In 1774 Johann Christian Dan Schreber authored a multivolume set of books entitled Die Saugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. Focusing on mammals of the world, these books were lavishly illustrated with 755 hand-colored plates. There was a slight problem though: in most instances the artists had never seen the animals they were rendering onto paper. Explorers would return from their travels and describe the animals in question to the artists. The end result was that some of the drawings, though representing real animals, looked more like they had come from someone's nightmares.

Above each picture is the original scientific name attributed to the animal as it appeared in Schreber's work. We've added the current common name and some other information, in case you might be wondering exactly what are these beasts. Click on any of the beasts for a higher resolution image and a description.

The images we are presenting are but just a few of nearly 400 plates belonging to the Research Library of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County's Zoological Prints collection.