Starfish, Historiae Animalium, 16th Century
Gesner describes sea creatures in his final volume which was published in 1587, more than 20 years after his death. This has led many to believe that he was not confident enough about his descriptions to show them to his fellow scholars. Gesner classes starfish as crustaceans along with lobsters, crabs, clams and snails. Historiae Animalium (Studies on Animals) is considered to be the first modern zoological work. This first attempt to describe many of the animals accurately is illustrated with hand-colored woodcuts drawn from personal observations by Gesner and his colleagues. Conrad Gesner (March 26, 1516 - December 13, 1565) was a Swiss naturalist and bibliographer. To his contemporaries he was best known as a botanist, but in 1551 he was the first to describe brown adipose tissue; and in 1565 the first to document the pencil. He died of the plague, at the age of 49, the year after his ennoblement.
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