A SOUTH AMERICAN LEMUR AND A MODERN-DAY GROUND SLOTH? A PAIR OF PUZZLING ANIMAL PORTRAITS IN AN 18TH-CENTURY ARTISTIC MASTERPIECE

Madagascan black-and-white ruffed lemur (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Down through the years, I've investigated a number of mystifying animal artworks, depicting species before they were officially discovered by science, or in locations far removed from where they are officially known to exist. Examples from the former category include various anachronistic representations of kangaroos (one of which I documented in my book The Unexplained, 1996); and the following case is a prime example (but one hitherto undocumented by me) from the latter category. So I am greatly indebted to correspondent Cristian Nahuel Rojas Mendoza for very kindly bringing it to my attention, on 17 December 2022, and which I lost no time in subsequently investigating – thanks, Cristian!

The work of art containing the portrayed out-of-place animal in question is a magnificent yet surprisingly little-known pictorial encyclopaedia in the form of a spectacular mural, entitled Quadro de Historia Natural, Civil y Geografica del Reyno del Peru ('Painting of the Natural, Civil and Geographical History of the Kingdom of Peru'), or QHNCGRP for convenience hereafter in this present ShukerNature blog article of mine. Consisting of numerous miniature oil paintings and accompanying text on a wood panel, it measures a very impressive 128 x 45.25 inches (325 x 115 cm).

QHNCGRP was authored by Basque-born but (for three decades) Peru-based scholar José Ignacio Lequanda, who commissioned French artist Louis Thiébaut to produce the paintings illustrating it, and it was completed in Madrid in 1799 (click here for an extensive article by Daniela Bleichmar documenting its history and contents).

Today, this unique creation is held and displayed at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain (constituting Spain's national museum of natural history), which has produced an exquisite,  lavishly-illustrated website devoted specifically to it (click here to visit the website). I strongly recommend that you access this site while reading my article here, in order to appreciate fully the nature, context, content, and visual beauty of this truly extraordinary, combined work of art and scholarship, and in particular the two items from it under consideration here.

 

View of QHNCGRP in its entirety – click to enlarge for viewing purposes (© Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Containing a grand total of 194 individual images, QHNCGRP presents a picture-driven history of the peoples, animals, and plants of Peru (or, in a few cases, Peru's South American environs). At its centre there is an annotated map of the country, depicting, describing, and delineating its various administrative divisions in different colours, as well as a picture of the mine of Hualgayoc or Chota, emphasizing the significance of mining to Peru at that time.

Constituting the outermost border or frame of QHNCGRP is a series of 88 miniature paintings, each depicting a different Peruvian bird and plant, plus four corner miniatures portraying Peruvian insects and reptiles. And running horizontally directly below the uppermost edge of this ornithologically-themed border is a row of 32 miniatures portraying various human forms, including indigenous peoples and Western couples in various costumes.

Below these, and forming a second, internal frame, is a series of numerous compartments containing Lequanda's tiny but voluminous handwritten text (he also added a descriptive label beneath each animal miniature, and considerable text around the mine picture). Within this second frame are not only four large and four smaller pictures depicting Peruvian aquatic animals but also (split into a left-hand block and a right-hand block of 30 each) a series of 60 miniature paintings, again depicting Peruvian animals. Well, 59 of them are…

As for the 60^th: This is the creature portrayed in the miniature present at the right-hand end of the top row in the right-hand block of 30 animal pictures. It seems to have been painted with especial precision by Thiébaut in comparison with certain other of the animals portrayed by him in QHNCGRP, and was labeled here by Lequanda as a mountain-abounding 'Dominican monkey'.

 

The so-called 'Dominican monkey' miniature painting in close-up; and also shown (arrowed, top row) in situ within QHNCGRP – click to enlarge for viewing purposes (public domain)

In reality, however, as anyone even remotely versed in mammalian identification will readily confirm, this particular creature, its distinctive monochrome form being both instantly recognizable and wholly unmistakable, is actually a black-and-white ruffed lemur Varecia variegata, the species depicted in the photograph opening this ShukerNature article, and which is of course endemic to Madagascar! No lemurs of any kind occur anywhere in the New World.

So why is there a portrait of a Madagascan lemur in QHNCGRP, which is exclusively devoted to Neotropical natural history and culture?

The most reasonable explanation, indicated by Lequanda's accompanying text (and also noted by Bleichmar in her afore-mentioned article), stems from his great familiarity with the contents of Madrid's prestigious – and exceedingly prodigious – Royal Natural History Cabinet, which was founded in 1771 and opened to the public in 1776. For within its collection of zoological specimens was none other than a preserved example of the black-and-white ruffed lemur. As this collection would have been consulted by both Lequanda and Thiébaut during their joint preparation of QHNCGRP, one or both of them presumably assumed mistakenly that the lemur specimen was of South American origin, and thus its striking appearance was incorporated accordingly within QHNCGRP. But that is not all.

