̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Natalie Lawrence

Opinion: Frankenstein or Krampus? What our monsters say about us

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 00:15:36 +0000

Two new monster movies are being released in the lead-up to Christmas, and each sports a very different kind of beast. There’s the man-made creation of Victor Frankenstein in the latest rendition of Mary Shelley’s gothic tale, a grotesque creature cobbled together from “the dissecting room and the slaughter-house”. And then there’s Krampus, an American re-working of the evil Austrian counterpart to Father Christmas.

̽��ֱ��word “monster”, as this shows, covers all manner of things. Man-made, such as Frankenstein, folkloric demons such as Krampus, and then there are also the classical images of exotic peoples with no heads or grotesquely exaggerated features, or the kinds of impossible chimerical beasts inhabiting the pages of medieval bestiaries.

̽��ֱ��etymology of monstrosity suggests the complex roles that monsters play within society. “Monster” probably derives from the Latin, monstrare, meaning “to demonstrate”, and monere, “to warn”.

So monsters, in essence, are demonstrative. They reveal, portend, show and make evident, often uncomfortably so. How they have been created over the centuries is much more indicative of the moral and existential challenges faced by societies than the realities that they have encountered. Though the modern Gothic monster and the medieval chimera may seem unrelated, both have acted as important social tools.

Victor Frankenstein. Fox UK

Early modern monsters

Until relatively recently in history, monsters close to home, such as deformed babies or two-headed calves, were construed as warnings of divine wrath. Monstrous depictions in newspapers and pamphlets expressed strong political attitudes. Traditional monstrous beasts such as basilisks or unicorns, that were banished to distant regions in maps, represented a frightening unknown: “here be dragons” effectively filled cartographic voids.

̽��ֱ��‘sea-elephant’.

Simultaneously, however, monsters represented the wonderful diversity of divine creation, a playful “Nature” that produced a multitude of strange forms. Exotic beasts brought to Europe for the first time in the 16th century, such as armadillos or walruses, were often interpreted as “monstrous”. More accurately, they were made into monsters when they were defined as such: as things that did not fit into the accepted natural categories. An armadillo became a pig-turtle, while a walrus was a sea-elephant.

Beasts that subverted what was expected in some way actually reinforced categories by clarifying the defining criteria for these groups. By transgressing, they helped to determine boundaries. Because to define a deviant form, such as a “deformed” baby or calf, or a “monstrous” exotic creature, you have to define “normal”.

For example, the simple definition of a “bird” was something that had two legs, two wings, could fly and walk. Then two new creatures arrived in the 16th century that seemed to violate this definition. First, birds of paradise were brought to Europe in 1622 as trade skins with stunning, colourful plumes but no legs or wings. Their limbs were removed by the hunters who supplied the birds in New Guinea. ̽��ֱ��birds were interpreted by European naturalists as heavenly creatures that never landed, inhabiting the boundary between the avian and the angelic.

Some legless birds of paradise. Johnston

At the other end of the avian spectrum, Dutch sailors landing on Mauritius at the end of the 16th century encountered dodos. Though rarely brought to Europe physically, the descriptions and detached parts of dodos were used by naturalists to depict ungainly, fat birds. Not only did dodos not fly, they could hardly walk.

̽��ֱ��dodo was therefore depicted as vast and gluttonous in late 17th-century accounts. It greedily consumed everything it came across, even hot coals. It was described as nauseatingly greasy to eat: one bird could apparently feed 25 men. This image was created by writers who had never seen the bird, and is not supported by current paleobiological evidence. ̽��ֱ��idea of the avian glutton embodied European anxieties about the rapacious colonial trading activities in the Indian Ocean, which brought a surfeit of riches to Europe. ̽��ֱ��engorged dodo became a scapegoat for the European sin of gluttony.

̽��ֱ��monstrous dodo.

Monsters, therefore, are not self-evident; they are created to serve certain roles. Making things monstrous also added value. They became commercially lucrative things: oddities, curiosities and rare things were very marketable.

