayed in Britain and abroad, but many have never been seen in public, and smaller groups in the British Library and British Museum are virtually unknown. Hundreds of plant specimens collected by him for his English sponsors, now in London’s Natural History Museum and in the Department of Plant Sciences in Oxford, are rarely seen.

Interweaving elements of art history, history of science, natural history illustration, painting materials, book history, paper studies, garden history and colonial history, Henrietta McBurney’s meticulously researched volume brings together a wealth of unpublished images as well as newly discovered letters by Catesby, which, with their first-hand accounts of his collecting and encounters in the wild, bring the story of this extraordinary pioneer naturalist vividly to life.

Henrietta McBurney is a freelance curator and art historian; she was previously curator in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.

Press Contact: Kate Burvill, KBPR    E: kateburvill@gmail.com    M: 07947 754 717    T: 020 7226 7824

Paul Mellon Centre
16 Bedford Square London WC1B 3JA
T: 020 7580 0311 F: 020 7636 6730
www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(10)

Crump, M. L. 2020.  Book Review. Great Adaptations: Star-nosed Moles, Electric Eels & Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(10):80-82. Published December 16, 2020.

Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(6)

Dodd, C. K. 2020. Book Review. The Poetics of Natural History (Second Edition). Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(6):42-46. Published November 27, 2020.

The Lost Species: Great Expeditions in the Collections of Natural History Museums

Kemp, Christopher. 2017. The Lost Species: Great Expeditions in the Collections of Natural History Museums. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, xxii, 250 p. [ISBN: 9780226386218]

Support ISHBH by

ordering a copy of

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link: The Lost Species:

Great Expeditions in

the Collections of Natural

History Museums 

Publisher description: The tiny, lungless Thorius salamander from southern Mexico, thinner than a match and smaller than a quarter. The lushly white-coated Saki, an arboreal monkey from the Brazilian rainforests. The olinguito, a native of the Andes, which looks part mongoose, part teddy bear. These fantastic species are all new to science—at least newly named and identified; but they weren’t discovered in the wild, instead, they were unearthed in the drawers and cavernous basements of natural history museums. As Christopher Kemp reveals in The Lost Species, hiding in the cabinets and storage units of natural history museums is a treasure trove of discovery waiting to happen.

With Kemp as our guide, we go spelunking into museum basements, dig through specimen trays, and inspect the drawers and jars of collections, scientific detectives on the hunt for new species. We discover king crabs from 1906, unidentified tarantulas, mislabeled Himalayan landsnails, an unknown rove beetle originally collected by Darwin, and an overlooked squeaker frog, among other curiosities. In each case, these specimens sat quietly for decades—sometimes longer than a century—within the collections of museums, before sharp-eyed scientists understood they were new. Each year, scientists continue to encounter new species in museum collections—a stark reminder that we have named only a fraction of the world’s biodiversity. Sadly, some specimens have waited so long to be named that they are gone from the wild before they were identified, victims of climate change and habitat loss. As Kemp shows, these stories showcase the enduring importance of these very collections.

The Lost Species vividly tells these stories of discovery—from the latest information on each creature to the people who collected them and the scientists who finally realized what they had unearthed—and will inspire many a museumgoer to want to peek behind the closed doors and rummage through the archives.

 

Herpetological notes: This book is a tribute to, and argument for, natural history museums. Herpetologically there are three chapters (highlighted below). Chapter 8 discusses Jim Hanken’s work on salamanders of the genus Thorius, beginning in the 1970s when he discovered a new species in a jar full of other Thorius specimens, then proceeded to search other museum collections only to find several more new species of this genus.

Chapter 9 tells the story of David Blackburn’s discovery of Arthroleptis kutogundua in a jar of Arthroleptis frogs collected by Arthur Loveridge in 1930. This chapter also discusses Mark O’Shea’s discovery of Toxicocalamus ernstmayeri, in the Museum of Comparative Zoology collection at Harvard.

Chapter 10 highlights Hinrich Kaiser’s discovery of Cyrtodactylus celatus while going through reptiles collected from Timor in the British Museum’s collection.