There is a second animal miniature in QHNCGRP that also attracted my interest and attention when perusing the latter's artworks. If you want to seek out this picture in QHNCGRP, it's the second miniature along in the fourth row within the right-hand block of 30 animal miniatures. Or, to make things simpler, here it is:

 

The so-called 'Nonga' miniature painting in close-up; and also shown (arrowed, fourth row) in situ within QHNCGRP – click to enlarge for viewing purposes (public domain)

According to Lequanda's accompanying text, the Nonga lives on the banks of the River Huallaga (whose source is in central Peru), and is a nocturnal creature greatly feared by the Indians, but which according to Lequansda seems to be a forest spirit rather than a real entity.

When I first looked at this creature, I thought straight away that it resembled a tree sloth in basic outward morphology. But tree sloths do not stand upright, nor are they greatly feared by natives, and far from being forest spirits they are very familiar members of the corporeal animal community throughout the Neotropical zone.

However, their extinct relatives the ground sloths did stand upright, might well be greatly feared by natives due to their very large size and huge claws, especially if they happened to be ill-tempered creatures, readily becoming aggressive if threatened, and, like many other belligerent beasts, may indeed be deemed by their human neighbours to be supernatural spirits as much as flesh-and-blood animals.

So could this miniature by Thiébaut be a depiction of a modern-day, scientifically-undiscovered ground sloth? Certain South American cryptids, such as the ellengassen and (especially) the mapinguary, are already looked upon by some cryptozoologists and zoologists as potentially constituting surviving ground sloths.

 

Image of a ground sloth (public domain)

Unfortunately for such romantic speculation, however, the depicted creature's tiny tail is much more comparable with that of a three-toed tree sloth (two-toed tree sloths are tailless) than with the fairly long and very sturdy caudal appendage exhibited by bona fide ground sloths, which they used for support and balance when squatting upright.

Consequently, my personal opinion is that this mystifying miniature painting was based upon a preserved three-toed tree sloth, but whose normal behaviour of hanging upside-down from tree branches was not known to Liébaut, so he portrayed it incorrectly as a bipedal beast instead, thereby inadvertently recalling its officially extinct terrestrial relatives.

Nor are a misplaced Madagascan lemur and a suspect sloth of the terrestrial variety the only zoological oddities to be found in QHNCGRP – click here for a continuation of this investigation, in which I reveal all manner of additional animals of the decidedly anomalous kind lurking incognito within its miniature masterpieces!

My sincere thanks once again to Cristian Nahuel Rojas Mendoza for alerting me to QHNCGRP and, in so doing, adding another very intriguing zoogeographical anomaly from the art world to my archive of such examples. For an extremely extensive account of putative living ground sloths, be sure to check out my book Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors.

A GREEN MAN OF NOTTINGHAM, AND A PURPLE WINGED CAT? A SHUKERNATURE PICTURE OF THE DAY

 

The very curious but captivating painting spied and photographed in a Nottingham pub by Facebook friend Kristian Lander (© Kristian Lander)

Today's ShukerNature Picture of the Day dates back to 15 January 2013. That was when longstanding Facebook friend Kristian Lander from Nottingham, England, posted on my Facebook wall the above photograph snapped by him of a very unusual painting that he had recently encountered inside a local public house, because he was particularly intrigued by the mauve but mysterious winged beast lurking in its bottom left-hand corner, and wondered if I knew anything about it.

Sadly, I didn't, but it certainly elicited my curiosity, and when Kristian's post containing his photo reappeared recently in my Facebook's Memories section, I decided to document on ShukerNature the sparse details that have come my way during the intervening years concerning it. So here they are, exactly eight years after Kristian first brought this perplexing painting to my attention, in the hope that someone who reads them will be able to provide further data.

Kristian informed me that the painting was hanging high above an archway inside a pub at Bulwell, Nottingham, named the William Peverel (which had opened in 2012 and is currently part of the famous JD Weatherspoon chain). Consequently, he'd had to use the zoom attachment on his camera in order to obtain his close-up photo of it, but there was no signature visible, nor was there any artist information available.

 

Three of my own Green Man exhibits (© Dr Karl Shuker)

However, Kristian had noticed that there was a description of the painting on a nearby wall plaque. This stated that it was a picture of the man after whom the pub had been named, one William Peverel, apparently giving homage to the Green Man – a longstanding symbol of fertility and rebirth in English folkloric tradition, and usually represented as a human figure covered in green, leafy foliage. As for the purple winged creature beside Peverel, however, its identity was merely referred to in the description as "unknown".

Now for some interesting facts concerning the real-life person after whom this pub is named – William Peverel. It turns out that he was a Norman knight who was a favourite of William the Conqueror, i.e. King William I of England, who famously defeated the Saxons' King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and thus founded the Norman dynasty in England. Peverel was specifically listed in the Domesday Book as a builder of castles, and also owned several, including Nottingham Castle. Before he died in 1114, he had sired two sons, both of whom were also named William.

