Scientific Illustration

mangycoyote:

Went back to the aquarium! I’m hooked.

(unintentional fish pun)

dudeforscale:

From David Saunders (1974) Sea Birds: Knowledge through Color Series Bantam.

via Julian Montague Book Projects Blog.

(via microecos)

Adélie Penguin chicks (Pygoscelis adeliae)

Report on the collections of natural history made in the Antarctic regions during the voyage of the “Southern Cross.” (1902)

http://archive.org/stream/reportoncollecti00brit#page/n370/mode/1up

rhamphotheca:

Penguin Evolution

Penguins are unusual birds in that they cannot fly and are instead proficient swimmers and divers. Evolutionary biologists have long wondered how penguins evolved their peculiar traits and how some of their kind conquered the bitterly cold Antarctic. Recent fossil discoveries have enabled researchers to piece together the penguins’ evolutionary past, revealing that some of the traits that fortify them against the cold evolved under warm conditions. Although penguins have triumphed over 60 million years of climate change, current warming conditions may outpace their ability to adapt…

CLICK HERE TO SEE IMAGE IN LARGER FORMAT

(Art by Stephanie Abramowicz, Maps by XNR Productions)

(source: 10.1038/scientificamerican1112-56)

(via: Nova Taxa)

(via prehistoric-birds)

astronomy-to-zoology:

Genus Waimanu

waimanu is a genus of early penguin like birds which in Antarctica during the middle Paleocene (60 mya). Waimanu is one of the earliest penguins currently known to science and showed several characteristics common to penguins today as it was flightless and seemingly well adapted for wing based diving and may have resembled a loon in shape. In fact DNA analyses and anatomy show a close relationship between penguins and loons.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Chordata-Aves-Sphenisciformes-Wainamu

Image source

Organs of circulation of the Southern Rockhopper Penguin - Eudyptes chrysocome

Report on the Anatomy of the Spheniscidæ collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the Years 1873-1876

Muscles of Eudyptes chrysocome - the Southern Rockhopper Penguin

Report on the Anatomy of the Spheniscidæ collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the Years 1873-1876

foxship:

Penguin skeleton, drawn in the Zoology Museum of Edinburgh University, in May of 2012. The penguin’s bones are flat and elegonated in a really interesting way. I really enjoyed drawing the Zoology Museum because it was small and quiet, and they had such a huge number of wonderful and interesting things. It was hard to choose which I wanted to draw the most!

My camera always makes dark areas darker when I take pictures of my pastels. I don’t know how to change this.

Eudyptes pachyrhynchus - Fiordland Penguin. Dorsal views of superficial and second layer of muscles of the right wing.

From: A Comparative Study of the Appendicular Musculature of Penguins (Aves, Sphenisciformes)

caitibug757:

Sketches from Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium