Illustration Obsession

What, you may be asking yourself, are those odd shaped sheep in that reproduced image (an engraving from ~1787), brought to us courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library's Flickr stream?* They do look like sheep, don't they? Or some sort of odd ungulate-sized mice lazing about on rocks? Maybe a blocky rat, or muskrat? ...But, NO! They are bats. BATS!?!?! Printed the same size as the jaguar three plates earlier. What was Buffon thinking? I don't know, but I had to do my own illustrations of these little guys to demonstrate how much scientific illustration has improved in 200+ years...

The three bats presented in the above Buffon image done here in pastel, from top to bottom:

• Greater Bulldog bat, Nolctilio nigrita
• Ternat or Greater Yellow House bat, Pteropus vulgaris
• Senegal bat, Vespertilio nigrita

*Buffon's Natural history, containing a theory of the earth, a general history of man, of the brute creation, and of vegetables, minerals, &c. &c. From the French, with notes by the translator.  London:1797-1807.