The JD Wetherspoon website includes a page of details for Nottingham's William Peverel pub (there is actually more than one pub in England with this same name), which can be accessed here. Sadly, however, they contain no mention of this painting (though they do include one interior photo that shows it in place upon one of the walls), but what they do state is that this pub's namesake was a son of William the Conqueror. Yet according to lineages for William I that I have checked, only one of his ten children was named William, and he became King William II following his father's death, so he was certainly not William Peverel. Moreover, according to The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (1984) by Chris Given-Wilson and Alice Curteis, William I is not credited as having any illegitimate children. Ditto for his entry by Charles Cawley in the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, Medieval Lands Database – click here to access it. So I'm not sure where the Wetherspoon claim regarding Peverel being William I's son originates.

 

Interior photograph of the William Peverel public house in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, showing the William Peverel 'green man' painting hanging upon one of its walls directly over an archway (© JD Wetherspoon/The William Peverel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only; please be sure to click here to visit this very popular pub's webpage for full details concerning its facilities, menus, location, etc).

Peverel's parentage contradictions notwithstanding, let's turn now to the painting itself. As commented upon by another Facebook friend, Scott Wood, the face of William Perceval as depicted in it is unmistakably based upon a much earlier but very famous, and decidedly idiosyncratic, painting entitled 'Vertumnus' (Vertumnus being the Roman god of seasons, plant growth, and change), which was produced in 1591 by Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526/27-1593). Here it is:

 

'Vertumnus', painted in 1591 by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (public domain)

As can be readily seen, his subject's face is actually composed of various fruits, flowers, vegetables and other botanical offerings, which is nothing if not apt, given that Vertumnus was a plant-associated deity. Yet in spite of the name that he gave to this painting, Arcimboldo did not actually intend it to be a depiction of Vertumnus, but rather a portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.

Moreover, this phytologically-influenced illustration was not an artistic sui generis either – on the contrary, Arcimboldo was well known for this highly imaginative, albeit decidedly quirky, mode of depiction, having painted a number of other portraits in which its subjects are composed of intricate, exquisitely-arranged collections of horticultural produce as well as fishes and even books. Having said that, Arcimboldo did also prepare many far more conventional artistic works too (including the self-portrait presented at the end of this ShukerNature blog article), but his unique botanically-themed portraits are his most familiar paintings nowadays.

As for whether the clear similarity between the face of William Peverel in the pub's 'green man' painting of him and Arcimboldo's 'Vertumnus' painting indicates that the former is definitely a modern-day painting, or merely one that was painted at some undetermined time within the 400+ years that have passed since Arcimboldo painted the latter, this is of course impossible to determine without the Peverel painting being subjected to a rigorous examination by expert art historians.

 

Comparing the face of William Peverel in the pub's 'green man' painting of him (allowing for it having been unavoidably photographed both at a distance and at an angle) (left) with Arcimboldo's 'Vertumnus' painting (right), showing the great similarity – please click to enlarge for improved viewing (© Kristian Lander / public domain)

Incidentally, despite the descriptive plaque alongside the William Peverel painting in Nottingham's eponymous pub stating that it depicts Peverel apparently giving homage to the Green Man (albeit with a suit of armour protruding very visibly beneath his Green Man attire!), it is possible that there is an entirely different explanation for what  - and even who – this painting depicts. My first clue to this unexpected yet undeniably plausible possibility came from a seemingly source-less but thought-provoking quote made known to me by another Facebook friend, Caitlin Warrior, and when I pursued it to discover its origin, this is what I uncovered.

In the compendium Medieval Outlaws: Twelve Tales In Modern English Translation, edited by Thomas H. Ohlgren and published as a revised, expanded edition in 2005 by Parlor Press, there is a Romance story entitled 'Fouke le Fitz Waryn', which is known from a single manuscript in the British Library that dates from c.1330 and is written in Anglo-Norman prose. How much of its content is based upon real events and real people and how much is folklore and heroic fantasy, however, is difficult to determine.

Translated by Thomas E. Kelly, and beginning not too long after William the Conqueror has become England's monarch, it tells of how William Peverel proclaims a tournament at which the knight who performs best and wins the tournament shall receive as his prize the hand of William's beautiful niece, Melette of the White Tower. Waryn de Metz (Metz being in Lorraine, France), a valiant but unmarried, childless nobleman, decides to take part, attended by a company of knights sent by his cousin John, Duke of Brittany, to assist him. When they arrive in England, Waryn and his company pitch their tents in the forest near to where the tournament is to be held.

 

Front cover of Medieval Outlaws (© Thomas H. Ohlgren et al./Parlor Press – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

What interests me, however, is not the tournament itself, nor even Waryn's participation in it. Instead, I am very intrigued by the following short but very tantalizing excerpt from the story's description of the tournament's second day (and which turned out to my delight to be the hitherto source-less quote to which Caitlin had previously alerted me):

The following day a joust was proclaimed throughout the land. Thereupon Waryn came out of the forest and went to the joust clad all in green with ivy leaves, like an adventurous knight, unrecognized by anyone.

