It’s been a while since we checked in on how the Renaissance is doing with its ocean mysteries, so here is a marine biology update circa 1550.
Seals come in two forms:
Buff
& Triangular
Walruses are horrifying
But whales are worse
Fish can have human faces
but not always where you’d expect
As for the rest
… it’s probably better left alone.
[All images except chest face fish from Historiae animalium liber IV : De piscium & aquatilium animantium natura. Chest face fish from The noble lyfe & natures of man of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes yt be moste knowen]
Can you imagine thinking animals actually looked like this? Like I know there’s stylization here, but if I was an uneducated peasant in 1550 who saw these I might be religious too.
I’d want to find them o-o I feel like they’d have a lot of stories and with a human face it’d be easier to talk to them.
Would you have sex with one?
o.O Idk… a human face/intelligence would make it less weird, but it’s still bestiality..