̽��ֱ��market for monstrosity further motivated the literal creation of monsters: “mermaids” were assembled from pieces of fish, monkeys and other objects while “ray-dragons” were created from carefully mutilated and dried rays. These objects could be sold to collectors or displayed in menageries and freak-shows. Writing about and portraying virtual monsters helped to sell books and pamphlets.

Modern-day monsters

So how do we use our monsters today? One of the two monsters set to hit cinemas displays the dangers of hubristic human enterprise (Victor Frankenstein); the other provides a dark embodiment of Christmas-spirit gone awry (Krampus). Such monsters are images that embody the cultural or psychological characteristics that we as a society find difficult to acknowledge. By excising them, through fantastical narratives, we rid ourselves of the undesirable attributes they are perceived to carry. ̽��ֱ��cathartic consumption of monster-culture provides us with a safe, removed space to explore and excise social anxieties.

It also offers the illusion of absolution from them by externalising anxieties into ridiculous figures, such as Krampus. Monsters such as this proffer us pastiches of moral messages in easily-swallowed forms that both highlight their potential threat, and soothe us by defusing it.

Though it may not seem so, this has always been the most important role that monsters have played: they horrify us, yes, but ultimately their function is to remove what we find horrifying about ourselves. So we can recoil at the gory construction of Frankenstein’s monster, or shriek at the toothy maw of Krampus for a few hours, then leave them happily behind when the credits roll.

Natalie Lawrence, PhD Candidate, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Natalie Lawrence (Department of History and Philosophy of Science) discusses the history of monsters, and what they say about the people who invent them.

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Nikolaus and Krampus in Austria

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What is so unusual about a sloth’s neck?

amb206 — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 09:58:52 +0000

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Xenarthra is an order of primarily South American mammals that includes sloths, ant-eaters and armadillos. Several are sufficiently endangered to be on the IUCN ‘red list’. In previous millenia, the group was far bigger. It covered many other creatures, now extinct, such as giant ground sloths estimated to have exceeded the size of a male African elephant.

As ‘exotic’ animals, xenarthrans have long fascinated westerners and became a must-have item in ‘cabinets of curiosities’ – collections gathered from a world that was opening up to exploration from the 15th century onwards. In the mid-17th century, the naturalist-physician, Georg Marcgrave, stationed in Dutch Brazil, described the armadillos that he encountered:

" ̽��ֱ��Tatu or Tatu-peba in Brazilian, Armadillo in Spanish, Encuberto in Portuguese, we Belgians call Armoured-piglet. It is a most powerful animal that lives in the ground, though also in water and soggy places. It is found in various sizes."

As a consequence of the blossoming of scientific enquiry in the 19th century, many leading zoology museums have examples of xenarthrans in their collections. Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology, for example, has a fine collection of specimens collected on expeditions to South America, from the diminutive Pink Fairy Armadillo (Chlamyphorus truncatus) to the towering giant ground sloth (Megatherium americanum) which became extinct some 10,000 years ago.

̽��ֱ��ground sloth is one of a number of relatively recently extinct large sloths, one of which Charles Darwin himself helped discover on the voyage of the Beagle. On September 18, 1832, Darwin noted in his dairy that he had dined on “Ostrich dumpling & Armadillos”. ̽��ֱ��‘ostrich’ he ate was, in fact, rhea; the abundant armadillos were a staple diet of the local gauchos.

Not long afterwards, Darwin saw for the first time fossils of shells and other animals, embedded in soft sea cliffs, including a specimen of giant ground sloth which was to be named Mylodon darwinii in his honour.

Xenarthans have been a source of fascination to Dr Robert Asher, an evolutionary biologist in the Department of Zoology, ever since he first began studying mammalian diversity as a graduate student some 20 years ago. He’s particularly interested in the evolutionary stories told by the structure of their skeletons – and the ways in which their bones act as clues to their relative position within the tree of life.

Natural history museums in Berlin, Paris and London have in their collections examples of three-toed sloths, including embryos and foetuses. These specimens enabled Dr Robert Asher and his colleague Dr Lionel Hautier (formerly a Cambridge postdoctoral fellow and now at the ̽��ֱ�� of Montpellier) to publish research on an aspect of the anatomy of sloths which sets them apart from almost every other mammal on earth.

