Tierdarstellungen - Säugetiere / Mammals

In 1774 Johann Christian Dan Schreber authored a multivolume set of books entitled Die Saugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. Focusing on mammals of the world, these books were lavishly illustrated with hand-colored plates. There was a slight problem though: in most instances the artists had never seen the animals they were rendering onto paper. Explorers would return from their travels and describe the animals in question to the artists. The end result was that some of the drawings, though representing real animals, looked more like they had come from someone's nightmares. Each picture shows the original scientific name attributed to the animal as it appeared in Schreber's work. Click on any of the beasts-names for an image and a description !