PERUVIAN BANDICOOTS, UNDISCOVERED TAPIRS, ZEBRA-STRIPED CARROT CREATURES, AND OTHER NEOTROPICAL NOVELTIES, COURTESY OF LEQUANDA & THIÉBAUT

Is
this a bilby I see earlier than me – in Peru?? (public area)

In my earlier ShukerNature weblog article
(click on right here
to entry it), I documented two sudden creatures depicted in an impressive
mural-format pictorial encyclopaedia entitled Quadro de Historia Pure, Civil y Geografica del Reyno del Peru
(‘Portray of the Pure, Civil and Geographical Historical past of the Kingdom of
Peru’), or QHNCGRP for comfort hereafter
on this current article. Consisting of quite a few miniature oil work and
accompanying textual content on a wooden panel, it measures a really spectacular 128
x 45.25 inches (325 x 115 cm).

Accomplished in Madrid, Spain, in 1799 and
now on show on the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid (Spain’s
nationwide museum of pure historical past), which has produced an beautiful,  lavishly-illustrated web site devoted particularly
to it (click on right here),
QHNCGRP was authored by Basque-born
however (for 3 many years) Peru-based scholar José Ignacio Lequanda, who
commissioned French artist Louis Thiébaut to provide the 194 work
illustrating it. As famous above, most of those are miniatures, with tiny however
voluminous textual content by Lequanda accompanying the entire 160 miniatures depicting
fauna and flora of Peru or its South American environs.

The overwhelming majority of those miniatures
depict readily-recognisable Neotropical species, together with a big noticed
rodent named the paca, a South American zorro or ‘fox’ (truly a species of Dusicyon canid), an otter, tapir,
manatee, numerous monkeys, trumpeter fowl, cock of the rock, spoonbill,
hummingbird, Humboldt’s penguin, skunk, caiman, large anteater, fulgorid lantern-fly,
llama, vicuna, armadillos, coati, and opossum, to say however just a few.

View
of QHNCGRP in its entirety – click on to
enlarge for viewing functions (© Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales –
reproduced right here on a strictly non-commercial Honest Use foundation for
instructional/overview functions solely)

Additionally current, nonetheless, are sure
decidedly mystifying zoological portraits, equivalent to that of a dramatically
out-of-place Madagascan black-and-white ruffed lemur and one in every of a putative
dwelling floor sloth, each of which I documented in my earlier QHNCGRP article.

Since writing that, I’ve been paying
additional shut consideration to this marvelous pictorial menagerie, and I’ve noticed
a number of extra examples included inside it which might be nothing if not curious
or controversial, for numerous differing however equally attention-grabbing causes. So
right here they’re – make of them what you’ll!

Take, as an example, the very distinctive
creature portrayed within the QHNCGRP
miniature that opens this current ShukerNature article. Whereas I’m not conscious
of any South American mammal matching its morphology, I’m conscious that it bears
a outstanding resemblance to a sure species of completely Australian
marsupial – specifically, the lesser bilby (aka lesser rabbit-eared bandicoot) Macrotis leucura.

Thriller
big-eared, long-snouted, plume-tailed QHNCGRP
mammal (above) and a portray of a lesser bilby from English zoologist Oldfield
Thomas’s Catalogue of the Monotremes and
Marsupials within the British Museum (Pure Historical past) (under) (public area)

Definitely, its lengthy snout, prolonged plumed
tail, and really sizeable ears all correspond very carefully to these of the latter
species. True, its forelimbs are a lot the identical dimension as its hind ones, whereas
these of the lesser bilby are shorter, and its fur is white moderately than brown
just like the bilby’s. Nonetheless, the limb discrepancy could merely be an error on
Thiébaut’s half, particularly if his topic’s preserved pores and skin had change into
distorted by way of shrinkage. Furthermore, preserved skins regularly blanch if uncovered
too lengthy to mild (the taxiderm thylacine that was on public show in
London’s Pure Historical past Museum once I visited in 2014, for instance, was so
light, predominantly cream in color throughout, that its diagnostic stripes had
vanished).