Waryn went on to win the tournament and marry the fair Melette, so could it be that the figure in the pub's Peverel painting is not Peverel at all, and has nothing to do with the Green Man either? That in reality it is actually a depiction of that portion of the early story 'Fouke le Fitz Waryn' when Waryn de Metz steps forth "clad all in green with ivy leaves" at the tournament of William Peverel, and that somehow this has all become confused, until the figure in the painting is now wrongly thought to be Peverel himself?

After all, why should William Peverel dress up as and give homage to the Green Man anyway? I've always found that supposed explanation of the painting to be as baffling as the painting itself. Also, his outfit looks far more like a leafy modern-day jacket than the full head-to-foot traditional costume normally worn by Green Man impersonators or personifiers - and isn't that a black bow-tie at his neck? Plus, as noted earlier, a suit of armour is clearly visible protruding below the jacket. Hardly typical Green Man accoutrements! In fact, the more I look at it, the less inclined I am to believe that this ambiguous artwork has anything to do with either William Peverel or Waryn de Metz – more an original work of fantasy or even satire, in fact, created by the artist's own imagination, in which he has combined elements from a number of different sources or inspirations. Curioser and curiouser, as Alice would surely have said if she'd encountered anything so abtruse during her dream journeys through Wonderland and Looking-Glass World.

 

Close-up of the painting's purple winged cat, or cat-like mystery beast, as photographed by Kristian Lander (© Kristian Lander)

Yet as if all of this is not bewildering and contentious enough, we now turn to the painting's biggest mystery of all. Namely, what on earth is that bizarre creature squatting alongside Peverel (or Waryn de Metz?) in the painting, and why is it even there?

Inevitably, when the photograph of this painting is enlarged, the creature becomes decidedly blurred as it only occupies a small portion of it. From what I can discern, however, it resembles a cat, with dark purple fur, and a pair of large white wings, as revealed above.

As loyal readers of my writings will know, winged cats really do exist, and I have documented many examples in various of my books and articles. Moreover, many years ago I discovered the explanation behind their bizarre appendages. In fact, such cats suffer from a rare genetic condition known as feline cutaneous asthenia (FCA), in which the skin on their body is abnormally stretchable (or friable, to use the strict scientific term). Consequently, if they rub their shoulders against an object, for instance, or stroke themselves with their paws, their skin readily stretches to yield fur-covered wing-like extensions, which can even be raised or lowered if they contain muscle fibres (click here for more details regarding winged cats on ShukerNature).

 

A report in Strand Magazine for November 1899 featuring a genuine winged cat, from Wiveliscombe, in Somerset, southwest England (public domain)

However, the wings of the anomalous animal in this painting are not furry but feathery, composed of typical avian plumes, thereby rendering it a zoological impossibility. Yet it does not call to mind any known form of mythological beast either. So is it meant to be entirely fictitious, perhaps nothing more than a most peculiar product of the imagination of this painting's unknown artist?

But why should the artist choose to include such an exceedingly odd yet also indisputably eyecatching creature in a depiction of a real, and very eminent, figure from English – and particularly Nottingham's – history? Wondering if it could conceivably represent some heraldic device associated with the Peverel lineage, I have explored this possibility in depth, but have been unable to trace any such representation. Worth noting, however, is that I did discover that the colour purple just so happens to be linked in a heraldic context to the wife of none other than a certain Waryn de Metz. Merely a coincidence…?

So there is the information that I currently have concerning this most enigmatic yet fascinating painting and its depicted subjects, but there is so much more that at present I do not have.

 

A feather-winged cat depicted on folio 174r of a 14^th-Century illuminated manuscript known as Maastricht Hours (public domain)

I know who the human figure is supposed to be (although whether this identity is actually the correct one remains unclear), but not why his face should have been based upon a decidedly bizarre, grotesque portrait by a 16^th-Century Italian artist. I have not the faintest idea what the magenta-furred, moggie-like creature with feathered wings that has also been included in this painting is meant to be, nor even why it has been included in the first place. And I do not know who the artist is who produced the painting, nor how it came to be on display at the William Peverel pub in Nottingham.

Consequently, gentle readers, I am turning to you now, in the earnest hope that some of you may have additional details that can provide answers to the above questions, ultimately yielding the missing pieces vitally needed if this veritable jigsaw of a mystifying illustration is ever to be satisfactorily completed.

My sincere thanks to Kristian Lander for making this extremely interesting painting known to me and for so kindly sharing with me his photograph of it.

 

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, self-portrait (public domain)

Finally: while on the subject of the folkloric Green Man, there is a second mysterious depiction that has intrigued me for even longer than the Nottingham painting investigated here. Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, during the early days of my writing career, I was planning to prepare an article dealing with the Green Man (three decades later, and I'm still planning to do so...some day), and among the illustrations that I was very much hoping to include within it was a photograph of a sign outside a London pub named Green Man. This was because the Green Man depicted on that particular sign was totally unlike any representation of this entity that I'd ever seen (and still is today). Ditto for the latter's less foliate version, known as Jack-in-the-Green. In fact, what it did closely resemble was a bizarre humanoid insect!

