Intricate 18th century illustrations depicting stunning flora and fauna

These amazing and intricate illustrations are the work of Mark Catesby, a British naturalist and artist who traveled to North America many times in the early 18th century and recorded the flora and fauna he saw during his travels.

His work has been collected in a new book, Catesby’s natural history Exploring a Naturalist’s Landmark Papers, by Stephen A. Harris, Natural history of the Carolinas, Florida, and the Bahamas. “Catesby introduced readers to illustrations of the wide variety of plants and animals that were being discovered by Europeans in North America and the Caribbean,” Harris says. “Many of these were illustrated for the first time, and Catesby became the de facto authority on them.”

It depicts more than 400 species (some extinct), and some editions feature plants and animals in one image. For example, a fierce green snake (Opeodris Estivus), shown above, curled around the American beautyberry shrub (caricarpa americana). Similarly, a giant hermit crab (Petrocilus Diogenes) Harris is “probably” a square sea whip (Pterogorgia anceps), as shown above.

The photo above shows a colorful mutton snapper (Lucianus Annalis), deciduous Spanish jasmine (plumeria rubra) is the photo below.

Catesby “wanted to stimulate curiosity about natural history beyond the library,” Harris said. “His work speaks to contemporary themes of landscape and habitat change, changing species distributions and extinctions, and the value of traditional indigenous knowledge.”