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#wellcometothejungle (hier: San Sebastián de los Reyes)

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[wellcomeimages]

Wellcome to the Jungle!

Part Eight: Should have gone to a well known chain of high-street opticians.

 This is, for the time being at least, the last instalment of Wellcome to the Jungle. Next week will bring something different...but hopefully just as fascinating/eye-catching/inane (delete as appropriate). However if you're not ready for the end just yet, you can find these images and more over on Flickr.

This Siberian white crane was meticulously painted on silk in the gongbi style in the 17th Century Ming period in China. As was the case with many creatures, the bird was used in traditional Chinese medicine; its flesh and blood having the effects of replenishing Qi and insufficiency detriment, apparently.

More specifically, the crane's brain was said to nourish the liver and improve vision. Tasty. You never know, it may have worked. But should my eyesight deteriorate, I think I'll pop to the optician before recreating Dawn of the Dead at my local bird sanctuary.

Al McCartney, Wellcome Images.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK: England & Wales, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html.

[wellcomeimages]

Wellcome to the Jungle!

Part Five: A Missing Link?

I appreciate that historical scientific drawings aren’t always perfect representations of their subjects, but even considering this, the above 17th Century engraving of an orang-utan is a little disconcerting. Distinctly more human in form and posture, could this be a case of mistaken identity?

On the island of Sumatra there have long been stories of another ape, dubbed ‘orang-pendek’. With a name than means ‘short man’ (compared to orang-utan or ‘forest man’), it is reported to much more human in shape and behaviour than any other Indonesian primate. And though it is generally consigned to the field of cryptozoology, locals still report encounters and expeditions continue to seek it out.

Primates previously unknown to science like the Burmese snub-nosed monkey and the Arunachal macaque are still being discovered, so could this engraving be a lost clue to the existence of another in the orang-pendek? Or is it just another dodgy drawing?

Al McCartney, Wellcome Images.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK: England & Wales, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html.

[wellcomeimages]

Wellcome to the Jungle!

Part Five: Crouching Horse, (not so) Hidden Organs.

I don't really want to go all Rolf Harris, but did you guess what it is yet? It's not instantly recognisable as Black Beauty, but I can confirm it to be an 18th Century anatomical diagram of a horse.

Thought to based upon the drawings of human anatomy compiled by Manṣūr ibn Ilyās, the 14th Century Persian physician, it details the digestive and nervous systems of its equine subject.

Al McCartney, Wellcome Images.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK: England & Wales, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html.

[wellcomeimages]

Wellcome to the Jungle!

Part Four: Boa vs Python.

We've got more than our fair share off oddities in the collection, this being a prime example. The caption indicates that it's a depiction of a finely moustachioed zoo-keeper feeding a boa to a python at the Zoological Society of London, under the watchful and rightly cautious supervision of a rabbit.

But all might not be as it seems. A more likely scenario could have involved an altogether accidental incident of ophiophagy; whereby both snakes started feeding on the same prey item at once. This makes sense, given the other, single rabbit that remains in the enclosure. The larger of the snakes, in this case the python, would then have continued to swallow past the bunny, consuming the boa in the process.

So perhaps it makes more sense that the diligent keeper is in fact desperately trying to save one of his prize exhibits from the belly of another. It’s certainly not unheard of, and is a very good reason to feed your serpents separately. Unfortunately we don’t have any live reptiles here at Wellcome, but the Trust has funded some rather high-tech ‘snakes’ in the past.

Al McCartney, Wellcome Images.

Image Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK: England & Wales, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html.