O brave new world of fantastic beasts
Posted by Barbara Kiser | Categories: Arts, Conservation science, Ecology
From the start, European visitors to the New World have celebrated its fantastic biodiversity. What looks like a scarlet macaw embellishes German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, the first to name these lands “America”. Eighty years later the English artist John White, a governor during England’s first attempt at settling North Carolina, was painting fireflies, “which in the night [emit] a flame of fire” (a sight of pure magic on a warm summer’s evening). Read more