How Europeans Imagined Exotic Animals Centuries Ago, Based on Hearsay

People have been drawn to stories about exotic animals throughout our history. The further you go back in that history, the less likely those stories were accurate. Here is a gorgeous compendium of illustrations showing how people imagined real animals they had only heard about.

Crocodiles from Liber Floridus (Book of Flowers), an encyclopedia by Lambert, Canon of Saint-Omer between 1090 and 1120.

(via Erik Kwakkel)

Animals from the Rochester Bestiary, c. 1225-1250

A crocodile:

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Elephants:

Lions and other animals:

A lion:

A colorful panther:

A crocodile from the Northumberland Bestiary, fol. 49v, mid-1250s

An elephant from the 13th century, by Guillaume le Clerc

An elephant from Italy, c. 1440

(via British Library)

Lions from the Ashmole Bestiary (f.10v), 1511

A whale from Adriaen Coenen's Visboek (Fish Book), 1560s

(via Koninklijke Bibliotheek)

An elephant and a giraffe by Noè Bianco, 1568

(via NYPL Digital Library)

The History of Four-Booted Beasts and Serpents, by Edward Topsell, 1658

A beaver:

A dromedary:

(via University of Houston Digital Library)

A history of the Earth and animated nature, by Oliver Goldsmith, 1825

A hippo:

Seals:

Lions:

(via Biodiversity Heritage Library)

A striped hyena, by Aloys Zötl, 1831

Gibbons, by Aloys Zötl, 1833

The Hoolock Gibbons, by Aloys Zötl, 1835

The Cheetah, by Aloys Zötl, 1837

A rhinoceros, by Aloys Zötl, 1861

A sea turtle, by Aloys Zötl, 1867

A walrus, by Aloys Zötl, 1879

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(via Wikimedia Commons 1 –2 and British Library)