More Antique Lithographs

[Bjohn170]

I got two more of Heinrich Harder’s lithographs. I really think these things are amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Love 'em!

[Yoda]

Nice.

 

I find it interesting how paleo-art has changed if you compare modern to that of years ago 

[Bjohn170]

On 2/1/2024 at 5:16 AM, Yoda said:

Nice.

 

I find it interesting how paleo-art has changed if you compare modern to that of years ago 

It’s crazy how much we’ve learned since then, but it’s also crazy all we were able to know back then as well. Some definitely hold up better than others.

[Mahnmut]

Very nice!

already with your other two I pondered posting a translation, but did not find the time yet. The style is quite antiquated, bordering on the poetic.

What you may have guessed, German being not that different from English, is that the Hadrosaur-text states that Iguanodon and their relations had a Kangaroo-like locomotion...

That would have been a sight.

Best regards,

J

[Bjohn170]

11 hours ago, Mahnmut said:

Very nice!

already with your other two I pondered posting a translation, but did not find the time yet. The style is quite antiquated, bordering on the poetic.

What you may have guessed, German being not that different from English, is that the Hadrosaur-text states that Iguanodon and their relations had a Kangaroo-like locomotion...

That would have been a sight.

Best regards,

J

I’d love to read a full translation, with how old they are I’d be interested to se how they speak of these creatures

[Mahnmut]

Giant Sloth

roaming through the nightly bush-steppe of diluvial south America

One branch of that peculiar clade that includes the living armadillos has nowadays retreated into the densest canopy of south Americas primeval forests trees.

With a weakly toothed mouth its representatives browse there, clinched to the nourishing branches lazily trough hooked claws, having become so much a creature of the trees foliage that by help of algae weaving parasitically through their coarse fur they even assumed the green colour of their leafy hideout, and in that bounty so acustomed to most leisurely movement on their fat meadow that peoples wit  could name them "Faultier"= lazy animal.

 

thats two sentences...

to be continued.

J

Edited February 3 by Mahnmut
additional claws

[Mahnmut]

...

In contrast to the completely inconspicuous nature of these tree sloths, who at most gave rise to harmless fables exaggerating their lazyness, it must be called one of the biggest surprises to recent animal lore that monstrous bones have been found coincidentally in the loam of the south-american pampas-steppe, giving us lore of truly fairytale-like giant sloths that must have been the most impressive characters of their country. Those colosses must have lived at least into the not so distant diluvial past, namely like nowadays treesloths only in America.

Their biggest and most striking representative has been namend "Megatherium" by zoologists, (though that should be "Megalotherium" correctly). This giant sloth in the truest sense surpassed in the length and massivity of certain bones even the biggest elefants of today. Without doubt at its heaviness it could not climb trees anymore and lived as a "earth sloth" on the flat ground. When such a creature during its nocturnal roaming came stomping in the moonshine, covered over and over in its tangled sloth pelt, the feet askew, puting down their sides instead of the soles, thus protecting the mighty claws, with relatively small and tumb head, but with sheer endless body on pillars of unheard of massivity, it must have been the most peculiar and at the same time most hideous mammal that earth ever bore. Its claws blows must have been fearsome, while its denture, being essentially made up of just molars, was adapted to plant fare. In some closely related species of ox- or rhino-size there sat a special armor under the fur, of bean-sized ossicles. The hide of such an animal must have been impenetrable to arrows. Strangely now there is to today a legend of the "Indians" of the pampas about a n enormous creature that lived in the fathers days and could be killed by no arrow. As in newest time in a cave in Patagonia peculiarly fresh pieces of such  an armored sloths hide, covered in yellow-reddish fur, have been found, the supposition found room even among experts that some latecoming giants could exist still alive down there in Patoginias unexplored regions. There has been no further confirmation  found yet. It iss certaain though that the Megatherium as well as the giant armadillo has been hunted by prehistoric humans at least into diluvial times.

[Bjohn170]

43 minutes ago, Mahnmut said:

...

In contrast to the completely inconspicuous nature of these tree sloths, who at most gave rise to harmless fables exaggerating their lazyness, it must be called one of the biggest surprises to recent animal lore that monstrous bones have been found coincidentally in the loam of the south-american pampas-steppe, giving us lore of truly fairytale-like giant sloths that must have been the most impressive characters of their country. Those colosses must have lived at least into the not so distant diluvial past, namely like nowadays treesloths only in America.