I've only ever seen this particular photograph in a large hardback book entitled Mysterious Monsters, written by Daniel Farson and Angus Hall, and published by Aldus Books in 1978. Unfortunately, however, despite writing to both the authors and the publisher of this book, requesting permission to include the photo in my article and also for any information concerning which particular pub owned the sign in the photo (30-odd years ago, there were a fair few London pubs named (the) Green Man!), I never received any responses. Moreover, even numerous subsequent searches online and elsewhere have all failed to trace any details concerning it.

With pubs all over Britain closing down in great numbers during the past decade or so, it is very likely that this pub is no more, or has at least changed ownership and name – in either case meaning that the highly unusual insect-like Green Man representation on its sign has gone too. Nevertheless, just in case anyone does know which Green Man pub this sign belonged to, I'm including the photo of it below (on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only), and would greatly welcome any information regarding it. Who knows – I may even get around to writing my Green Man article one day!

 

Highly unusual insect-like Green Man pub sign, originally belonging to an as yet unidentified London pub named Green Man (© owner unknown to me despite many attempts to discover their identity down through the years – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

UPDATE - 18 January 2022

Today Kristian posted some additional information and photos on my Facebook wall following a recent return by him to the William Peverel pub in Nottingham.

 

The painting forming the subject of this present ShukerNature blog article of mine is still hanging on the wall there, and Kristian was able not only to snap a couple more photos of it but also one of the information plaque concerning it.

Interestingly, this plaque claims that William Peverel was reputedly the son of William the Conqueror as a result of a dalliance by him with the Saxon princess Maud Ingelrica whilst she was in Normany during 1046 AD, prior to her marriage to nobleman Ranulf Peverel. Moreover, I have read elsewhere that she was William the Conqueror's mistress. Conversely, as noted by me earlier here, William the Conquerer (who became William I of England) is not supposed to have sired any illegitimate children. So who is right and who is wrong?

 

 

Information plaque concerning the alleged William Peverel painting on display inside the William Peverel pub at Bulwell, Nottingham - please click to enlarge for reading purposes (© Kristian Lander)

The explanation given on the plaque for Peverel's green jacket is, I feel, decidedly fanciful, especially as it includes a mention of his quite literally fruity face while curiously omitting to point out that this has apparently been lifted in its entirety from (or at the very least directly inspired by) Arcimboldo's 'Vertumnus' painting .

As for the winged mystery beast depicted at Peverel's feet, this is referred to in the plaque as "a griffon, or something very like one". 'Griffon' is an alternative spelling of 'griffin' (so too is 'gryphon'), which is a legendary composite beast combining the body of a lion with the head and wings of an eagle, and appears frequently in heraldic devices too. Yet as far as I can discern, the head of the beast depicted in this painting does not seem to resemble an eagle's.

In short, its information plaque offers more questions than answers as to who and what are depicted in this painting, and why they are so depicted. Kristian, meanwhile, has contacted the pub in the hope of discovering more about the painting, in particular when the pub obtained it and who painted it. So if he is subsequently able to provide me with more details, I'll be sure to add them here.

 

Kristian's latest two photos of the Willliam Peverel painting (© Kristian Lander)

'LOFTY ABODES', BY PHILIPPA FOSTER – A REVIEW

Front cover of Lofty Abodes by Philippa Foster (Text and cover artwork © Philippa Foster)

Over the years, I have been very fortunate and privileged that a number of my cryptozoological articles and books have contained exquisite illustrations by the extremely talented artist Philippa Foster. One of her most beautiful and, indeed, spectacular artworks, featuring a pair of ethereal sky medusae, even featured on the front cover of one of my books, Dr Shuker's Casebook (2008).

Knowing of and sharing Philippa's abiding love of the countryside and all of nature's endearing, enduring works, as well as her interest in magical realms, I have wondered on more than one occasion whether one day she may venture beyond the art world and into the written word too during her depictions of these mutually fascinating subjects, and I'm delighted to say that recently she did indeed do so.

Front cover of Dr Shuker's Casebook featuring sky medusae backdrop by Philippa Foster (© Dr Karl Shuker/CFZ Press; front cover artwork © Philippa Foster)

The result is an absolutely charming story for children entitled Lofty Abodes, written and published by Philippa, which I read a while ago and thoroughly enjoyed.

Set in the Brecon Beacons of Wales, and unfurling under the watchful eyes of the Red Sandstone Guardians, it weaves a magical, enchanted tale featuring both the familiar and also various cryptozoological creatures that make their home in this famously spectacular realm in Great Britain, from lonely trolls and friendly red kites to a glow worm city, rollicking rabbits, and a tantalising assortment of teasing puzzles and riddles too.

