Loss of the Lisbon Rhinoceros, 2008. In 1515, Sultan Muzaffar II of Cambay gave a rhinoceros to King Manuel of Portugal, who in turn gave it to Pope Leo X. The rhino was sent by boat to Rome but was lost in a shipwreck. A crude sketch of the drowned beast was sent to Albrecht Durer, who made a woodcut that became the basis for all depictions of rhinos in Europe for 300 years.
Hyrcania, 2007 Hyrcania, an ancient kingdom in present-day Iran, was once the home of tigers. According to a medieval bestiary, if a man should wish to steal a tiger cub, he must take with him glass balls, and after stealing the cub throw the spheres in the path of the pursuing tigress. Taken in by her own reflection, the mother would curl herself around the ball to suckle her cub, thus losing both her revenge and her baby.
At the office all the morning and did business; by and by we are called to Sir W. Batten’s to see the strange creature that Captain Holmes hath brought with him from Guiny; it is a great baboon, but so much like a man in most things, that though they say there is a species of them, yet I cannot believe but that it is a monster got of a man and she- baboon. I do believe that it already understands much English, and I am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs.
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