The scientific illustrations are an essential tool in the taxonomy. Drawings and photographs can be complementary and not redundant. The more precise in representing the characters of diagnosis, the more useful for identification of specimens. They should be used with the original descriptions and redescriptions which provide information on variability.
In 1843 the Germans Johannes Müller and Franz Hermann Troschel described the first species of ophiuroids in the Southern Ocean, it was Ophiolepis chilensis (species with subantarctic distribution) and was collected by Rudolph Amandus Philippi in the coastal waters of southern Chile. It was first illustrated only in 1875 by Theodore Lyman in Results of the Hassler Expedition. Quite poor drawing, if you can call it that way, that only represents one piece of a jaw and the first ventral arm segment of two arms. In the same work by Th. Lyman we can find a much more precise illustration of gorgonocephalidae Astrotoma agassizii and Astrophyton pourtalesii (Antarctic and sub-Antarctic species). Both illustrations were the first ones of the ophiuroids in the Southern Ocean.
Th. Studer described several species in 1876 (Gazelle expedition 1874-1876), but the illustrations made by him appeared in his later works only in 1880.
Th. Lyman made what is considered the most important work within the ophiurology: Report on the Ophiuroidea dredged by H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76 which was published in 1882. In this major work he described numerous species present in the Southern Ocean. The illustrations are really beautiful and precise, but the descriptions of new species were published in two previous studies in 1878 and 1879 in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard, with accurate illustrations but lacking the beauty of the anterior work.
In 1876 Edgar A. Smith from British Museum described the species Ophioglypha hexactis in the Magazine of Natural History. But only in 1879, in Echinodermata of Kerguelen Island of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society he illustrates with great accuracy the species, as well as Ophiacantha vivipara ( species described by Ljungman in 1870 which had not been illustrated up to the date).
As far as the photographs of Southern Ocean species are concerned, the first of them which was photographed, was the aforementioned Ophiolepis chilensis, by Hubert Lyman Clark in Echinoderms of Peru in 1910. The photo of the brittle star is oral position, though you can hardly see any characters needed for correct identification.
The first photos of great descriptive quality were published in the monograph of Ophiuroidea of the Australian Antarctic Expedition (1911 – 1914) by Rene Koehler in 1922, it’s not known whether the pictures were taken by himself or by James Francis Hurley, the official photographer to the Australian Antarctic Expedition. There’s no doubt these pictures are the great example of good taxonomy work.
Another story is the case when the esthetic component was as important as the scientist one. Then, the purpose was to surprise an audience which from the last decade of the nineteenth century were being marveled at the risky scientific voyages of exploration as well as at the organisms collected. The organisms which, in the case of the Southern Ocean could survive in such hostile conditions for a human beeing. Thus we can enjoy the illustration dated on 1882 (Challenger expedition) of Ophiacantha vivipara carrying over its offspring as a good caring mother with her youngsters in a glacial ocean.
In conclusion, some pictures which still amaze me. Koehler in his monograph Ophiures et Echinides dated on 1902 on Belgica expedition (1897-1899) illustrated the specimens with an idealized touch, but the most surprising thing about it is the degree of precision of the drawings, they could perfectly be confused with some 3D computer graphics illustrations.
© Rafael Martín-Ledo 2011
Can not be reproduced without author’s permission
