22nd May 1666, death of German Jesuit and natural philosopher Gaspar Schott. His 1662 book ‘Physica Curiosa’ is a compendium of engravings and stories based upon monsters and bizarre animals considered at the time to exist, and also physical abnormalities and deformities. Although dating from the medieval period, the persistence of fabled creatures in the imagination continued, as we shall see. 23rd May 1707, birth of Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician Carl Linnaeus, the "father of modern taxonomy" for his formulation of the system of naming organisms. Studying plants and animals, he published Systema Naturae in 1735, which outlined his ideas for the hierarchical classification of the natural world, dividing it into the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the "mineral kingdom". Also included are dragons, the phoenix, sirens, and the manticore, as well as frogs that revert back to tadpoles, and a plant whose fruit is in the form of sheep. Such was the persistence of the existence of these mythological creature that they were included in Linnaeus' Systema Naturae until the sixth edition. In 1735, Linnaeus travelled to the Dutch republic to study medicine, stopping at Hamburg he was invited by the Mayor to see the town’s natural wonder, the remains of a seven-headed hydra, which the local monks claimed to be the Beast of Revelation. The town was in the process of auctioning off the beast for an enormous sum, Linnaeus was eager to see the fabled creature, and subsequently disappointed when he saw that it was the size of a dog, and had been stitched together from the remains of a snake and a weasel Publicly declaring the creature to be a fake, (continued in the comments) #fabled #cryptid #cryptidcore #cryptids #cryptidart #cryptidartist #cryptidsighting #cryptidaesthetic #medievalbeasts #carllinnaeus #historyofscience #strangehistory #bizarre #bizarrehistory #strangetales #weirdhistory #monstersamongus #zoology #zoologist #curiositycabinet #taxonomy #gothictales #cryptidcreatures #strangecreatures #hydra #manticore #hamburggermany #mythologyart #mythologymemes #mythologicalcreatures https://www.instagram.com/p/CPQwGfMnDt4/?utm_medium=tumblr