̽��ֱ��difference lies in the arrangement of vertebrae in sloths’ spinal columns – which can be seen as clues to xenarthrans’ divergent evolutionary pathways over the past few million years.

You might think that animals with long necks would have more neck vertebrae than those with short necks. This is certainly true of some birds and reptiles. But almost every placental mammal on earth (some 5,000 species in total) has seven ‘ribless’ vertebrae in the neck – even creatures with long necks such as giraffes. ̽��ֱ��three-toed sloth deviates from this rule: many of these tree-living creatures have eight, nine or even ten cervical vertebrae.

This remarkable diversity was noticed in the 18th century and scientists continue to tease apart the mechanisms by which mammals deviate from the “rule of seven”. In 2009, Asher and colleagues set out to learn more about this intriguing quirk. Neck vertebrae are known as cervicals and the rib-bearing vertebrae below them are known as thoracics. Thoracic vertebrae have facets which allow articulation with the ribs.

Asher and colleagues looked at patterns of bone formation in mammals as they developed. They found that, in all mammals, the centrum (or middle part) of the first thoracic (number eight, counting down from the skull) turns from cartilage to bone earlier than the centra of the posterior-most cervicals. In sloths, too, the eighth vertebrae begins to develop early – but, in their case, this ribless vertebra is located in the neck and generally considered to be ‘cervical’.

“ ̽��ֱ��‘extra’ vertebrae in sloths’ necks have the same developmental characteristics as thoracic vertebrae. They are, in effect, ribcage vertebrae, masquerading as neck vertebrae. In sloths, the position of the shoulders, pelvis and ribcage are linked with one another, and compared to their common ancestor shared with other mammals, have shifted down the vertebral column to make the neck longer,” explains Asher.

“Even in sloths, the mammalian ‘rule of seven’ applies to the vertebral centra. ̽��ֱ��ossification of the centra in a long-necked sloth resembles ossification in other mammals. However, sloths can deviate from the “rule” by shifting the embryonic tissues that give rise to the limb girdles and rib cage relative to the vertebrae, adding what are essentially one or more ribcage vertebrae into the caudal end of their neck. ̽��ֱ��next question to address is why and how sloths managed this shift.”

Xenarthrans also pack some intriguing surprises when it comes to teeth. Anteaters have no teeth. Sloths have just one set of teeth to see them through life – as do all but one genus of armadillo. Armadillos in the genus Dasypus (including seven- and nine-banded species) are unlike other armadillos in having two sets of teeth during their lifespan: deciduous (or ‘milk’) teeth and permanent teeth.

Most mammals, including humans, shed their baby teeth while they are growing. Recent research by Asher and colleagues from the ̽��ֱ�� of La Plata, Argentina, into the dentition of Dasypus revealed that its permanent teeth erupt long after the animal reaches its full size. “ ̽��ֱ��equivalent scenario in a human would be losing your milk teeth, and gaining all your permanent ones, once you were fully grown and well into your 20s,” says Asher.

In this regard, Dasypus is similar to most species of endemic African mammals (Afrotheria) – a group of animals that includes elephants, manatees, tenrecs, golden moles and sengis. “Eruption of adult teeth after the attainment of full body size and sexual maturity is not unheard of in other mammals,” says Asher. “Some people reading this won’t yet have erupted their ‘wisdom’ teeth or third molars. But few groups do this as pervasively as Afrotherians and Dasypus.“

With gratitude to PhD candidate Natalie Lawrence (Department of History and Philosophy of Science) for her input on early western encounters with ‘exotic’ animals.

Next in the Cambridge Animal Alphabet: Y is for an animal that is an integral part of high-altitude livelihoods throughout the Himalayas, Tibet and Central Asia.

Have you missed the series so far? Catch up on Medium here.

Inset images: Illustration of an armadillo from Historiae Naturalis Brasilae Tatu by Georg Marcgrave; Skeleton of a giant land sloth (Museum of Zoology); Three-toed sloth - Bradypodidae - Luiaard (Martha de Jong-Lantink); Lateral view of 3D reconstruction of computerized tomography (CT) scans of skeleton in the three-toed sloth Bradypus (Hautier et al).

