Chiroptera
From Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur — bat faces, drawn with unflinching, gothic detail.
- Work
- Chiroptera, from Kunstformen der Natur
- Artist / naturalist
- Ernst Haeckel (lithograph by Adolf Giltsch)
- Origin & date
- Germany, 1899–1904
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Fifteen bat species (Chiroptera) crowd this plate, nearly every one shown face-on in close portrait — a composition choice that turns a taxonomic survey into something closer to a rogues' gallery, each bat's wildly varied nose-leaf and ear structure (evolved for echolocation, though the mechanism wasn't yet understood in Haeckel's time) rendered with the same unflinching precision he gave jellyfish and radiolarians. The full wingspan figure at center anchors the plate, its membrane structure drawn with genuine anatomical seriousness even as the surrounding portrait busts lean gothic and strange. What to notice: this is one of the few Kunstformen der Natur plates printed entirely in grayscale — a choice that, whether intentional or not, only sharpens how unsettling these faces read to eyes unused to bats as a taxonomic subject rather than a folklore one.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
