Historiae Animalium

BY: CONRAD GESSNER

Historiae Animalium is an old encyclopedic work from the 1550's. It was the first modern zoological work aiming for describing all known animals. There were five volumes of the natural history of animals that consists of more than 4500 pages. Although it was supposed to be complete fact, there were many cryptids and mythical creatures inside it as well. This proved that they were believed in at the time and might have been more evidence for their existence then. The book is written in latin so it may be hard to read, but, it has very nice coloured woodcut illustrations. This made it the first real attempt to represent animals in their natural environment and the first book to illustrate fossils.

There were many hidden animals described and illustrated in this book. This included Unicorns, Satyrs, Cameleopards, Hellhounds, Sea Monks, Sea Bishops, Sea Monsters, Sea Serpents, Hydras, Dragons, Mermaids, Kraken and Sky Serpents.