Southern toad
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683-1749, British), Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
Subject
Content object
Description
Zoological study of a southern toad, Bufo terrestris or Anaxyrus terrestris, referred to here as Rana terrestris, shown alongside a specimen of hooded pitcherplant, Sarracenia minor.
Signed and inscribed: ‘Rana terrestris Sarracena’
Written in the associated description: ‘The back and Upper-part of this Frog is gray, and thick spotted with dark brown Spots; the Belly dusky white, and faintly spotted: The Irides of the Eyes red.’
Plate 69 from volume II of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.
Signed and inscribed: ‘Rana terrestris Sarracena’
Written in the associated description: ‘The back and Upper-part of this Frog is gray, and thick spotted with dark brown Spots; the Belly dusky white, and faintly spotted: The Irides of the Eyes red.’
Plate 69 from volume II of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.