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge’s connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, X is for Xenarthran. A must-have item for 15th-century collectors of 'curiosities' and a source of fascination for evolutionary biologist Dr Robert Asher.

It is a most powerful animal that lives in the ground, though also in water and soggy places

Georg Marcgrave

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What is a unicorn’s horn made of?

amb206 — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 13:05:35 +0000

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At first glance, it might be a horse with wavy mane and swishing tail – but then you notice the long, twisted horn protruding from its forehead. Looking at this magnificent animal more closely, you see that its feet are most unlike horses’ hooves, cloven into digits almost like human feet.

No-one knows exactly what a unicorn looks like but the artist who decorated this maiolica plate (in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum: acc. no. C.86-1927) imagined a creature on a grand scale. ̽��ֱ��youthful rider, who sits astride a richly embroidered cloth, is dwarfed by the impressive size of his prancing steed.

̽��ֱ��plate was originally part of a series, made in Italy in the early 16th century, depicting Caesar’s triumphal entry into Rome after the end of the second Punic War. ̽��ֱ��scene is taken from a set of woodcuts and the letter H marks its place in the narrative. ̽��ֱ��plates are thought to have been produced by a workshop in Cafaggiolo, not far from Florence.

̽��ֱ��bold design is proof that unicorns have not always been the shy and gentle creatures that medieval bestiaries and 20^th-century children’s literature would have us believe. In fact, they were a ferocious addition to the ranks of mythical beasts in classical texts. Pliny the Elder described the unicorn thus:

“… a very fierce animal called the monoceros which has the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead.”

From these chimerical beginnings, the unicorn took a variety of directions in terms of both appearance and symbolism. It became an emblem for Christ in the Middle Ages and was often used in heraldry from the 15th century onwards. ̽��ֱ��lion and the unicorn are the symbols of the UK with the lion representing England and the unicorn Scotland.

̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum collection abounds with unicorns. Some of the most beguiling appear in ‘books of hours’ and ‘bestiaries’. Freelance researcher, Robert Lloyd Parry, investigated just a few of them in the course of researching an exploration of signs and symbols in art for the Fitzwilliam’s website.

A Flemish Book of Hours, dating from 1526, shows the Annunciation. Mary sits in a walled garden (symbolic of her virginity) and a white unicorn rests its horn in her lap. God the Father peeps out of a burning bush behind her and, beyond the garden, Gabriel blows a hunting horn.

A 15th-century illuminated manuscript – a French translation of a 13th-century encyclopaedia – depicts a unicorn in the Garden of Eden before the Fall of Man. Lloyd Parry writes: “God the Father holds the right hands of Adam and Eve with angels and animals looking on. A stream emerges from the ground at God’s feet. ̽��ֱ��unicorn’s horn points towards its clear waters – a reference perhaps to its legendary abilities to purify water.“

A magical creature is likely to have magical powers: unicorn horn is associated with purity. Natalie Lawrence, a PhD candidate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge, is researching early encounters with exotic creatures – including the opportunities they presented for traders and apothecaries.

Lawrence’s work offers fresh insights into how protective and curative powers were attributed to natural substances, at a time when there was widespread fear of poisoning. ̽��ֱ��17th-century recipe for one anti-poison, ‘Banister’s Powder’, called for unicorn horn, ‘east bezoars’ and stags heart ‘bones’. Members of the nobility purchased tableware and cups with ‘unicorn horn’ bases to avoid being poisoned, and the Throne Chair of Denmark (constructed 1662-1671) is even made of ‘unicorn horn’.

Powdered medicinal ‘unicorn horn’ was usually walrus ivory, rhinoceros horn or narwhal tusk, sometimes called ‘sea unicorn’. ̽��ֱ��problem of distinguishing ‘true horn’ was commented on by the French doctor, Pierre Martin La Martinière (1634-1690), who described the difficulty of knowing ‘what Creature the right Unicorn… there being several Animals the Greeks call Monoceros, and the Latines Uni-Cornis’, from a variety of terrestrial quadrupeds and ‘serpents’, to the ‘sea-elephant’ (walrus).

