Albeit for all the wrong reasons, a
very memorable engraving prepared by Friedrich Specht, portraying a concealed
thylacine in the wild paying very close attention to a couple of unsuspecting
kiwis nearby – from Das Buch Für Alle (1890) (public domain)
I used to think that double-takes were exclusive to
clowns in circuses and comedy actors in silent movies. Yet not so long ago,
while browsing the internet in search of information regarding the Queensland
moa (click here to read my subsequent ShukerNature
coverage of this avian anomaly), I performed a double-take that even the great
Chaplin himself would, I'm sure, have been justifiably proud.
And the reason for my doing so was that I had
unexpectedly caught sight of the illustration opening this present ShukerNature
article – an illustration whose content did not immediately register upon my
consciousness, so that my gaze momentarily passed elsewhere – until, that is,
its patent zoological absurdity suddenly detonated inside my mind, causing me
to look back instantly at it, mesmerised by doubt, amazement, and total
bewilderment!
Yes, I had observed it correctly – this extraordinary
engraving did indeed portray a concealed thylacine (aka Tasmanian wolf and Tasmanian tiger) Thylacinus
cynocephalus in the wild paying very close attention to a trio of
unsuspecting kiwis nearby. Artistically, it was well executed, but
zoogeographically it was preposterous, for the simple reason that although
thylacines are known from physical evidence to have existed at one time or
another in Tasmania (confirmed until 1936), the Australian mainland (confirmed
until c.2,300 years ago), and New Guinea (confirmed until c.4,500 years ago), these remarkably wolf-like marsupial mammals have never existed at any time in New Zealand, whereas kiwis have never existed anywhere else at any time other than in New Zealand.
So how can we explain this illustration of the
impossible, depicting a scene that could never have occurred in nature?
Engraving of Friedrich Specht, from
1892 (public domain)
Researching it online, I discovered to my great
surprise that this most perplexing picture had been prepared by none other than
the celebrated German wildlife illustrator Friedrich Specht (1839-1909), whose
exquisite natural history engravings adorned many major multi-volume works
published during the late 1800s, including Alfred E. Brehm's Brehms
Tierleben (1864-1869) and Sir Richard Lydekker's The Royal Natural
History (1894-1896). More specifically, I learned that this particular
engraving by him had appeared in Das Buch Für Alle (1890), though I have
so far been unable to locate a copy of the latter public-domain book online in
order to see the engraving in situ and thus discover the precise context in
which it appeared.
Bearing in mind how meticulously accurate his
wildlife artwork has always been in the various natural history tomes
containing it that I have both perused and purchased down through the years
(including Lydekker's above-mentioned series and an English translation of
Brehm's), the only plausible if somewhat startling explanation for this incongruous
image is that Specht simply wasn't aware either that thylacines have never
existed in New Zealand or that kiwis have never existed in Tasmania or mainland
Australia. Yet someone as zoologically knowledgeable as Specht would certainly have
done, surely?
Perhaps not, because while researching this thylacine-featuring
Specht engraving I came upon a second example that included what may be another
zoogeographical mismatch. As seen here, this one, which once again had appeared
in Das Buch Für Alle, featured two thylacines pursuing an emu Dromaius
novaehollandiae. On first sight, this seems straightforward, because Tasmania was indeed once home its very own emu subspecies, D.
n. diemenensis, but which, tragically, had been hunted into extinction by
the mid-1800s. However, it was supposedly distinguishable morphologically from
the mainland Australian version, D. n. novaehollandiae, not only by
throat-related colouring and neck feathering differences (paler throat,
unfeathered neck) but also by a somewhat smaller overall size.
Yet based upon the relative proportions of the emu
and the thylacines depicted in Specht's engraving, and also the appearance of
that emu's throat (dark) and neck (feathered), it seems to me that the latter
bird is of the mainland Australian subspecies rather than of the Tasmanian
subspecies. However, as the thylacine became extinct on the mainland over 2,000
years ago, it would surely be rather unlikely that mainland Australia was the setting portrayed in this image.
Specht's engraving of two thylacines
pursuing a taxonomically ambiguous emu, from Das Buch Für Alle (1890)
(public domain)
Once again, therefore, Specht's knowledge of
Antipodean fauna may have been deficient here, not realising that the Tasmanian
emu looked different from its mainland Australian relative, and/or not
realising that the thylacine had died out long ago in mainland Australia.
Having said that, it is true that around the time
of the Tasmanian emu's extinction, mainland Australian emus were introduced
onto its island homeland, and there is even some thought that these mainland
interlopers may have actually hastened their native Tasmanian kin into
extinction by hybridising with its last few surviving individuals. So, even if
Specht's depicted emu is indeed of the mainland Australian subspecies, its
occurrence in the presence of thylacines may not be inconsistent with a
Tasmanian setting for his engraving after all.
Incidentally, while researching these two anomalous
illustrations I also discovered that both of them were included in Tasmanian
Tiger: A Lesson To Be Learnt (1998), authored by Eric Guiler and Philippe
Godard, with the contribution of David Maguire. Yet while they shared my
bemusement regarding the thylacine and kiwis example, and also my reservations
concerning the thylacines and emu example, they did not provide any additional
background information relating to either of them.
It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand
words, but in at least the example of Specht's thylacine and kiwis engraving,
it is probably worth a good deal less, with only its high level of artistry to
commend it. Even so, discovering it was certainly a highlight of that
particular online surfing session for me – then again, I am easily pleased!
Above: Hand-coloured lithograph,
c.1910, of a Tasmanian emu prepared by John G. Keulemans, from The Birds of
Australia by Gregory M. Mathews (public domain); Below: painting by John
Gould of mainland Australian emus for his book Birds of Australia, Vol. 6
(1865) (public domain)
Posts
