If you traveled back 250-500 years what #wildlife could you see near you? After a four year research project, I can tell you the answer in Britain and Ireland and it is quite exciting! (๐บโ๐โ๐ฐโ๐ฆโโ๐ฆโ๐โ)!
My Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife will be published in June, but I have special permission to share some of my findings before that, so I will be releasing one map each month here. Here is a list of previously released ones: https://historyandnature.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/atlas-maps/
#gis
Wow! My 2021 article 'Darwin's Closet: The Queer Sides of The Descent of Man (1871),' published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, has now been viewed over 45K times! ๐ฒ
Please keep sharing: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/191/2/323/6075648 ๐ฆ ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ ๐ ๐
#history #histodons @histodons #histsci #histbio #HistSTM #HSTM #STS @histstm #QueerInSTEM #queer #lgbtq #lgbtqia #queerhistory #histsex #sex #biology #zoology #naturalhistory #science #animals #Darwin
Just a few centuries ago choughs were recorded all along the south coast of England... Do you think we could get there again?!
There was that chick in Dover this year too! ๐ป๐ฆโโฌ๐งก
(Map based on my research, from my Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife)
#chough #BritishWildlife #ornithology #envhist
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:rpealguof6k3rbxbuourojhb/post/3l2cmwiz5ix25
' . . . but when it comes to the birds and the bees, maybe we didn't get the whole story.'
Super piece on ITV News yesterday prompted by the London Natural History Museum's fabulous new book A Little Gay Natural History by Josh Luke Davis. ๐ต๐ณ๏ธโ๐๐ง
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-08-02/new-research-reveals-same-sex-couples-in-1500-animal-species
#tv #televsion #queer #lgbtq #lgbtqia #Pride #PrideInSTEM #sex #science #biology #zoology #nature #naturalhistory #animals
How Australian scientists brought Norfolk Islandโs thumbnail-sized #snails back from the brink of extinction
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/13/how-australian-scientists-brought-norfolk-islands-thumbnail-sized-snails-back-from-the-brink-of-extinction
"After initially struggling to reproduce in captivity, A. campbellii are now breeding like rabbits and scientists are planning to release some back into their only known home, a small valley on an island in the middle of the Pacific... The #snail was officially #extinct when, in 2020, pictures taken by local citizen scientist found their way to Dr Isabel Hyman"
๐บ You wait a lifetime for a queer nature documentary and then two come along at once - typical! Hot on the heels of Queer Planet is Second Nature: Gender & Sexuality in the Animal World, narrated by the wonderful Elliot Page. It looks awesome! ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ณ๏ธโ๐๐
https://www.secondnaturedoc.com/
#tv #televsion #queer #lgbtq #lgbtqia #queerinstem #prideinstem #sex #gender #science #biology #zoology #nature #naturalhistory #animals #secondnature #elliotpage
Most pristine #trilobite #fossils ever found shake up scientific understanding of the long #extinct group https://phys.org/news/2024-06-pristine-trilobite-fossils-scientific-extinct.html
Rapid volcanic ash entombment reveals the 3D anatomy of #Cambrian trilobites https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl4540
"The fossils, which are more than 500 million years old, were collected in the #HighAtlas of #Morocco and are being referred to by scientists as Pompeii #trilobites due to their remarkable preservation in ash."
The smelt is an estuary fish which swims upstream to spawn. 250-500 years ago it was common around Britain, and was thought to smell like violets or green leaves! It is now much rarer due to over-fishing and poor water quality. Map from my #AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife #AnimalHistory #GIS #UKwildlife
Useless Facts, Badly Drawn #325: Perucetus Colossus
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#perucetus #perocetuscolossus #whales #cetaceans #extinct #giants #chonk #chonkyboi #nofatshaming #wtf #science #biology #paleontology #comics #webcomics #comic #funfacts #facts #uselessfacts #uselessfactsbadlydrawn
This is my #linocut of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), surrounded by plants & a mineral she touted as medical treatments, her invented alphabet & model of the universe. Her writings preserve not only her own knowledge & theories but the nature of institutional #medicine & folk healing of her day (which she deftly combined). While she might be best remembered today as a composer of 70 Gregorian chants & musical dramasโฆ ๐งต1/n
#printmaking #womenInSTEM #histSci #histMed #botany #MastoArt
I had a request from @LeafyHistory to help translate this text for their upcoming discussion group on the wolf in Japan. The 'dog Shogun' Tsunayoshi was something of an animal lover, and his Buddhist tendencies led to some extensive animal rights laws - even for wild animals!
Link: https://yobanashicafe.wordpress.com/2023/10/23/tokugawa-tsunayoshis-compassion-for-living-things/
#YobanashiCafรฉ #Buddhism #JapaneseHistory #JapaneseLiterature #JapaneseBuddhism
According to my research, the Great Bustard was still pretty well recorded in Britain 250-500 years ago. It was hunted to extinction in the nineteenth century, but has since been reintroduced in Wiltshire.
