In 1826, the University of Oxford purchased a collection of 930 watercolour drawings of birds bound in 12 volumes. They had been obtained by the bookseller Joseph Harding (1783-1843) of London at an auction of the effects of Joan Raye van Breukelerwaard (1737-1823) in Amsterdam in 1824 or 1825. Here called the 'Radcliffe Collection', these drawings have a close connection with the French ornithologist Fran & ccedil;ois Levaillant (1753-1824), well-known for his travels to South Africa (1780-1784) and for his authorship of five splendidly-illustrated ornithological works. The history and contents of this collection are described. Of the 752 birds depicted, 420 species also feature in the auction catalogue of Raye's cabinet dated 1827. About half of the drawings in the Radcliffe Collection depict species described and figured on the engraved plates in Levaillant's published works. The drawings often include two captions in French, one probably written by Levaillant, the second possibly by Joan Raye or his curator. None of the drawings was signed by an artist. They depict many type specimens of species first described by Levaillant, which were given binomial names by others in the early nineteenth century. They provide a rare glimpse into private cabinets of natural history at a time when many new species of birds were brought to Europe from across the world.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) and Carl Benjamin Hermann, Baron von Rosenberg (1817-1888) were naturalists with similar goals in their exploration of the Malay Archipelago. Their collaborations have not been the subject of any previous study. They first met in May 1858 on the coast of Dorey, the northwestern part of New Guinea. Together they discovered two birds new to science, the Dusky Lory Pseudeos fuscata (Blyth, 1858) and the Fairy Lorikeet Charmo- synopsis pulchella (G.R. Gray, 1859). Wallace did not propose new names himself, while the Chalcopsitta leucopygialis Rosenberg, 1859 (nomen nudum) and Charmosyna pectoralis Rosenberg, 1862 lost their priority. Wallace visited Aru Island for six months in 1857, where he collected 113 bird species as enumerated in his private notebook, now transcribed in extract for the first time. Wallace's collections from Dorey were examined by George Robert Gray (1808-1872) in 1858 after they were received by the Natural History Museum in London. When Rosenberg was working out the distribution of various birds in the archipelago in 1862, he had not yet visited the Aru Islands. His list of 86 bird species from Aru was contributed by Wallace, most probably during their discussions when they met in Ceram in November or December 1859. The historical narrative provides two rare instances where Wallace's presence was acknowledged by fellow naturalists in the field, and at the same time gives insight in the cooperation and potential scientific rivalry of the period.

Temminck's major work on pigeons became famous partly because of the complementary plates by Knip, even though Knip had used subterfuge to make the published work appear to be hers. It was generally assumed that this permanently ended their partnership as the evidence for renewed cooperation between the two, present in Knip's second pigeon book, was widely overlooked. A rediscovered letter from Temminck to Knip confirms the renewed partnership, with Temminck supplying specimens of new species of pigeon to be included in Knip's work. One of these was a Ducula from Sulawesi, collected by the Dutch naturalist Forsten. Due to a spelling mistake, this species initially did not receive the name intended by Temminck. Although the error was subsequently corrected by Bonaparte, his action is invalid in the eyes of the International code for zoological nomenclature. Another article in the Code, however, dealing with a different matter, is applicable and rules that the ‘amended’ name is valid after all.

AbstractIn their response to Wilson, Pashkevich, Rookmaaker, et al. (2022), Ferreira et al. argue that our conclusions regarding shrinking rhino horns were risky, given the low sample size used for this assessment, the variation in rhino horn length related to non‐heritable factors (including age, sex, environment and behaviour) and the low impact that current selective trophy hunting has on rhino numbers.We agree that our sample size was low and that many factors can influence horn length and therefore we discussed these points as important caveats in Wilson, Pashkevich, Rookmaaker, et al. (2022).However, we argue that although many factors can lead to variation in horn length, they do not explain the decline in relative horn length over time that we observed, and we note that the response does not offer an alternative explanation for this temporal shift.Although selective hunting is currently a minor factor in rhino mortality, this may have been relatively more important and to have had a potentially greater selective influence in the past.Our dataset does not allow identification of factors driving this change, and in Wilson, Pashkevich, Rookmaaker, et al. (2022), we offered selective hunting as one possible explanation for the relative decline, calling for more work to investigate this further.We highlight that the focus of Wilson, Pashkevich, Rookmaaker, et al. (2022) was far more than an assessment of changing relative horn length and instead aimed to demonstrate that a wide range of data can be extracted effectively from image repositories for use in a conservation context.We hope that the results in Wilson, Pashkevich, Rookmaaker, et al. (2022) will provide a useful starting point for future research, including addressing the questions raised by Ferreira et al.Ultimately, we feel that the attention given to Wilson, Pashkevich, Rookmaaker, et al. (2022) reveals the enduring interest people have in rhinos, a topic addressed in other parts of our original paper, which we encourage readers to read in its entirety.Read the freePlain Language Summaryfor this article on the Journal blog.