Deriving its English identify from its very
massive, slender, rabbit-like ears, and characterised by its tail’s lengthy white
bushy plume, the lesser bilby was as soon as native to the deserts of central
Australia, however has not been conclusively sighted for the reason that Nineteen Fifties, so is now
deemed extinct. Again when QHNCGRP was
created, nonetheless, it was nonetheless in existence, with preserved specimens in
museums.

As apparently occurred with the ruffed
lemur, is it attainable, due to this fact, that Lequanda and/or Thiébaut noticed a museum specimen
of the lesser bilby at Madrid’s celebrated Royal Pure Historical past Cupboard
(based in 1771, opened to the general public in 1776, and whose contents have been very
acquainted to Lequanda), and even elsewhere, and mistakenly assumed that it was a
Neotropical species? Or may Thiébaut have primarily based his miniature upon some
pre-existing paintings by one other artist? There’s a notable QHNCGRP–linked precedent for this latter chance.

One of many a number of monkeys depicted as
miniatures in QHNCGRP by Thiébaut is
the extraordinary-looking striped instance proven above. Its daring zebra-like physique
and limb markings immediately set it other than any currently-known monkey
species, as does the mid-dorsal row of spines operating down its again. These are
additionally alluded to by Lequanda, in his accompanying textual content. He referred to this fascinating
fasciated creature as a casacuillo, and likewise talked about that it lived upon fruit.

Slightly than basing his illustration of this
casacuillo upon first-hand observations of a dwelling or preserved animal,
nonetheless, Thiébaut used as his inspiration a pre-existing 18^th-Century
illustration. Specifically, a water-colour ready some years earlier with 1,410
others for inclusion within the Codex Martínez
Compañon, a luxurious nine-volume manuscript made by Baltasar Jaime Martínez
Compañon, Bishop of Trujillo, Peru. This water-colour can also be proven right here, for
comparability functions alongside Thiébaut’s oil portray.

Furthermore, based on author Carmen
Martínez, writing in a web based article from June 2021 dedicated to QHNCGRP (click on right here
to entry it), this creature just isn’t a monkey in any respect, however is as an alternative a South
American tree porcupine or coendou, of which there are a lot of species, all
sporting a prehensile tail. Nonetheless, to me it seems to be no extra like a tree porcupine
than it does a monkey! Coendous usually are not striped and their superb spines are
current profusely over their complete physique, not merely alongside their again. So I’m
unconvinced by this identification.

A
striped carrot on legs!! One other of Triébaut’s bemusing thriller beasts included
by him in QHNCGRP (public area)

And talking of zebra-patterned thriller
beasts depicted in QHNCGRP, what are
we to make of the instance proven above? It seems to be for all of the world like a striped
carrot on legs! It appears to be furry, eared, and whiskered, and is included within the left-hand block of 30
mammal miniatures, so we should assume that it’s certainly mammalian – or ought to
we?

In spite of everything, additionally included on this similar
block of miniatures is the next weird beast, popularly if improbably(?)
deemed to be a portrait of an iguana based on numerous sources consulted by
me

But this latter beast is itself a significant
thriller. For it appears to own a stiff pointed tail wholly not like the extremely
versatile tail of an iguana, in addition to lengthy curved fangs rising from its
jaws, and a pair of wings pressed tightly towards its flanks!

A
supposed iguana depiction by Thiébaut in QHNCGRP
(public area)

Most unbelievable of all, nonetheless, should
absolutely be the subsequent instance introduced right here. What on earth (or within the air!) is
this extraordinary squirrel-like entity that sports activities not solely two pairs of limbs
and a bushy tail but additionally a pair of wings – and that are clearly useful,
provided that Thiébaut has portrayed it flying above a considerably bigger, rodent-like
mammal in the identical miniature?

