Elke Zimmermann from here A few weeks ago while working on a different topic I came across the sad news that Elke Zimmermann had died in 2019 at the age of 61. Her book, Breeding Terrarium Animals, the English-language version of which appeared in 1986, drew on the major and then novel  advances being made in Germany on the breeding of amphibians and reptiles. Elke and her father Helmut (b 1926), an architect in Stuttgart, were very much part of the group of German herpetologists at the forefront of breeding tropical frogs and toads. The book was highly influential across the En ..read more

AJP photographed this squirrel on the Peak, Hong Kong island last week. I have written about Pallas’s Squirrel (Callosciurus erythraeus) in Hong Kong before, including its origins as an escapee from the pet trade, and the possibility that some are natural re-introductions from across the border. This one, with the light tip to the tail is typical of the ones found on Hong Kong island. Compare this with one he photographed in the New Territories (here) with the black ‘spot’ in the tip of the tail. The red belly—often not that easy to see from the side—which is not a constant feature, can be see ..read more

 I have shown photographs of Günther's Frogs (Sylvirana guentheri) before but I could not resist these AJP photographed a few days ago at Tai Po Kau. I do not know why some individuals have the reddish back ..read more

In the days when colour printing was extremely expensive, the Avicultural Society had special appeals for funds to support the appearance in Avicultural Magazine of the occasional colour plate. A well-known bird artist was then commissioned. Although the whole run of the Society’s magazines can be found online, the plates rarely see the light of day. Therefore I decided to show one, now and again, on this site. This is the 18th in the series. – – – – – – – – – – The artist of this plate was Neville William Cayley (1886–1950) well known in Australia for having produced the first full field g ..read more

 Having started this series with finding out who Miss Waldron was, I shall end it with a request. I have come across no photographs of Fannie Waldron nor of any that she took, other than the few shown in Willoughby Lowe’s book. Does anybody have photographs or know if they still exist? Robert William Hayman in his paper which named the monkey for Miss Waldron, states that she retained two skins of the African Golden Cat (now Caracal aurata), one of the grey (from Mampong) and one of the red (from Goaso) colour morphs. I winder what happened to them. Hayman also saw a Gambian Sun Squirrel ..read more

As I showed in a previous article in this series, it was not Willoughby Lowe and Fannie Waldron who brought the first specimens of Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus to the Natural History Museum in London. The two specimens Herbert George Flaxman Spurrell (1877-1918) brought or sent to London in 1912 were recognised as belonging to the same taxon after or while those from the Lowe-Waldron expeditions of 1933-34 and 1934-35 were being examined. Herbert Spurrell Spurrell was an interesting character. I get the impression that he was another of those individuals who qualified in medicine but w ..read more

The man who named Miss Waldron's Red Colobus was Robert William Hayman of the Natural History Museum in London. Although his dates were not known at the time of writing of the Eponym Dictionary of Mammals in 2009, I see somebody must have found them since they do appear in articles online. Hayman is an interesting case study of the organisation of science in Britain in the 20th century and of how it was possible for boys to rise to a position of leader in the field without being admitted to the full status of ‘scientist’. Robert William Hayman was born on 11 November 1905 in Fulham, London, th ..read more

AJP sent this photograph of an uncommon butterfly he saw three weeks ago in a park in Kowloon Tong. It is a male Asian  Swallowtail, Papilio xuthus. Hong Kong is at the southern edge of its range in Asia. I have previously shown a photograph of a female he found in the same park in 2021 ..read more

A visit to stay with a distant aunt in London always included time in Foyle’s bookshop on Charing Cross Road, which held as far  as I ever found the best selection of books on natural history at the time. There, in 1961, I found a new book by A.H. Booth Small Mammals of West Africa. It was in a series West African Nature Handbooks and had been published in 1960. It was at a price I could afford (not very much as a schoolboy with very little in his pocket) and I duly went through the bizarre process of paying. First, queue at the sales assistant’s counter. Hand over the book and be given ..read more

In the days when colour printing was extremely expensive, the Avicultural Society had special appeals for funds to support the appearance in Avicultural Magazine of the occasional colour plate. A well-known bird artist was then commissioned. Although the whole run of the Society’s magazines can be found online, the plates rarely see the light of day. Therefore I decided to show one, now and again, on this site. This is the 17th in the series. – – – – – – – – – – The plate was the work David Morrison Reid Henry (1919-1977) in 1952. He signed his work as D.M. Henry and was an artist favoured b ..read more