 

Contents:

Introduction

The Vertebrates
1. Pushed up a Mountain and into the Clouds: The Olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina)
2. Beneath a Color 83 Sky: The Ucucha Mouse (Thomasomys ucucha)
3. Going on a Tapir Hunt: The Little Black Tapir (Tapirus kabomani)
4. A Taxonomic Confusion: The Saki Monkeys (Pithecia genus)
5. Scattered to the Corners of the World: The Arfak Pygmy Bandicoot (Microperoryctes aplini)
6. The One That Got Away for 160 Years: Wallace’s Pike Cichlid (Crenicichla monicae)
7. Here Be Dragons: The Ruby Seadragon (Phyllopteryx dewysea)
8. A Century in a Jar: The Thorius Salamanders
9. From a Green Bowl: The Overlooked Squeaker Frog (Arthroleptis kutogundua)
10. A Body and a Disembodied Tail: Smith’s Hidden Gecko (Cyrtodactylus celatus)

The Invertebrates
11. Treasure in the By-Catch: The Gall Wasps (Cynipoidea species)
12. The Biomimic: The Lightning Cockroach (Lucihormetica luckae)
13. Sunk beneath the Surface in a Sea of Beetles: Darwin’s Rove Beetle (Darwinilus sedarisi)
14. The Spoils of a Distant War: The Congo Duskhawker Dragonfly (Gynacantha congolica)
15. A Specimen in Two Halves: Muir’s Wedge-Shaped Beetle (Rhipidocyrtus muiri)
16. Mary Kingsley’s Longhorn Beetle (Pseudictator kingsleyae)
17. The Giant Flies (Gauromydas papavero and Gauromydas mateus)
18. It Came from Area 51: The Atomic Tarantula Spider (Aphonopelma atomicum)
19. The Host with the Most: The Nematode Worm (Ohbayashinema aspeira)
20. From a Time Machine on Cromwell Road: Ablett’s Land Snail (Pseudopomatias abletti)
21. In Sight of Land: Payden’s Isopod (Exosphaeroma paydenae)
22. A Ball of Spines: Makarov’s King Crab (Paralomis makarovi)

Botanical
23. In an Ikea Bag: The Custard Apple Family (Monanthotaxis Genus)

The Others
24. Waiting with Their Jackets On: The Fossils (Paleontology Specimens Collected by Elmer Riggs)
25. The First Art: The Earliest Hominin Engraving (a 500,000-Year-Old Shell)
Epilogue

Illustration Captions and Credits
Notes
Index

The Art of Natural History: Botanical Illustrations, Ornithological Drawings, and Other Masterpieces from the Age of Exploration

Heurtel, Pascale and Michelle Lenoir. 2018. The Art of Natural History: Botanical Illustrations, Ornithological Drawings, and Other Masterpieces from the Age of Exploration. Rizzoli, New York, 632 p. [9780847863082]

 

Support ISHBH by ordering

a copy of the book using this

link: The Art of Natural

History: Botanical Illustrations,

Ornithological Drawings, and

Other Masterpieces from the

Age of Exploration

From the publisher: This oversized collector’s edition showcases antique paintings and drawings of birds and animals from the most important natural history collection in France.

An unparalleled collection of the most beautiful—yet scientific—depictions of flora and fauna ever produced, these artworks document three centuries of exploration of the far reaches of the world—a rich visual record harking back to a time when science relied upon painstaking human illustration as the only way to record exotic plants and unknown animals observed during voyages of discovery.

All the artworks included here were depicted on vellum, a high-quality, long-lasting parchment that fell out of use around 1900 when it was supplanted by photography. France’s national collection consists of over 7,000 such artworks and is among the world’s finest. Flora and fauna from every corner of the globe are represented in precisely rendered color and detail.

Sadly, many of the species depicted in these masterful yet hauntingly accurate portraits are now endangered, threatened—or in many cases, already extinct. This volume is both a celebration of the human quest for knowledge and an epitaph for a fast disappearing world—as well as a feast for the eyes for anyone who loves birds or vintage natural history art. This exquisite and timeless book is beautifully presented in a jacketed volume within a slipcase and luxuriously packaged within an illustrated mailer with a handle for portability.

 

Herpetological notes: This lavishly published volume reminds one of the full size reprint of Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities: Locupletissmi rerum naturalium thesauri 1734-1765 by Taschen in 2001. Although the number of herpetological plates included in this volume are few, they are exquisite and unlikely to be found anywhere else. 