Would possibly it’s the wrong results of
Thiébaut portray not from direct commentary of some bodily specimen, however
as an alternative merely from a verbal description of a flying squirrel? True, the identify of
these rodents is one thing of a misnomer, seeing that they change into airborne not
with the help of wings however as an alternative by way of a pair of gliding membranes (patagia),
linking their wrist and ankle on all sides of their physique. But when a verbal
description of such a creature doesn’t make this distinction clear to an
artist in search of to depict it, the consequence may effectively be an illustration of a
squirrel-like creature boasting a pair of bona fide wings.

But even when that have been true, there may be nonetheless
a elementary drawback in making use of it as an evidence for this aerial anomaly as
portrayed right here, as a result of though flying squirrels are extensively distributed in
North America, they don’t happen wherever in South America. So why would
Thiébaut have depicted one in QHNCGRP?
Yet one more occasion of somebody wrongly assuming {that a} given creature is
Neotropical when it undoubtedly just isn’t?

Thiébaut’s
bewildering winged squirrel in QHNCGRP
(public area)

My concern with the ostensibly
unidentifiable thriller creatures from QHNCGRP
documented by me right here is that, as already famous, a lot of the animals depicted
in it by Thiébaut are readily recognisable. In order these have been all precisely
represented by him, why ought to the thriller beasts right here not be too? But in the event that they are correct representations, why can we
not determine them?

Would possibly at the least a few of them not have
arisen by way of misapprehensions concerning the origins of specimens utilized as
topics, and even because of poor verbal descriptions of such, however as an alternative
be bona fide native Neotropical species which have change into extinct earlier than ever
changing into identified to European scientists, so their morphological look is
wholly unfamiliar to us?

The final anomalous animal to be
thought of right here could present key proof that a few of Thiébaut’s miniatures
depict vital creatures that have been nonetheless unknown to science on the time
when he depicted them.

The
supposed lowland tapir depicted in QHNCGRP
(public area).

Only a few hours after I posted my
earlier QHNCGRP-themed ShukerNature
article, on 22 December 2022, I obtained a really attention-grabbing, thought-provoking
remark from a reader with the Google username Andrew, and which I duly posted
beneath my article. It considerations the QHNCGRP
miniature of what’s formally assumed to be a specimen of the lowland (Brazilian)
tapir Tapirus terrestris, the biggest
species of native mammal identified to be alive right this moment in South America, and
occurring extensively right here, together with in Peru. Right here is Andrew’s remark:

Thiébaut’s depiction of the
tapir seems to be prefer it might have been primarily based on descriptions of the
then-undiscovered mountain tapir, moderately than the lowland species. It has no
crest, its coat is nearly black with a slight chestnut tint, and it appears to have
white lips.

Smaller and darker in color than the
lowland tapir, the mountain tapir T.
pinchaque is a really distinctive species that’s certainly uncrested and
white-lipped. It’s also noticeably woolly, and searching on the tapir miniature in
close-up its physique floor does seem like bushy. Furthermore, of specific
historic observe is that this species, which is certainly native to Peru (occurring
in its far north’s montane cloud forests), was not formally described by
science till 1829 – 30 years after the creation of QHNCGRP.

In brief, if the tapir miniature in QHNCGRP truly depicts a mountain
tapir moderately than a lowland tapir, which means that Thiébaut had portrayed a
main mammalian species three many years earlier than its official discovery. This in flip begs the query: what specimen
was utilized by Thiébaut as the topic for his illustration?

Whichever it was, and wherever it was,
its taxonomic significance as representing a dramatic new species had clearly
not been acknowledged or appreciated by scientists of the day.

As I’ve revealed many occasions in my trio
of books on new and rediscovered animals, it is a unhappy state of affairs that has occurred
numerous occasions down by way of the centuries, with obscure museum specimens having
been lengthy neglected earlier than belatedly receiving critical consideration, just for
them then to be revealed as extraordinary new species whose existence had by no means
beforehand even been suspected, not to mention confirmed. So the potential instance
documented above has loads of precedents, that is for sure!

My
three books on new and rediscovered animals (© Dr Karl
Shuker/HarperCollins/Stratus Publishing/Coachwhip Publications)