Materials such as walrus ivory, when identified as such, could possess similar qualities to unicorn’s horn. One apothecary, a ‘Mr Alexander Woodson of Bristoll’, ‘a skilful Phisition’, had ‘one of these beasts teeth, which ‘he had made tryall of’ by ‘ministering medicine to his patients, and had found it as soveraigne against poyson as any Unicornes horne’.

̽��ֱ��implicit links between unicorns and these other beasts did not diminish horns’ perceived medical powers. ̽��ֱ��Danish scholar Ole Worm (1588-1655) debunked the existence of the terrestrial unicorn in a public lecture using the skull of a narwhal, but he still attested to the horn's medical potency. Worm described experiments where poisoned animals had been revived by administration of powdered ‘sea unicorn’ horn.

By the early 18th century, ‘unicorn horns’ were much less prized in collections, losing some of their status as ‘rarities’, as high-volume importation into Europe flooded the market. But the appeal of the unicorn itself, especially incarnations such as the fleet-of-foot and mercurial creature of CS Lewis’s Narnia books, has never waned.

Perhaps this is because, most famously, they have always been extremely hard to catch.

Next in the Cambridge Animal Alphabet: V is for an animal that is responsible for up to 94,000 deaths a year, but is also being used to help develop treatments for diseases such as haemophilia, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke.

Have you missed the series so far? Catch up on Medium here.

Inset images: Detail from Salutations of the Virgin, from the Carew-Poyntz Book of Hours (Fitzwilliam Museum); Detail from Virgin reading in enclosed garden, Book of Hours, by Geert Grote (Fitzwilliam Museum); Unicorns from early modern natural histories by Topsell and Johnstone; Illustration of a narwhal skull from Ole Worm's book.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge’s connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, U is for Unicorn. Despite being notoriously difficult to catch, they feature on maiolica plates, in 15th century heraldry, and in early recipes for anti-poison.

̽��ֱ��17th-century recipe for one anti-poison, ‘Banister’s Powder’, called for unicorn horn, ‘east bezoars’ and stags heart ‘bones’

Fitzwilliam Museum

Caesar's Horse from a Triumph of Caesar, 1514. Maiolica dish after Jacopo di Stefano Schiavone

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What is a monster?

amb206 — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 15:06:14 +0000

What do we mean when we talk about 'monsters’? ̽��ֱ��word conjures up figures from gothic horror, such as Frankenstein or Dracula, classical images of exotic peoples with no heads or grotesquely exaggerated features, and the kinds of impossible chimerical beasts inhabiting the pages of medieval bestaries. How monsters have been created over the centuries is much more indicative of the moral and existential challenges faced by societies than the realities that they have encountered.

̽��ֱ��etymology of monstrosity suggests the complex roles that monsters play within society. 'Monster' probably derives from the Latin, monstrare, meaning 'to demonstrate', and monere, 'to warn'. Monsters, in essence, are demonstrative. They reveal, portend, show and make evident, often uncomfortably so. Though the modern gothic monster and the medieval chimaera may seem unrelated, both have acted as important social tools.

Dr Walter Palmer, who illegally shot Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe, has been labeled a 'monster'. Given the moniker ' ̽��ֱ��Dentist', he has had to resign from his practice, flee his home, and hire armed guards to protect himself and his family as a result of public disgust at his actions. He has even received death threats and been described as 'barely human'. Trophy hunting, and anyone who takes part in or has involvement with it, has been similarly vilified in the media and by animal rights groups.

Such public 'monsters' serve a similar role to gothic monsters, images that embody the cultural or psychological characteristics that we as a society find difficult to acknowledge. By excising them, through fantasies of execution or simply professional exclusion, we rid ourselves of the undesirable attributes they are perceived to carry. ̽��ֱ��'murdered' lion becomes the innocent white-robed victim of the archetypal gothic tale, while murderous 'Dentist' plays the role of social scapegoat.

Until relatively recently in history, monsters close to home, such as deformed babies or two-headed calves, were construed as warnings of divine wrath. Monstrous depictions in newspapers and pamphlets expressed strong political attitudes. ̽��ֱ��monstrous races or traditional monstrous beasts such as basilisks or unicorns, that were banished to distant regions in maps, represented a frightening unknown: 'here be dragons' effectively filled cartographic voids.

