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leafyhistory.bsky.social
Lee Raye
@leafyhistory.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.8K following 210 posts
Associate Lecturer, Research Officer, studies medieval/early modern wild animals & plants.
Author: #AtlasofEarlyModernWildlife
Secretly a fox? 🦊 Slow worm friend. 🧚🏻🐉 they/them. 🍞🌹
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leafyhistory.bsky.social
Lee Raye @leafyhistory.bsky.social · Dec 18
Out now in the @sochistnathist.bsky.social journal, my article on the BERRY-POMEROY MANUSCRIPT!
This is a natural history text from the year 1599 which lists 278 species of animals and plants living in Elizabethan Devon!
There are some very surprising records here...
🐺🐻🪶🐀🐾🎣🍎🍐📗

(Thread 🧵...)
Screenshot of abstract from a journal website: Archives of Natural History, October 2024, vo. 51, No. 2 : pp. 289-302 Keywords: ‘Berry-Pomeroy Manuscript’, chorography of Devon wildlife, early modern animal history, Devon fruit cultivars, sixteenth-century Britain, John Vowell, extinction of the wolf Fauna and flora listed in John Hooker’s manuscript ‘Synopsis chorographical of Devonshire’ (1599) Lee Raye Abstract This paper introduces and comments on the animals and plants listed in a manuscript dated 1599 (the ‘Berry-Pomeroy Manuscript’), the ‘Synopsis chorographical of Devonshire’ by John Hooker of Exeter (1527–1601). Two hundred and seventy eight animals and plants were named, which is an unprecedented number for a local natural history text from sixteenth-century Britain. The animals mentioned include some of considerable interest like the wolf, bear, roe deer and red deer, polecat, black rat, white stork, Cornish chough and numerous freshwater fishes. Several cultivated varieties of domesticated fruit trees, in particular apples and pears, and other local specialities that are no longer known were also in Hooker’s list.
Reposted by Lee Raye
arby-k.bsky.social
Migratory behavior may come and go throughout the deep history of an animal species.

Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?

www.sapiens.org/archaeology/...
Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?
Isotopes in fossil teeth suggest ancient animals traveled less—making researchers rethink past human societies and future conservation.
www.sapiens.org
December 3, 2025 at 3:03 AM
leafyhistory.bsky.social
250-500 years ago freshwater lampreys were considered a delicacy. 🎣 Rather mysteriously though, I can't find any reliable records of them occurring in that time period in Scotland or in the east of Ireland. Were they more common or culturally more important in England? 🤔 #AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife
Map of Britain and Ireland showing where freshwater lampreys (Lampetra spp. - river and brook lampreys) were recorded between 1529 and 1772. Most of the historic counties in England and Leinster (Ireland) are shaded to show that lampreys were recorded in rivers running through these regions. There are gaps in the west of Wales, Scotland, west Wales and the rest of Ireland, with only a few uncertain records in these areas.
December 2, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
dimsie.bsky.social
Important note: there was a professional dog-stealing ring in 19th century London which specialised in taking the dogs of rich people for ransom payments, and they were called The Fancy! Her dog was stolen three times and she had to pay heaps every time to get him back
dimsie.bsky.social Danielle, Petty Hate Machine @dimsie.bsky.social · 2d
I am listening to an audiobook about dogs belonging to famous women writers (shut up) and Elizabeth Barrett (pre-Browning) fucking loooooooooooved her cocker spaniel
December 2, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
ottomanhistory.bsky.social
📜 Imperial Order on preventing the overloading of beasts of burden and ensuring proper care of their hooves and saddles, March 18, 1587. #animals #archive
November 28, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
uk-news.bsky.social
Domestic cats first arrived in Europe with Romans, analysis of ancient DNA shows

https://www.europesays.com/uk/598089/

Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…#uk #news #uknews
Domestic cats first arrived in Europe with Romans, analysis of ancient DNA shows - United Kingdom
Your support helps us to tell the story
www.europesays.com
November 27, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
news.rte.ie
The first directly dated wildcat bones found in Ireland have been identified, confirming that the species inhabited the island more than 5,500 years ago
Wildcat bones found in Co Clare dated to 5,500 years ago
The first directly dated wildcat bones found in Ireland have been identified, confirming that the species inhabited the island more than 5,500 years ago.
www.rte.ie
November 28, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
everyheron.bsky.social
As its ancestors did be for millenia, a Grey Heron stands at one of Elizabeth I's favourite spots along the Thames

