OK here we go. Conceivably the greatest, most technical accomplishment in the history of natural history art: nearly 4000 glass models of flowers created by Rudolph and Leopold #Blaschka for @HarvardMuseum. None of the objects in here look like glass.
Readers, they're all glass. The #Blaschkas became famous for making glass models of sea creatures for #museums, because these soft-bodied animals could not be easily preserved. They shipped them to institutions across the world. Then @HarvardMuseum commissioned them to make the flowers exclusively.

Let's talk about thylacines.
The last known #thylacine died on this day in 1936 - it was accidentally locked out of the indoor part of its enclosure at a #Hobart zoo, and died of exposure.
A 🧵based on stories of how we've represented thylacines, from my #PlatypusMatters book... Shortly after the British invaded #Tasmania, a #thylacine was caught & illustrated in 1806. As it lay dying, its captor described how its wounds made it "exceedingly inactive and stupid". Scientists in England twisted these words to imply #thylacines were generally unintelligent.