The Platypus: bizarre Australian egg-laying mammal with a beaver tail, otter-like flat feet and a duck-like bill depicted in a rare early 1900s German chromolithograph print of a painting by wildlife artist, Karl Ludwig Hartig (1879-1947). Exclusive high resolution scan of original book plate illustrating the (1911-18) 4th edition of Brehms Tierleben (Brehm’s Animal Life).
Platypus or duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) by an Australian river: early 1900s painting signed by German wildlife artist Karl Ludwig Hartig (1879-1947), published in the revised 4th edition (1911-18) of ‘Brehms Tierleben’ (Brehm’s Animal Life). The Tierleben or Thierleben first appeared in 1860 as a 10-volume zoological reference work or encyclopaedia directed by zoologist, writer and traveller Alfred Edmund Brehm (1829-1884). Karl Ludwig Hartig was born in 1879 at Blankenhagen, Pomerania, and died in 1947 in Lübeck, Germany. He contributed several wildlife paintings to editions of Brehms Tierleben. The Platypus, native to Eastern Australia and Tasmania, is recognised worldwide as an Australian national symbol. It is such a bizarre-looking creature that scientists thought it might be an ingenious hoax when Europeans encountered it in 1798 and a pelt and sketch were sent back to Britain. The platypus is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal that lives in and around rivers and streams. It combines the features and attributes of several other species, with a tail like a beaver, flat feet like an otter and a snout like a duck’s bill. It sleeps for up to 14 hours a day, hunts with its eyes shut and has fur that glows bluish-green under long-wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light. The male of the species is (genuinely) poisonous; ankle spurs deliver enough powerful venom to kill a dog or other small animal and leave a human incapacitated by excruciating pain. This image comes from our exclusive high resolution scan of an original early 1900s full colour book plate, which is available in three versions on : the full page with its original title and white borders, the full colour illustration without any borders or title and, lastly, a square crop of part of the artwork.
Size: 14130px × 9420px
Location: Germany
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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