Back cover of Lofty Abodes by Philippa Foster (Text and cover artwork © Philippa Foster)

Significantly, it also includes something that Philippa (and I) consider very important (but sadly all too rare nowadays) in books for youngsters – a happy ending. Why do children's authors seem obliged lately to include some gritty, heartless denouement to their stories? The real world is gritty and heartless enough – surely the whole point of fiction, especially children's fiction, is escapism, to flee from the hardships of existence if only for a little while by seeking the warm, comforting, uplifting solace of a story in which the world is a finer, happier place, where worries can be forgotten and dreams of a better land and life can be born, nurtured, and, who knows, possibly even retained and given substance to when their dreamers have returned to grim reality.

With Christmas rapidly approaching, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Lofty Abodes here on ShukerNature, as I am certain that it would make a delightful and much-treasured gift for children, and not just young ones but children of all ages, for anyone, in fact, who carries in their heart the joy and unadulterated love of nature and wild things that they first experienced as children. Copies can be purchased directly from Philippa via her website, and also here on Amazon's UK website when available there.

THE LOCUST OF KALISZ? MORE LIKE A DALI-ESQUE DEATHSHEAD!

Close-up of the so-called 'Locust of Kalisz' drawing, contained in the scrapbook album compiled and given by friends to General Joachim Daniel von Jauch as a birthday present sometime during the early 1750s (public domain)

Its many shortcomings and dark aspects notwithstanding, I have long considered the internet to be the greatest cabinet of curiosities ever assembled, a limitless repository replete with wonders and marvels of every conceivable – and inconceivable – kind, all awaiting uncovering and investigation by those with a mind to do so. Over the years, I have documented here on ShukerNature an extremely diverse array of my own cryptozoology-related discoveries made in this manner, of which the present one is just the latest in a very extensive and – at least for me, but I hope for you too – a thoroughly entrancing series with no end in sight, thankfully.

And so it was that while idly browsing last night through the vast virtual art gallery of online images that is freely available via Wikimedia Commons, I typed 'Cryptozoology' in its search engine bar, and instantly called up an entertaining selection of pictures appertaining to mystery beasts. As I browsed through them, I recognised every one with varying degrees of familiarity – until, that is, I came to the extraordinary drawing that opens this current ShukerNature article, and was immediately aware that I had never encountered it before.

As can be seen here, on Wikimedia Commons this drawing has been entitled 'Szarańcza z Kalisza', which translates from Polish as 'Locust of Kalisz', dates from no earlier than 1749, and is accompanied by the following description: 'Zmierzchnica trupia główka ze sztambucha generała Joachima Daniela Jaucha' (very loosely translated via Google Translate as 'the dreaded head of General Joachim Daniel Jauch on paper'). What can this weird insect be, who was Joachim Daniel Jauch, and what is their common history? Needless to say, my sense of cryptozoological curiosity was irresistibly stimulated, and so, in best Sherlockian response, the game was afoot!

The 'Locust of Kalisz' drawing with its bilingual caption inscribed below it - click to enlarge (public domain)

My first line of investigation was to translate the handwritten caption inscribed directly below the drawing itself. It was present in two separate languages, Old Polish and German, but the script was very faint in both, the ink having long since faded considerably. Happily, however, with great thanks to the much-welcomed translation skills of Facebook friend Miroslav Fismeister and one of his friends, Polish novelist Daniel Koziarski, for the Old Polish version and the much-appreciated assistance of German cryptozoological friend and colleague Markus Bühler for the German version, I am able to provide the following English translation:

The year 1749: A plague of locusts fell a mile from Kalisz, of which two were caught, one was held in Gniezno capital and the other in the OO. Reformation church in Kalisz. When taken in the hand, it was screaming like a bat, yellow foam was coming from its mouth, all of it was hairy, Death on the chest, two hairy legs, squirrel's teeth, etc.

Kalisz is a city in central Poland (and the oldest still existing anywhere in this country), and Gniezno is a city in central-western Poland that was this country's first capital city. Moreover, the OO. Reformation church in Kalisz was conceivably a Reformed Franciscan church and is apparently now the Church of the Holy Family there. Sadly, I currently have no information concerning the fate of the two captured specimens – were they preserved and retained somewhere, I wonder, or simply discarded? Hence I am treating this case as an investigation still in progress. However, combining the verbal description's details with the visual details present in the drawing did swiftly enable me to identify the insect. Albeit exhibiting considerable artistic licence and not a little inaccuracy, whereas the drawing clearly does not portray a locust it was evidently inspired by Acherontia atropos – the deathshead hawk moth, one of Europe's largest lepidopterans (click here for a ShukerNature blog article devoted to this morphologically and behaviourally distinctive species).

True, the characteristic thoracic marking resembling a skull and earning this particular moth its familiar English name was depicted ventrally rather than dorsally in this strange drawing, and in it the insect had been given a grinning human face sporting a decidedly Salvador Dali-esque upward-curving moustache, but this latter feature may have been intended as a whimsical adaptation of the moth's long thick antennae. Indeed, in overall appearance the depicted insect definitely seems to constitute a deliberately comical, humanoid caricature of A. atropos, which would explain why it was only given two legs (but ending in claws, like a moth's, rather than human feet), yet incorporating certain unequivocally Acherontian attributes too, such as the banding upon its rear wings, and its hairy body. Of particular relevance here is that the creature's alleged bat-like screaming – ostensibly nonsensical in relation to a moth – is actually a famous, characteristic feature of this particular moth species For it can emit a shrill, high-pitched squeaking sound, which is created by the moth's powerful inhalation of air into its pharynx, causing a stiffened flap called the epipharynx to vibrate very rapidly (click here for more details).

