Zoologists 18th century
François Levaillant was a French ornithologist, traveler and writer.
Levaillant was born in Dutch Guiana, where his father was French consul. He returned with his family to France, where he eventually became a dealer in natural history specimens. At the age of 27, trained as an ornithologist, he traveled to southern Africa with the Dutch East India Company to collect specimens for his collection. Levaillant was one of the first naturalist explorers to venture into uncharted and dangerous Africa to see and study birds in their natural habitat.
Returning to France in 1785 after several years of traveling, he began writing ornithological works based on his diaries. His Histoire naturelle des perroquets (Natural History of Parrots) was published between 1801 and 1805, and his six-volume History of the Nature of Africa was published between 1799 and 1808. Levaillant also wrote the popular book Le Vaillant's Voyage to the Interior of Africa and others. He was one of the first Europeans to make ethnographic observations, empathizing with African peoples and treating them as equals.
Thomas Martyn was a British zoologist, conchologist and entomologist.
Thomas Martyn was the founder of the Academy of Painted Natural History in London - for young men "possessing a natural talent for drawing and painting, to be developed under his immediate sole direction" in the art of describing natural history. He published several illustrated volumes on botany, entomology, and history.
In 1784 Martyn began his major work, The Universal Conchologist. He acquired a large number of shells brought back from Cook's third voyage, many of which are illustrated in the book along with specimens from other famous collections. Originally publishing the work in 1784 as two volumes devoted mainly to shells from the South Seas, Martyn later expanded the work to a four-volume set in French and English containing 160 plates.
August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof was a German entomologist and zoologist, naturalist and miniature painter.
He graduated from the Nuremberg Academy of Artists and was practicing miniature painting and printmaking when he became acquainted with the works of the artist and entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian. Her famous Surinam book of 1705 inspired Rösel to create a similar book, but with illustrations of the plants and animals of Germany.
Rösel began to study natural sciences, he collected insects, caterpillars and butterflies, observed their metamorphosis and wrote down his observations accompanied by pictures. From 1740 Rösel published the results of his scientific and artistic work: the Monthly Entertainments of Insects, in four volumes. He also published Historia naturalis Ranarum nostratium, devoted to the frogs of Germany. In the quality of the illustrations this book is one of the most beautiful about these animals.
