Blind snake, Ramphotyphlops nigrescens

Blind Snake, Ramphotyphlops nigrescens (Gray) by John James Wild. Final colour proof, lithographic ink on paper, 28cm x 19cm. Published as Plate 103 in ""The Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria"" by Frederick McCoy.

John James Wild (1834-1900) came to Melbourne in 1881, after serving as the official artist on HMS Challenger's circumnavigation of the globe (1872-76). Wild brought a new level of analytical precision to the illustration of McCoy's Zoology of Victoria. He particularly enjoyed exploring symmetry and geometric form, such as that found in articulated exoskeletons, antennae and transparent wings. Wild was an accomplished lithographer. Carefully planned and tightly conceived, his images are the most technically sophisticated in the Prodromus."