“It tires me a great deal to sit to anyone, but I should be the most ungrateful and ungracious dog not to agree” September's Treasure of the Month is our most famous portrait of Charles Darwin, which is now part of UNESCO's Memory of the World. buff.ly/hQkkwPX

We had a BALL celebrating with our friends at @readingprideuk.bsky.social yesterday! The Reading team did an incredible job, and we had an amazing time! Thanks to everyone who came by to say hello ❤️

Look at this beauty, freshly returned from conservation! “Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de la flore et de la pomone de l'Ile de Java” (1863) by Berthe van Nooten is one of my favourite items in the @linneansociety.bsky.social library, with firework fruits and flowers on every page.

Natural history friends! Join SHNH (@sochistnathist.bsky.social) for our annual prize-giving this Wednesday. We’ll zip through the AGM business in the first half, and then have brief talks from our medalists in the second. We would love for you to join us 😊 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shnh-annua...

In 1986 my father found out I was gay when he discovered me in bed with my boyfriend. I was 19, still two years shy of the age of consent for gay men in the UK at the time. He told me he loved me but just felt sad. All he knew of gay men then told him that we led short, unhappy lives. #FathersDay

These subtle drawings of koalas are by John William Lewin (1770 – 1819). #wildkoaladay The pencil drawings are part of a folder in our archives (MS-630), containing a selection of Lewin's sketches and watercolours of Australian wildlife and thought to have been drawn between 1800-1817.

🌿 It’s Lily of the Valley Day: a French tradition where the flower is given on 1 May for luck. We’re marking it with Gilbert White’s May diary entry noting his first sighting 🌸 and a delicate botanical watercolour from our Naturalists’ Notebooks exhibition.

Charles Darwin's archive has been recognised on the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register, which protects invaluable records that tell the story of human civilisation. www.linnean.org/news/2025/04...

This is Andrea at the #DefendTransRights protest in Reading yesterday. She’s Newbury Pride’s Vice-Chair and my friend ❤️ I couldn’t have been prouder. #TransRightsAreHumanRights 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @readingprideuk.bsky.social @newburypride.bsky.social

Birch twigs adorned with colourful feathers are a traditional Swedish Easter decoration, brightening up the dinner table. Illustration by J. Terrier from 'Faune de la Senegambie' by Alphonse Trémeau de Rochebrune, 1883-1884. www.magnoliabox.com/...

In 1694 #OTD the naturalist George Ewards was born. Known by some as the father of British ornithology, Edwards travelled through Europe producing colourful drawings of birds as he went. He finally published A Natural History of Uncommon Birds, which was subsequently referenced by Linnaeus. (📸BHL)

Frederik Ruysch was born #OTD in 1638. Ruysch was primarily an anatomist, experimenting with and testing new ways to preserve and embalm specimens which could then be further used for study and teaching. But he also studied animals and was the first to describe the vomeronasal organ in snakes.

The Ray Society is now on Bluesky! Most recent publication ‘Biology, evolution and genetic review of the chemosymbiotic Bivalve Family Lucinidae’ by John Taylor and Emily Glover RRP £98 from the Ray Society and NHBS websites.

How has the humble notebook been an essential tool for celebrated thinkers throughout history? Our upcoming free exhibition, Naturalists' Notebooks, explores how naturalists recorded our world from the 18th century to today. Open Tuesday 11 March until Saturday 20 September 2025. bit.ly/43kBXmC

I wrote a thing about growing up gay in West Berkshire for LGBT+ History Month and Newbury Pride. You can read my shapeless musings below 👇

I run some funny errands for the @linneansociety.bsky.social. Today’s was taking Carl Linnaeus’s walking stick to the V&A to be x-rayed (we thought there might be a sword inside it)…

Over the last many months I've been working on two new terms for the RMBS controlled vocabularies thesaurus. They're for use when cataloguing books with plants (or other organic bits and bobs) pressed inside them, and they're currently open for comment. (Links in next post) #GLAMS 📚 #RareBooks

This #BlueMonday, a few 'blue' pages from one of our most popular books 'Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions' (1843) by pioneering photographer Anna Atkins. Also watch our librarian, Will Beharrell's @willbeharrell.bsky.social, talk on the Society’s copy youtu.be/bTK_YU75Wbc

🚨 Registration now open for our Early Career Researcher Symposium on 20 February! 🚨 Join online to listen to talks ranging from the Language of Flowers to the Secret Face of Isaac Newton 🌸🕵️ For more information, including full programme & how to book your FREE ticket 👇 shnh.org.uk/shnh-early-c...

My proudest professional achievement. Only six boxes of reshelving.

