Conrad Gesner News Today

In “The Bathysphere Book,” Brad Fox chronicles the fascinating Depression-era ocean explorations of William Beebe.

Looking for the most popular United States cryptids, lore, & legends? In this podcast episode we intro into cryptids, cryptozoology, and more.

An event centred around one of the oldest public libraries in Britain will feature several expert guest speakers.

An event centred around one of the oldest public libraries in Britain will feature several expert guest speakers.

Pencils with leads made of actual lead were used by the Egyptians and Romans. Artists were reported to use sharpened sticks of graphite as early as the...

“I was looking at some of the fantastic animal books we have and I was going through the pages of the wonderful Theatre of Insects, or Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum to give it its true title . . . While looking through our copy I chanced upon a butterfly (a small tortoiseshell I think) next to its accompanying image. There is a striking similarity between the woodcut and butterfly, which of course was the intention so that the various species could be identified by the amateur ...

A butterfly that could be almost 400 years old has been discovered pressed between the pages of an ancient library book at Cambridge University.  The perfectly preserved specimen, thought to be a small tortoiseshell, was found inside a copy of Englands earliest insect book, Theatre of Insects, published in 1634. The butterfly could be as old as the volume itself, according to experts at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, which has had the book in its collection since 1996.  The beautiful sp...