" The last remaining features of the old Tudor/Stuart jetty that once served Richmond Palace." #HeronTime
lizanderson.bsky.social Liz Anderson @lizanderson.bsky.social · 12d
A long lost Tudor Palace, very few traces of it remain. On the foreshore a few timbers of the old Tudor/Stuart jetty, also a gatehouse off Richmond Green. Thought to be Elizabeth I’s favourite palace & where she died on March 24 1603. We have only Wyngaerde’s sketches to show us what it looked like
The original gatehouse to the old Tudor Palace of Richmond, just off Richmond Green. Little else of the palace remains. A stone plaque on a wall reveals the history of Richmond Palace, thought to be Elizabeth I’s favourite home and where she died on March 24th 1603. A sketch by Anton Wyngaerde showing Richmond Palace in all its glory. Pepperpot covered turrets, many outhouses and side buildings. Standing on the river Thames. A misty day on the Thames at Richmond, a heron in the distance plus a few timbers visible. The last remaining features of the old Tudor/Stuart jetty that once served Richmond Palace.
November 21, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
drmjwarren.bsky.social
Bird place-name of the day 114: HARPENDEN (Herts). OE hearp + denu. Possibly ‘nightingale’s valley’. Carole Hough (Edinburgh Uni) suggested that PNs with hearp (literally ‘harp’) could metaphorically refer to nightingales, not human harpers. #birdsandplace #naturewriting
Singing nightingales
November 20, 2025 at 6:24 AM
leafyhistory.bsky.social
Here is where I've found DOLPHINS recorded in Britain 250-500 years ago. 🐬💙
Some surprises here - there are populations recorded around East Anglia and far up the Bristol Channel, where dolphins are rarer today! 🙀
#AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife #OceansPast
Map showing where the coasts where dolphins were recorded between 1527 and 1772. There are records from Cornwall, the Bristol Channel, west Wales, the south coast around Sussex, East Anglia, the Firths of Forth, Shetland and possibly the Firth of Clyde.
November 11, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
durotrigesdig.bsky.social
A rather angry sea gryphon chases a cheeky dolphin across a 2nd century #Roman mosaic

Found at #Cirencester in 1849, the entirety of this decorated floor (featuring hunting dogs) can now be seen in the excellent @coriniummuseum.bsky.social

📷 Aug 2022

Don't play with your food this #MosaicMonday !
Detail from a Roman mosaic floor depicting a sea gryphon with claws outstretched chasing a dolphin
November 10, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
eartharchives.bsky.social
A new study has unexpectedly discovered that a common parasite of modern oysters actually started infecting bivalves hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs went extinct.

phys.org/news/2025-11...

#fossils #paleontology
November 8, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
mafaldaferreira.bsky.social
We have 🐟 herring pre print!