 

Herpetological plates included are:

Reunion Giant Tortoise (extinct species) by Claude Aubriet

Imaginary lizard by Jean Joubert

Tortoise – possibly Testudo(teachea and lungs) by Pierre Joseph Redouté

Red-footed Tortoise by Nicholas Huet

Brazilian Snake-necked Turtle by Pierre François de Wailly

Spotted Turtle by Nicholas Maréchal

African Softshell Turtle by Henri Joseph Rodouté

Chinese Alligator by Nicholas Huet

Ocellated Lizard by Henri Joseph Redouté

Senegal Chameleon by Nicholas Huet

Nile Monitor by Nicholas Huet

Grass Snake by Nicholas Huet

Egyptian Cobra by Jacques Barraband

Timber Rattlesnake by Henri Joseph Redouté

European Green Toad by Nicholas Huet

Marbled Newt by Henri Joseph Redouté

Horned Viper by J. Huet

Bell’s Dabb Lizard by Paul Louis Oudart and Marie Firmin Bocourt

Dwarg Crocodile by J. Huet

Brazilian Horned Frog by Juliette Alberti

Magdalena River Turtle by A.J.B. Vaillant

Asian Water Monitor [Misidentified Tegu] – by Jean-Charles Werner

Green Iguana by Antoine Chazal

Boa Constrictor by A.J.B. Vaillant

Gaboon Viper by Antoine Chazal

Egyptian Cobra by Marie Firmin Bocourt

Malagasy Tree Boa by Eugène Juillerat

Bullfrog by Antoine Chazal

Radiated Tortoise by A. Jobin

Crocodile fossil by Antoine Chazal

Red-footed Tortoise by Nicholas Huet

Contents: 

Preface

The Vellum Collection: Between Art and Science

 

The Beginnings of the Vellum Collection (1630–1685)

Painting Books in the Seventeenth Century

Gaston d’Orléans and the Birth of the Collection
Gaston d’Orléans, Collector and Bibliophile

Gaston d’Orléans, Collector of Plants and Birds

Nicolas Robert, The Vellum Collections First Painter

La Guirlande de Julie

Notes

 

The King’s Vellums (1685–1780)

The King’s Vellums and Louis XIV’s Collections

The “Painters in Miniature to the King”

The Vellums and the King’s Library

The “Plantes du roi”

Notes

 

The Golden Age of the Vellums and the Muséum (1780–1832)

The Vellums at the Muséum

The Muséum’s Painters: From Van Spaendonck to Rodouté

Vellums and Publishing in the Early Nineteenth Century

Notes

 

The Collection’s Growth, End, and Renaissance (1832–2005)

The Diversity of the Collection During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

The Muséum’s Vellum Collection: A Phoenix?

The Node-Véran Vellum Collection in Montpellier: Between Promotion and Scientific Research

Notes

 

The Vellums

Introduction

Were the Botanical Vellums Scientific Tools?

Animals in the Vellums of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle

Notes

 

The Beginnings of the Vellum Collection (1630–1685)

Botanical Plates

Zoological Plates

Captions

 

The King’s Vellums (1685–1780)

Botanical Plates

Zoological Plates

Captions

 

The Golden Age of the Vellums and the Muséum (1780–1832)

Botanical Plates

Zoological Plates

Captions

 

The Collection’s Growth, End, and Renaissance (1832–2005)

Botanical Plates

Zoological Plates

Captions

 

Appendix

The Vellum Technique

Bibliography

Index of Artists

Index of Persons and Institutions

Index of Scientific Names

Capturing Nature: Early Scientific Photography at the Australian Museum 1857–1893

Finney, Vanessa. 2019. Capturing Nature: Early Scientific Photography at the Australian Museum 1857–1893. NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, viii, 200 p. [ISBN: 9781742236209]

Support ISHBH by ordering
a copy of the book using
this link: Capturing Nature:
Early Scientific Photography
at the Australian Museum
1857–1893 

Publisher description: In the mid-nineteenth century, scientists around the world were quick to see photography’s huge potential for capturing fleeting moments of life, death, and discovery. At the Australian Museum, curator Gerard Krefft and taxidermist Henry Barnes began to experiment with the revolutionary new art form, preparing and staging their specimens—from whales and giant sunfish to lifelike lyre bird scenes and fossils—and documenting them in thousands of arresting images. Capturing Nature reveals these groundbreaking photographs for the first time, along with the Australian Museum’s urgent quest to become more scientific in its practices.

Herpetological notes: This book contains a wealth of information about Gerard Krefft (1830–1881) who was at the Australian Museum from 1860 to 1874. Krefft had previous experience with photography, which he brought with him to the museum. In addition to the establishment and growth of photography at the museum, the author presents breakout sections of particular interest to herpetologists. One of these sections discusses the use of photography for the illustrations by the Scott sisters in Krefft’s 1869 book, The Snakes of Australia. Another breakout section discusses the type specimen of Crocodylus johnstoni. The book contains a number of photographs of Krefft, including a carte de vista of him with several reptiles. Throughout the book are never before published photographs of Australian fauna, including several reptiles.