Exquisite 19^th-Century illustration of a deathshead hawk moth (public domain)

But what about the description of the drawing assigned to it on Wikimedia Commons? Clearly "the dreaded head" means "the deathshead", referring to the eponymous moth species, but who was General Joachim Daniel Jauch? I soon discovered that he was General Joachim Daniel von Jauch (1688-1754), a German-born architect, civilian engineer, and military man, who had supervised the Baroque development of Warsaw, being responsible for the urban planning and designing or rebuilding of many of its new buildings, and he had also served in the Polish army as an artilleryman, steadily rising up through the ranks. But how was Jauch linked to the humanoid deathshead hawk moth drawing?

In spite of its very striking, memorable appearance, this enigmatic illustration conjured forth a surprisingly scant amount of information when utilising it as the focus of a Google Image-based internet search. However, I am nothing if not persistent (i.e. stubborn!), so eventually I unearthed sufficient details to flesh out its hitherto-opaque history. The drawing originated in a scrapbook-like album filled with all manner of artwork, which was seemingly compiled by some of Jauch's friends as a birthday present for him and presented to him during the early 1750s (precise year not known), i.e. not long before his death.

Containing over 150 exquisite drawings and other art, variously executed in pen-ink, sepia-ink, crayon, pencil, watercolour, and gouache, this unique and very beautiful leather-covered album can be viewed directly online at the website of the National Digital Library of Poland (Biblioteki Cyfrowej Polona), and the humanoid moth (aka Locust of Kalisz) with its accompanying handwritten bilingual caption can be found on p. 95 (click here to view this page and to access the entire album). The album's diverse artwork includes various architectural designs, sketches and graphics, scenes from mythology, antique sculpture studies, natural history illustrations, and portraits.

Page 95 from Jauch's album, showing the 'humanoid moth' (aka Locust of Kalisz) drawing in situ (public domain)

I also discovered a concise, excellent online article in Polish concerning this drawing (click here), in relation to which Google Translate once again came to my rescue by yielding a workable English version. Dated 11 March 2014, the article was written by Łukasz Kozak, an expert in relation to medieval times and editor at the National Digital Library of Poland, and had been posted on the latter's website. In it, he confirmed that the insect was indeed intended to be a deathshead hawk moth, and documented what I too have written about elsewhere regarding this species' unusual squeaking ability. However, he also provided some very welcome additional information concerning the background history of this intriguing case, including the following details.

As noted earlier, the album is filled with many images, which include numerous full-colour illustrations of plants and animals (such as rodents, birds, reptiles, and insects) that are generally portrayed in a very accurate, naturalistic manner. The artist responsible for these latter illustrations is believed to have been Fraulein de Naumann, as Łukasz had revealed during his own investigation of the moth drawing. She was probably the daughter of architect Johann Christoph von Naumann, who in turn was not only Jauch's predecessor at the architect office where he had worked but also his brother-in-law. Łukasz then went on to reveal the deathshead hawk moth as the species upon which the drawing had been based, and gave some interesting examples from fact and fiction previously unknown to me regarding how the eerie nature of its squeaking had terrified persons in the past who were unfamiliar with this osensibly unnatural ability, thus filling them with superstitious dread.

Łukasz also appears in a short online video in which he looks through Jauch's album, displays the moth drawing, and then discusses it. This video is embedded in an article written by him and first posted on the Newsweek Polska website on 11 February 2015, but unfortunately as he speaks only in Polish I was initially unable to obtain any information from it (click here to access the article and view the video). Happily, however, Katarzyna Bylok, the Polish girlfriend of fellow Fortean/mystery beast investigator Matt Cook, kindly viewed it for me earlier this evening, and the details concerning it that she passed onto me afterwards via Matt confirm that Łukasz was merely reiterating the details that he had previously presented in his March 2014 article. Many thanks indeed to Katarzyna and Matt for kindly assisting me regarding this.

Still of Łukasz Kozak from Newsweek Polska video (© Łukasz Kozak/Newsweek Polska – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational purposes only)

However, there are certain key issues related to this memorable drawing that remain unresolved - or do they?

Notable among these is why Fraulein de Naumann prepared such a surreal, unrealistic image anyway, bearing in mind that all of her other illustrations in the album were so life-like. Might it have been a humorous caricature of Jauch himself?

The following painting of Jauch was prepared in c.1720, and he is not portrayed in it with a moustache of any kind, but perhaps he grew and maintained one in later years?