The first post-Roman rhinoceros to be seen alive in Europe reached the harbour of Lisbon, Portugal on 20 May 1515. After a fight with an elephant staged on 3 June 1515, King Dom Manuel I ‘the Fortunate’ decided to gift the rhino to Pope Leo X in Rome. The animal drowned when the vessel was shipwrecked in a storm off La Spezia in northern Italy at the end of January 1516. Information and a sketch reached the German city of Nuremberg, where Albrecht Dürer proceeded to make a drawing with text dated 1515, followed by a woodcut of the Lisbon Rhinoceros. Dürer’s works show a characteristic twisted horn in the shoulder region, found in all later copies, which became the standard representation of the rhinoceros from 1545 in books and artworks. During the first part of the 16th century, until about 1560, there were at least 16 works showing a rhinoceros without this Dürer-hornlet. These would have been sketches of the living animal during its short life in Europe, or possibly been derived from such portrayals. Five such works have remained largely unknown, and are here described, discussed and illustrated. First, there is a set of similar engravings found in three separate Cartinhas (booklets) produced in Portugal between 1534-1544 by the printer Germão Galharde, where the animal is uniquely named “Rhinocerom”, here noticed in zoological context for the first time. Second, two similar figures of a rhinoceros on the cover of a pamphlet by the Italian author Giovanni Giacomo Penni and in the background of a large painting by Francesco Granacci of 1515-1516 might both be based on a coloured unsigned sketch found in a volume of manuscripts in the Library of the Vatican (Vat. lat. 2847). Third, the Historia Senensium by Sigismondo Tizio contains a sketch of a rhinoceros in shackles in an entry for 1515. Fourth, a rhinoceros is found among marginal drawings and manuscript annotations added to a volume of Pliny’s Natural History. Finally, a book on Quadrupeds published by Michael Herr in 1546 has an independent illustration of a rhinoceros without a hornlet on the shoulders, copied in books by Hubert de L'Espine of 1558 and Barthélemy Aneau of 1559. All examples are illustrated for future comparison.

The rhinoceros is an iconic animal. Three species once inhabited South Asia, two of which disappeared over a century ago. This survey aims to reconstruct the historical distribution of these large mammals resulting in new maps showing the extent of their occurrences. Thousands of sources varied in time and nature are used to study the interactions between men and rhinoceros. The text is supported by over 700 illustrations and 38 maps showing the importance of the rhinoceros in the scientific and cultural fabric of Asia and beyond.

There was a considerable gap of 21 years between the illustrated description of a specimen of the Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) by William Bell in 1793 and the proposal to accept it as a named new species by Gotthelf Fischer in 1814. In the meantime some 17 authors reported the possibility that the animal should be regarded as a new species. Hitherto overlooked, the German writer Friedrich Justin Bertuch used a new name in the caption to a reproduction of Bell’s plate, as Rhinoceros bicornis Sumatricus. This was published in 1805 in a second edition of his “Bilderbuch für Kinder”, a serial magazine aimed at young people. This work has an extremely complex bibliography through many re-issues and translations, which is only partly resolved. The same name in the combination Rhinoceros Sumatricus was included by Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm in a companion to the “Bilderbuch” available in 1808. The complicated circumstances of Bertuch’s proposal in 1805 and his unusual usage of a trinomen lead to the suggestion that his book might not be consistently binominal, making the name unavailable. The naming by Wilhelm in 1808 is straightforward and correct, hence Rhinoceros sumatricus Wilhelm, 1808 is an available name and a senior objective synonym of Rhinoceros sumatrensis G. Fischer, 1814. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature allows the suggestion that Wilhelm’s name was a nomen oblitum (forgotten name). The various plates of the rhinoceros found in the “Bilderbuch” by Bertuch and the “Unterhaltungen aus der Naturgeschichte” are figured and explained.

Alexander James Edward Cave (1900–2001) was a superb anatomist who extensively improved our knowledge of rhinoceros anatomy and osteology; he also published several studies on the osteology of other groups of mammals and one conservation-focused study about numbers of Ceratotherium cottoni in Uganda. Our contribution contains an identification of the rhinoceros specimens examined by A. J. E. Cave, his complete bibliography related to rhinoceroses, and two recommendations in accord to his legacy. All Cave’s morphological and genetic studies should specify the exact geographic origin of the wild rhinoceroses, if known, and some unambiguous reference numbers in the case of collections and/or captive-based specimens. Cataloguing of extinct and near-extinct extant rhinoceroses in world collections, future preservation of the collection material and its anatomical/morphological documentation for the last remnants of Ceratotherium cottoni, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, as well as Rhinoceros sondaicus and localized wild-based specimens of Diceros bicornis is highly recommended.

