Folio 19 from an album of 124 watercolours

Emanuel Mendes Da Costa’s pen and ink sketches ca. 1740 of a Brazilian coati with taxonomic reference to John Ray’s Synopsis of Quadrupeds and Serpents published in 1693, one of the first systematic guides to animals since Aristotle. Mendes Da Costa’s drawing of the coati was also accompanied by sketches of two fish, the trout and variole, a type of perch.

Emanuel Mendes Da Costa (1717-1791) was a scientific author, a Fellow and the Librarian of the Royal Society.