Our new study reveals that ancient gene flow between Pacific and Atlantic herring played a key role in helping Atlantic herring adapt to the brackish waters of the Baltic Sea.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
adapalmer.bsky.social
Lorenzo de Medici’s pet giraffe used to wander 1480s Florence sticking its head in second story windows to be fed by excited neighbors (or eating their ribeye is herbs) and this is a great visual to help imagine it.
fxmc1957.bsky.social Prof Frank McDonough @fxmc1957.bsky.social · 26d
PHOTO OF THE DAY. A policeman stops traffic to let a man carrying an inflatable rubber giraffe cross the road on his way to the British Industries Fair in London (1935)
📷 google images
November 7, 2025 at 3:05 PM
leafyhistory.bsky.social
Conference day. Lots of familiar names! 😸
A leaflet for the Curious Travellers Conference in the Nat Hist Museum
November 7, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
vmarklew.bsky.social
It came! It came!!
This is a print of @museum.of.emilyk.art ‘s brilliant "Tzefardea Tzedek" (Frog of Righteousness), a riff on the Jewish reaction to the Portland resistance frog. Emily’s explanation is pasted in the alt text.
Love it ❤️
Hebrew calligraphy on dark green stretches in lines across the image. Negative space makes room for a simple representation of an inflatable frog costume with a blue bandana. That shape consists of the English translation of the Hebrew, in a lighter green, and in much smaller text. ーー Famously, the Egyptian tyrant causes Egypt to be overrun with frogs because he refuses to free the Hebrew people, but there are additional details that make this a fun one to ponder. For 7 one, the Hebrew says "the frog came up" - ONE frog -even though the rest of the time it says N "frogs." So there are a few explanations rabbis have come up with to explain this. One is that a single frog multiplied to create swarms. A more creative explanation is that there was a singular giant frog who traveled and brought destruction. Jewish social media was sharing videos of the Portland Frog protester with the caption, "One Big Frog! One Big Frog!" Of course the frog protesters did multiply, and many were seen in crowds all over the world on "No Kings" Day. SN This calligraphic work takes the verses addressing the frog plague and combines them to form a simple rendering of the Portland Frog protester. The frog figure itself is made up of the English translations of the Hebrew around it. At the bottom left my signature is in the shape of a lily pad.
November 4, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
jdmccafferty.bsky.social
31 Oct 1616: Last missive of Thomas Coryate traveller, #writer, from Agra in Mughal India written #otd (eebo) Great camel!
October 31, 2025 at 9:32 PM
leafyhistory.bsky.social
Quick the books are waiting! 😸💚📚
Selfie - white person in colourful jacket with glasses
October 30, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
eliseswritings.bsky.social
Excellent resource tracing the arrival of Aboriginal people to Australia around 65,000 years ago, through mega fauna, the ice age & rising seas. It maps their archaeological, art & oral records and stories onto the geographical evolution of Australia, crediting all owners of traditional knowledge.
October 29, 2025 at 4:32 AM
leafyhistory.bsky.social
Had a delightful time on the #WaxcapWatch survey earlier this week! 😁🍄
A yellow coral fungus coming up like fingers An orange frilly waxcap like fancy slices of carrot a bright red (scarlet waxcap?) with a deep red stipe in the moss Not a waxcap - a puffball fungus which is worty and flexible like a toad's skin!
October 28, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
princeton.edu
🐟 New research into fossils from the Cretaceous Period found 3️⃣ previously unknown fish species, including "the oldest salmonid in the fossil record."
“First Salmon”: 73-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Fish History
Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest salmon in Arctic Alaska’s Cretaceous fossil. During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs ruled the land, but the waterways of the Arctic were home to creature...
scitechdaily.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
aspencerhall.bsky.social
This is a really important piece that hugely resonates with me personally. I'm precarious too, and the cognitive dissonance of being invited to keynote because of your research, your profile whilst being chronically uncertain of your survival in the field, is all too familiar #MedievalSky
October 24, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
olivier-henri.bsky.social
#Bird #Wildlife
Mute swan (Cygnus olor), Cygne tuberculé, Alarc'h roueel.

"An Alarc'h" is a traditional Breton folk song with a patriotic theme. It commemorates the return of the exiled Breton prince Jean de Montfort (known as "The Swan of Montfort") to retake his duchy from the French in 1379.
October 25, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Lee Raye
everyheron.bsky.social
The Heron in ancient Egypt. Respected.

1,2. Papyrii of Book of the Dead (Spell 17)

3. Vignette of Spell 83, BM

4. Golden heart amulet with inlaid polycrome glass depiction of Bennu, Annexe of Burial Chamber of Tut’Ankh’Amen, 1323 BCE, Valley ofthe Kings, Thebes ⚱️

Thx as ever Heroneer Hermes1861
2 papyrii of the Book of the Dead with Spell 17 2 papyrii of the Book of the Dead with Spell 17 vignette of Spell 83, BM. Golden heart amulet with inlaid polycrome glass depiction of the Bennu, Annexe of the Burial Chamber of Tut’Ankh’Amen, 1323 BCE, Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egyptian Museum.
October 25, 2025 at 6:27 AM
Reposted by Lee Raye
nhmbryozoa.bsky.social
#FossilFriday Not to be outdone by Isaac Newton who is buried beneath a gastropod fossil in Westminster Abbey, the famous geologist Charles Lyell’s gravestone is Carboniferous crinoidal limestone full of columnals of these ‘sea-lilies’.
October 24, 2025 at 6:06 AM
leafyhistory.bsky.social
Here is where the European (sea) bass was recorded 250-500 years ago. 🎣Caught for food, interestingly it seems to have only been common in the south. It has expanded its range up the east coast of Britain with the warming temperatures of the last century. Map / #AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife
Map of Britain and Ireland showing where the bass was recorded between 1529 and 1772. There are many records from the English Channel, a few from the Celtic Sea, Irish Sea and south coast of Ireland, and some from the east of England (especially East Anglia and Kent).
October 22, 2025 at 2:59 PM