A little light weeding

Just a little shelving to do

The latest edition of Archives of Natural History is online! 🙌 Just in time for some festive reading, it covers everything from controversial ducks 🦆👀 to the early 20C trading of African wildlife 🦁🦒 Have a peruse for yourself! 👇 www.euppublishing.com/toc/anh/51/2

Let’s end our nature-inspired #Christmas lights trail at our Piccadilly neighbour’s magical woodland window display. Central to the design at #FortnumAndMason is this lovely fox, who can also be found running around our library in Mivart’s ‘Dogs, jackals, wolves, and foxes’ (1890). #London #Nature

Lots of wonderful nature-based Christmas decorations in #London this year, like this stunning peacock in Berkeley Square…but something looks familiar… Ah yes, this gorgeous plate from D’Orbigny’s ‘Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle’ (1843-49). #ChristmasLights #Nature

Have the Christmas lights in #London been taking inspiration from our collections? Here’s the stunning underwater display by Dior on Bond Street and our wonderful 'Hippocampus' specimens. #Christmas #Nature

Our Collected Archives are now on our online archive catalogue! They include the commonplace books of Lady Pleasance Smith, and a draft manuscript of ‘A History of the Fishes of the British Isles’ by ichthyologist Jonathan Couch bit.ly/4g5btZY

I am officially Done With Work for 2024! Look after the library while I’m gone 😁

Afternoon snack? As well as being delicious, cashews (Anacardium occidentale) are beautiful plants, as drawn here by Berthe Hoola Van Nooten (1863). Van Nooten lived a globetrotting life, travelling to America and Java. Available as a card, poster or print: www.magnoliabox.com/collections/...

Hello! As everyone else is giving it a go, we thought we'd better dip our toe in too. We're here for all your natural history needs, especially where it intersects with culture, society and history 🌱📖🦋

The Society for the History of Natural History is on Bluesky, hooray! Give them a follow, natural history friends. @sochistnathist.bsky.social

We are now on BlueSky! Here's a cute little angel from our Gutenberg Bible (Inc.1.A.1.1[3761]). Follow us for all the best special collections content!

We're feeling #Festive here at the Linnean Society! The #Decorations are up in time for our Founders Day talk this evening, and we're considering a #SantaHat for Alfred Russel Wallace...

For #YourArchive we wanted to highlight our Domestic Archives collection. Containing more than 4000 items and over 200 years of Linnean Society history, this collection is now fully catalogued thanks to the amazing work of our Project Archivist Alex Milne! #EYAYourArchive #EYA

Library rule 1: please bring the whole book back.

Some people say natural history books are boring but have you considered

For #EYAAnimal we present these beautiful paintings of South Indian birds. Painted on sheets of mica and mounted into an album, the colours are as vibrant as when they were painted in the 1850s. #EYA #ExploreYourArchives #EYAAnimal #Animal

For today’s #disco theme a segment entitled ‘Ball Room Scraps’ from the naturalist Richard Owen’s sketchbook. One particular scene depicts a couple who have fallen to the floor, captioned: ‘The gentleman who dances after taking too much Lobster Salad at supper’. #Disco #EYA

Gosh, so many new followers! Hello everyone. Be warned I plan to be just as boring here as I was over there.

The Paradoxa section in Systema Naturae is all about #mythical creatures, such as the Unicorn, Phoenix and Dragon. Also held in our Linnaeus collections, is this wonderful watercolour drawing of a #mythical dragon by an unknown artist. #EYAMythical #Mythical #ExploreYourArchives

As the weather turns colder and darker, we'd like to invite you to our library as a welcoming, warm & quiet space for work, reading, or simply some peace in buzzy central London. (No need to buy a coffee)! Book a space: email [email protected] for more information. www.linnean.org/research-col...

This microscope was used by the botanist Robert Brown to observe the ceaseless jostling of microscopic particles in 1827, known as ‘Brownian motion’. Brown also found the cell nucleus of an orchid tissue through his microscope, as seen reproduced in this drawing. #Tiny #EYA

For #EYAHuge we present one of seven #huge bound volumes of incoming correspondence, part of our Domestic Archives collection. The letters were pasted into these volume as they were received by the Society dating from the 1860s right up until the 1920s. #Huge #EYA

Four albums that serve as an introduction to the fact I’m a gay white man in his late 30s.

The Society's ballot box has played a crucial role in many important #decisions since our foundation, most notably in 1903 for the vote to allow women to become Fellows. With a majority of 54 votes to 17, the admission of female Fellows was finally granted. #EYA #Decisions

Marian Farquharson is one our #heroes for successfully campaigning for the rights of women to become Fellows of the Linnean Society. Despite initially being blackballed, she went onto gain her fellowship in 1908. #Heroes #EYA #ExploreYourArchives

Kākāpō 101 No. 1. All 244 #kakapo in the world live in the wild, on 7 island sanctuaries across New Zealand. Three of these are breeding sites; three contain only males. They can't be kept in captivity for long periods because they need a varied diet and lots of space. #conservation #parrots #birds

Sadly this rhino is not being ridden by a Gladiator, but this 17th Century illustration by Edward Topsell is still worth a visit nonetheless! See it up close in our *free* exhibition Still Life: Depicting Nature from woodblocks to X-Rays. Open every Tues-Fri 10-5pm: https://buff.ly/3AR4692

Hello new followers! Rounding off our first week with a very apt Menelaus blue morpho butterfly by Maria Sibylla Merian. Merian revolutionised zoology by understanding how animals metamorphose, emerging as a new form. Love this image? Get it as a print or card: https://buff.ly/498yGYN

Beetle in the genus Carabus😍