General Joachim Daniel von Jauch, painted in c.1720, artist unknown (public domain)

Alternatively, could it have even been a comical representation of her own father, as she would have known that he and Jauch had worked in the same office? Or perhaps it was not based upon a real person at all, but was just a light-hearted doodle created in jest to add some merriment to the album, bearing in mind that it had been created specifically as a birthday present for him?

Yet another theory that has been suggested by some writers online, including biologist Prof. Stanislaw Czachorowski in an article of 9 February 2014 dealing with the deathshead hawk moth (click here), and which would certainly explain why it differed so dramatically from the other wildlife illustrations, is also worth considering. Namely, that this drawing was in fact produced by Jauch himself, and was based not upon any sightings of his own but only upon secondhand descriptions or lurid folkloric accounts of the deathshead hawk moth (another reason for its stark inaccuracy), which he interpolated in a blank space on p. 95 of his album alongside the realistic illustrations of Fraulein de Naumann.

As for this drawing's comparably mystifying caption, what are the 'squirrel teeth' referred to in it when describing the moth, and what is the yellow foam seemingly regurgitated by the moth? The caterpillar of the deathshead hawk moth has sizeable mandibles that it will click together and even use to bite aggressors, so these could conceivably be likened to squirrel teeth; but the adult moth only has a slender nectar-imbibing proboscis. Might the phrase instead be a somewhat peculiar allusion to the moth's antennae? In fact, having viewed the following excellent close-up photograph of a deathshead hawk moth's face, the answer now seems clear to me. The 'squirrel teeth' are simply the two ridged, outer edges of the moth's proboscis, which do superficially resemble curved rodent teeth.

Face of a deathshead hawk moth, showing its ridge-edged proboscis (© owner presently unknown to me - reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use educational basis only)

It is well known that the caterpillars of hawk moths will regurgitate the sticky (and sometimes toxic) content of their foregut if attacked; but because the mouthparts of caterpillars are very different from those of adult moths, could the latter accomplish such behaviour? Nevertheless, I do recall reading somewhere that certain adult moths will indeed perform this activity as a defence mechanism if need be, so perhaps the deathshead hawk moth is one such species.

Then again, if the drawing itself was intended only as a joke, a spoof, not as a realistic depiction of anything that may truly have appeared near Kalisz in 1749 (and in view of the moth's grinning moustachioed face, this seems ever more likely the more I reflect upon it), maybe the caption was composed in an equally tongue-in-cheek manner and should therefore be taken no more seriously than the drawing.

Equally mystifying is why the insect in the drawing was referred to as a locust, given that it looked nothing like one and was indisputably inspired by a deathshead hawk moth. However, the implication from the drawing's caption is that in 1749 a sizeable number of such insects appeared near Kalisz, and other Polish accounts concerning this incident that I have read online support that implication. Hence it seems plausible that the term 'locust' was being applied not literally but figuratively, an allusion to the large numbers of this insect that had appeared near the city that year.

A 19^th-Century illustration of locusts (public domain)

Even so, this is still odd, because although I have read occasional accounts of veritable swarms of certain hawk moth species occurring in various localities down through the ages, I haven't read anything comparable relating specifically to the deathshead hawk moth. Having said that: in my ShukerNature article on this species (click here), I do refer to a singular incident in which approximately 300 specimens were attracted to a single beehive within a short period of time. The reason for this was that the deathshead has a great liking for honey, so much so in fact that some researchers have even suggested that its uncanny squeaking ability may actually be an attempt to impersonate the specific sound that a queen bee produces to keep her workers passive, and thence allow the moth to enter the hive and consume its honey without being attacked by the hive's worker bees. Consequently, in exceptional circumstances large numbers of deathsheads may indeed occur. So although I haven't been able as yet to trace any corroboration that is independent of the moth drawing, perhaps one such occurrence took place near Kalisz, Poland, during 1749.

Clearly there is still much to uncover regarding this fascinating case, but what I have provided here so far would already appear to be the most detailed account of it ever presented in English. So, now that its curious story is readily accessible to a much greater audience than before, perhaps additional details will be forthcoming from readers, to plug the gaps remaining in its history. Consequently, as I noted earlier here, I consider this article and investigation of mine to be a work in progress, so I would be extremely grateful to receive any supplementary information relating to it. And as is always true with my researches, all such submissions will be fully credited by me if utilised in updates to this article.

Incidentally, there is actually a Facebook page, in Polish, devoted to the humanoid moth drawing from Jauch's album – entitled 'Szarańcza z Kalisza', it contains various relevant posts and comments, plus a delightful animated GIF of this drawing, created by Mieszko Saktura. Click here to visit and Like its page (I have).

Polish postage stamp depicting the deathshead hawk moth (public domain)

And finally: for another ShukerNature blog article concerning an equally bizarre illustration of an alleged locust that clearly was nothing of the kind, be sure to click here and read all about the extraordinary locust dragon of Nicolaes de Bruyn from 1594.

The original, truly bizarre 1594 illustration by Nicolaes de Bruyn of an apparent locust dragon (public domain)