I wonder if all the birds in the eastern Fen counties got soggy bums! - I don't think they are very waterproof birds! ๐นโ๐ฆ
(Map from my Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife)โ
#extinction #Britishbirds #bustard #ornithology #animalhistory #histodon
Shaligrams, the #sacred #fossils, are becoming rarer because of climate change https://theconversation.com/shaligrams-the-sacred-fossils-that-have-been-worshipped-by-hindus-and-buddhists-for-over-2-000-years-are-becoming-rarer-because-of-climate-change-209311
"For more than 2,000 years, #Hinduism, #Buddhism and the shamanic #Himalayan #religion of Bon have venerated #Shaligrams โ ancient fossils of #ammonites, a class of #extinct sea creatures related to modern #squids... #ClimateChange, faster glacial melting, and gravel mining in the #KaliGandaki are changing the course of the river, which means fewer Shaligrams are appearing each year."
Three maps from my ATLAS OF EARLY MODERN WILDLIFE showing where wild animals were recorded in Britain and Ireland 250-500 years ago... โ
I found loads of records of Pine Martens and Otters. So why no records of Beavers from early modern England..?
John Ray (1693) says 'These animals have been cut down by hunters all the way to the final extermination, and their stock in England and Wales is thoroughly extinct...'
Were they already gone?๐ฟโ
#beaver #earlymodern #extinct #envhistodons
It is in fact questioned by some authorities, wether even Mesolithic Europeans, were sailing out intoo deep waters, to catch offshore fish. (Pickard & Bonsell, 2004)
At European sites, inshore fishes greatly outnumber pelagic ones, although Thunnus, Scomber, Xiphias, and Belone turn up. I know from personal experience, that Belone and Scomber sometimes come quite inshore. The occurrences of the larger oceanic predators, Thunnus and Xiphias, are harder to explain without some offshore fishing.
More new research from me published this month! โ
This is a chapter in the edited volume 'Wolf: Culture, Nature, Heritage' (Boydell Press). My research examines the (vv old!) chancery records of England and found over 200 licences for hunting hares ๐ฐโ, foxes ๐ฆโ, badgers ๐ฆกโ, wildcats (๐ฑโ!) and wolves (๐บโ!!!) in 13th and 14th century England. The licences are specific so can be mapped like this!
Free copy available here: https://zenodo.org/record/8173432
That's a fair cop! Okay...โ
My book is out today! ๐โ
Here is an article I wrote about it for the Conversation: ๐งโ
https://theconversation.com/wildlife-wonders-of-britain-and-ireland-before-the-industrial-revolution-my-research-reveals-all-the-biodiversity-weve-lost-208721
Here is a shorter article about some of the mammal records I found ๐พโ:
https://www.mammal.org.uk/2023/06/the-atlas-of-early-modern-wildlife-by-lee-raye/
Here is a long presentation about my book ๐ฝ๏ธโ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1RfCQFdv2s&ab_channel=SEWBReC
Here is a short walkthrough ๐๏ธโ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJK_eohsL8E&ab_channel=LeeRaye
Here is a sample ๐โ:
https://pelagicpublishing.com/blogs/news/the-atlas-of-early-modern-wildlife-sample-chapter
And this is a thread of my maps! ๐โ:
https://computerfairi.es/@LeafyHistory/109558214684536601
No equivalent of 'quote tweeting' here, so to add to the post we've just shared: The Atlas of Early Modern Wildlife by @LeafyHistory looks like a fascinating read for anyone interested in the wildlife of their British or Irish #OnePlaceStudies in times gone by.
Hi everyone, today is the day my book, THE ATLAS OF EARLY MODERN WILDLIFE is published. ๐๐
The Atlas catalogues the state of nature in Britain and Ireland during the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. ๐บ๐ฆซ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ณ๐๐ข๐๐ฆ๐ฆ
It's taken me five years to get to this point! The Atlas is based on over 10,000 records from 200+ primary sources (essentially books written in the time period)!
#biodiversity #extinction #wildlife #earlymodern #histodons #AnimalHistory #HistoricalEcology #HGIS #envhist
Ok finally career #introduction time!
I am a #DH #earlymodern Historian with preference of English and Irish History. I have specialized in the London Bills of Mortality on Death By Numbers. So basically I love medicine, death, and plague of early modern.
I received my MA from GMU, and worked with the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) where I discovered my love for mixing tech and history. I am post grad at a local library while I figure out what to research
Messy-haired hedge-doctor & friend to the local Slow Worms.
Special subject: the history of wildlife & wild plants in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland.
Looking to follow people who talk about nature, history, unions and the secret moonlight magic that opens the gates to faerie.
#AnimalHistory #EnvHist #HistoricalEcology #medieval #EarlyModern #MoreThanHuman #CelticStudies #HGIS #extinction #histodons