Zoological Bloopers and Practical Jokes.

November 7, 2002 7:56 PM

Zoological Bloopers and Practical Jokes. Strange Science is a great little page of missteps in the classification and illustration of exotic and extinct animals. It's hard to classify all the links; some are dinosaur screwups, some are just poor depictions of animals from the time before photographs. Most are fascinating. Although, they skip over one of my favorite examples, Michelangelo's Jonah and the Whale.
posted by condour75 (8 comments total)

nice link condour75, i really like fringe-geek stuff like this.
thanks
posted by dolface at 8:05 PM on November 7, 2002

thanks dolface, it does have a certain Comic-Book-Guy-looks-at-history feel, doesn't it?
posted by condour75 at 8:10 PM on November 7, 2002

Fascinating link, condour75, I'll be spending some time here. Thanks!

Somewhat related is this site of curious zoological names. Includes:
"Ba humbugi" (a snail from Mba Island, Fiji)
and
"Pison eu" (a South American wasp)

(and, um, "thanks dolface" is so Sam Spade...unless, of course, it's pronounced "dol-fatchay")
posted by biscotti at 8:25 PM on November 7, 2002

thanks biscotti, for the hammett reference, (it's pronounced 'dahl-fayse' for what that's worth) and one of these days i'll get around to putting the -- very boring -- story of my handle on my profile page
posted by dolface at 9:03 PM on November 7, 2002

What a fantastic post, condour. SMOOCH!
posted by frykitty at 10:33 PM on November 7, 2002

Great post. I was happy to see Hallucigenia included; Burgess Shale creatures would make dandy movie monsters (when magnified accordingly to frightening sizes).
posted by kurumi at 9:02 AM on November 8, 2002

If you like this site, I highly recommend the book On Monsters and Marvels. It's a book from sometime in the Renassaince with lots of pictures of supposed monsters and circus-style humans. The added footnotes that explain what the author could have been seeing are priceless.
posted by luyon at 9:43 AM on November 8, 2002

Hallucigenia will be chasing me through my nightmares tonight and for the rest of my life. Thanks, I guess.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:56 AM on November 8, 2002