Simultaneously, however, monsters represented the wonderful diversity of divine creation, a playful ‘Nature’ that could produce a multitude of strange forms. Exotic beasts brought to Europe for the first time in the 16th century, such as armadillos or walruses, were often interpreted as 'monstrous'. More accurately, they were made into monsters: things that did not fit into the accepted natural categories. An armadillo became a pig-turtle, while a walrus was a fish-ox.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but beasts that seemingly mixed the characteristics of different natural groups were not troubling. Rather, they reinforced categories by clarifying the defining criteria for these groups. By transgressing, they helped to determine boundaries. To define a deviant form, such as a 'deformed' baby or calf, or a 'monstrous' exotic creature, you have to define 'normal'.

For example, the simple Aristotelian definition of a 'bird' was something that had two legs, two wings, could fly and walk. Two new creatures arrived in the 16th century that seemed to violate this definition. Firstly, birds of paradise were brought to Europe in 1622 as trade skins with stunning, colourful plumes but no legs or wings. Their limbs were removed by the hunters who supplied the birds in New Guinea. ̽��ֱ��birds were interpreted by European naturalists as heavenly creatures that never landed, inhabiting the boundary between the avian and the angelic.

Monsters are not self-evident; they were created to serve these roles. Even beautiful creatures like the birds of paradise could become monsters due to their lack of limbs and imagined ascetic lifestyles. Making monsters added value. They were commercially lucrative things: oddities, curiosities and rare things were very marketable.

̽��ֱ��market for monstrosity motivated the literal creation of monsters: 'mermaids' were assembled from pieces of fish, monkeys and other objects while 'ray-dragons' were created from carefully mutilated and dried rays. These objects could be sold to collectors or displayed in menageries and freak-shows. Writing about and portraying virtual monsters helped to sell books and pamphlets.

̽��ֱ��tale of Cecil and ' ̽��ֱ��Dentist' is not so different. It is certainly highly saleable, as details about this particular monster's life and activities provide valuable fodder for media outlets.

Animal monsters could have very specific roles. ̽��ֱ��dodo, for example, was depicted as vast and gluttonous in late 17th-century accounts. It greedily consumed everything it came across, even hot coals. It was described as nauseatingly greasy to eat: one bird could apparently feed 25 men. This image was created by writers who had never seen the bird, and is not supported by current paleobiological evidence.

̽��ֱ��idea of the avian glutton embodied European anxieties about the rapacious colonial trading activities in the Indian Ocean, which brought a surfeit of riches to Europe. ̽��ֱ��engorged dodo became a scapegoat for the European sin of gluttony.

What catharsis does the 'monsterification' of Palmer and other trophy hunters provide? Perhaps focusing on the tragedy of one 'personality' lion distracts from the greater horrors of illegal poaching and human-animal conflict occurring in similar regions. It also masks the fact that, though controversial, regulated commercial hunting is an important source of conservation funding in many countries.

On the one hand, excising this monster reinforces our conceptions of social boundaries of morality: don't kill creatures we perceive as having human traits, like names or personalities. On the other, it offers the illusion of absolution from the underlying horror at what all of us are doing to the natural world.

Inset images: ̽��ֱ��'Monster of Cracow', a monstrous creature born to honourable parents, from Pierre Boaistuau's 'Histoires Prodigieuses' (1560, Paris) (Wellcome Library, London); 'Draco alter ex raia' or a ray-dragon from Ulysse Aldrovandi's 'Serpentum et draconum historiæ' (1640, Bologna), p.316.

In the outrage that erupted when an American dentist killed a lion, the trophy hunter was branded a 'monster'. Natalie Lawrence, a PhD candidate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, explores notions of the monstrous and how they tie into ideas about morality.

̽��ֱ��market for monstrosity motivated the literal creation of monsters: 'mermaids' were assembled from pieces of fish, monkeys and other objects

Natalie Lawrence

'Monstrum marinum daemoniforme' from Ulysse Aldrovandi's 'Monstrorum Historia' (1642, Bologna), p.350

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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