Their biggest and most striking representative has been namend "Megatherium" by zoologists, (though that should be "Megalotherium" correctly). This giant sloth in the truest sense surpassed in the length and massivity of certain bones even the biggest elefants of today. Without doubt at its heaviness it could not climb trees anymore and lived as a "earth sloth" on the flat ground. When such a creature during its nocturnal roaming came stomping in the moonshine, covered over and over in its tangled sloth pelt, the feet askew, puting down their sides instead of the soles, thus protecting the mighty claws, with relatively small and tumb head, but with sheer endless body on pillars of unheard of massivity, it must have been the most peculiar and at the same time most hideous mammal that earth ever bore. Its claws blows must have been fearsome, while its denture, being essentially made up of just molars, was adapted to plant fare. In some closely related species of ox- or rhino-size there sat a special armor under the fur, of bean-sized ossicles. The hide of such an animal must have been impenetrable to arrows. Strangely now there is to today a legend of the "Indians" of the pampas about a n enormous creature that lived in the fathers days and could be killed by no arrow. As in newest time in a cave in Patagonia peculiarly fresh pieces of such  an armored sloths hide, covered in yellow-reddish fur, have been found, the supposition found room even among experts that some latecoming giants could exist still alive down there in Patoginias unexplored regions. There has been no further confirmation  found yet. It iss certaain though that the Megatherium as well as the giant armadillo has been hunted by prehistoric humans at least into diluvial times.

Wow thank you! Truly captivating!

[Mahnmut]

You are welcome, it was fun to translate.

The sloth-text has aged rather well compared with some of the others. I will go on with the translations as my time allows.

I just added the hooked claws I missed to the first little part of the text.

One note concerning German sentences: They are known to get rather long. Immanuel Kant is notorious for filling pages with single sentences.

On the other hand, many of the so called "Bandwurmsätze (tapeworm-sentences) that the text above contains could have been easily divided into shorter sentences without changing the text much at all. I guess, that would be less easy with Kant.

Best regards,

J

Edited February 3 by Mahnmut
spelling

[Mahnmut]

Hadrosaur

of the cretaceous

In addition to the pictured Kangaroo-Lizard Iguanodon in the same period of earths history (till the end of the cretaceous) existed numerous other dinosaurs that habitually hopped on their hindlegs as well. Next to strongly divergent carnivorous forms there where herbivores that still differed characteristically from the real Iguanodon-type.

As a genus of the latter sort one knows especially vividly through nearly complete skeletons from Northamerica the Hadrosaurus (also called Trachodon), to which Claosaurus and others are close. Hadrosaurus itself was a giant like the biggest Iguanodonts from Bernissart. The upright Kangaroo-Pose proved itself even more pronouncedly in him than there in th enormously long and steep hindlegs and the even weaker and more stunted forelegs or arms. Like small dangling appendages those armlets can only have hung down from the otherwise birdlike twolegged gestalt. Exceedingly peculiar was in Hadrosaurus the design of the head. Already in the true Iguanodon on notices in front of the imposing tooth rows of both jaws a kind of plucking and gathering snout, broadly reminescent of our cows maxillary structure, but exceeding it in shape of a downright bill.

The jawtips without doubt carried a tough grapping ceratinous cover in the way of a parrots bill.

[Mahnmut]

..., where below a special halfmoon-shaped bone with serrated edges assisted.

This plucking bill was in any case a very effektive intrument for the biting of more or less hard plant matter like what was given in the cycads and conifers of the characteristical vegetation of that time. In the real Hadrosaurus this toothless pre-snout appears on all sides so flat and broadly drawn out like a giant ducksbill or also like the evenly peculiar bill of the still extant but very archaic water-platypus among the mammals. The real dentary, being sat back, does show -in a similar way to Iguanodon- next to the functioning and gradually more or less worn teeth, replacement teeth pushing freshly forward. Because these latter occur in several layers on top of each other there results an enormous number of teeth that has occasionally been estimated in Hadrosaurus for upper and lower jaws together to be 2072. In view of this peculiar maw the question could be raised if not those hadrosaurs acquired their main nourishment bottomfeeding ("gründelnd") in the water like monstrous ducks, where they could have, in addition to vegetable fare, cracked numorous bivalves platypus-style.

Anyway the shape of the flattened tail does also decidedly point to an aquatic lifestyle here.