The Fishing Cat is not a species known to inhabit Singapore. However, a historical specimen stated to have come from Singapore in 1819 and attributed to Pierre-Médard Diard (RMNH.MAM.59688) is now housed at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands. Two hundred years after it was obtained, the mounted skin and skull of this specimen, including specimen labels, were photographed and digitally catalogued. Four sets of annotations from labels and a document detailing records and a receipt of specimens sent by Diard to Leiden are presented to ascertain the specimen’s identity, followed by a historical account of Diard based on a reconstruction of the timeline of key events of Singapore’s natural history. Subsequently, the specimen is examined to confirm its taxonomic identity using comparative morphometrics with other museum specimens, and data associated with the specimen are analysed to determine the origins of this specimen. We conclude that the current evidence does not allow confirmation of the specimen’s status as having been collected in Singapore or being obtained from the pet trade. If the specimen was an imported specimen, it would point towards a trade in rare and large animals in Singapore and the region from as early as 1819. Presently, the specimen remains one of the few extant zoological specimens obtained in Singapore in 1819 and the only one currently known outside of England.

Abstract Online image repositories can offer a freely accessible, information‐rich and cost‐effective alternative to museum collections for studying long‐term changes in human interactions with nature and ecological and evolutionary change. The Rhino Resource Center (RRC) is one example, curated by experts and holding a collection of >4000 rhino images, including both artistic portrayals (1481–2021) and photographs (taken between 1862–2021), and representing a potentially valuable case study to investigate the utility of online image repositories for research into large vertebrates and, potentially, other well‐recorded smaller taxa. The five extant species of rhino are all threatened by habitat loss and human hunting and therefore are an important focus for conservation research. We used the RRC for two separate research approaches: (i) assessing the changing representations and human interactions with rhinos using 3158 images (1531 pieces of artwork and 1627 photographs); and (ii) determining to what extent morphological data can be extracted from photographs to assess changes in horn length over time, using a sample size of 80 photographs of rhinos taken in profile view. We found that African rhino species have become more commonly depicted in images, compared to Asian rhino species over time. During the age of European imperialism (between the 16th and 20th centuries), rhinos were commonly portrayed as hunting trophies, but since the mid‐20th century, they have been increasingly portrayed in a conservation context, reflecting a change in emphasis from a more to less consumptive relationship between humans and rhinos. Finally, we found evidence for declining horn length over time across species, perhaps related to selective pressure of hunting, and indicating a utility for image‐based approaches in understanding societal perceptions of large vertebrates and trait evolution. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Rhinos have a long history in European art and literature, having captivated the public for over 500 years. In China and India, this is even longer (Bishop 1933, Bose 2020). This long-term record means that there is a wealth of rhino imagery and publications available for researchers. The Rhino Resource Center (RRC) is a repository of such information. Whilst the power of the RRC’s literature database has been documented, we consider that the image gallery has thus far been underappreciated by researchers. To complement a recent publication that made use of the images in the RRC to investigate changing human perceptions of rhinos and morphological changes in rhinos over time, we describe the volume and type of data available on the RRC and the images it contains and how to access these, including thematic information, time and location data, ecological data and morphology. We hope that this paper will facilitate rhino researchers making greater use of this information and we strongly encourage uptake of this resource for future rhino research.

This contribution contains additions and corrections associated with the Bibliography of Colin Peter Groves published in the present journal in 2018 (Rookmaaker & Robovský 2018).

Only five species of the once-diverse Rhinocerotidae remain, making the reconstruction of their evolutionary history a challenge to biologists since Darwin. We sequenced genomes from five rhinoceros species (three extinct and two living), which we compared to existing data from the remaining three living species and a range of outgroups. We identify an early divergence between extant African and Eurasian lineages, resolving a key debate regarding the phylogeny of extant rhinoceroses. This early Miocene (∼16 million years ago [mya]) split post-dates the land bridge formation between the Afro-Arabian and Eurasian landmasses. Our analyses also show that while rhinoceros genomes in general exhibit low levels of genome-wide diversity, heterozygosity is lowest and inbreeding is highest in the modern species. These results suggest that while low genetic diversity is a long-term feature of the family, it has been particularly exacerbated recently, likely reflecting recent anthropogenic-driven population declines.