Zoology Gallery

Awful Changes

A cartoon, published in 1830, 28 years before Darwin's Origin Of Species, lampooning theories of evolution. Entitled Awful Changes, it depicts an Ichthyosaurus giving a lecture on a human skull, descibing how its characteristics indicate that man was of the lower order of animals'. He continues: The teeth are very insignificant, the power of the jaws trifling, and altogether it seems wonderful how the creature could have procured food'. Drawn and engraved by H.T. de la Beche (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

© 2005 Getty Images

Great bustard, Otis tarda (vulnerable)

Great bustard, Otis tarda (vulnerable), and common ringed plover, Charadrius hiaticula.. Handcolored copperplate stipple engraving from Dumont de Sainte-Croix's Dictionary of Natural Science: Ornithology, Paris, France, 1816-1830. Illustration by J. G. Pretre, engraved by Plie, directed by Pierre Jean-Francois Turpin, and published by F.G. Levrault. Jean Gabriel Pretre (1780-1845) was painter of natural history at Empress Josephine's zoo and later became artist to the Museum of Natural History

© Florilegius / Mary Evans

Great kiskadee, Pitangus sulphuratus, and Asian

Great kiskadee, Pitangus sulphuratus, and Asian paradise flycatcher, Terpsiphone paradisi.. Handcolored copperplate stipple engraving from Dumont de Sainte-Croix's Dictionary of Natural Science: Ornithology, Paris, France, 1816-1830. Illustration by J. G. Pretre, engraved by Guyard, directed by Pierre Jean-Francois Turpin, and published by F.G. Levrault. Jean Gabriel Pretre (1780-1845) was painter of natural history at Empress Josephine's zoo and later became artist to the Museum of Natural History

© Florilegius / Mary Evans