Biomedical Ephemera, or: A Frog for Your Boils

Hasselet's Dendrobium - Dendrobium hasseletii

This orchid lives high in the hills and mossy, montane forests of the Malaysian peninsula, as well as in Sumatra and Java. It has sparse, thin leaves, on a sturdy bamboo-like stalk. The flowers bloom from leafless parts of the stalk, in late summer and early fall. Despite its elegance, this orchid is one of the more difficult keepers, and as such is not widespread in the gardening and botanical circles.

Collection d'orchidées: aquarelles originales. Unknown German author/artist, late 1800s.

Tapirus indicus - The Malayan tapir

The red eyes on this tapir are the result of light reflection upon the blue hazy sheen over their brown irises that's common in most tapir species. They have poor eyesight to begin with, and though they're naturally crepuscular (active around dawn and dusk), their eyes are very damaged by repeated light exposure, so despite not being nocturnal mammals, they still must rely primarily on their sense of smell and hearing.

This illustration was published in a posthumous edition of Buffon's Histoire Naturelle, so I'm unsure of its true author - the Comte de Buffon died in 1788, and the first descriptions of the Malayan tapir were not recorded until 1819.

Histoire Naturelle. Georges-Louis Leclerk, Comte de Buffon, 1838 [posthumous edition].

Hystrix crassispinis (the thick-spined porcupine) and spine structure

The thick-spined porcupine only lives around Malaysia and Indonesia, but is still ubiquitous in it's relatively small habitat. Well, it's ubiquitous, at least. Most of its habitat is intact, but these spiny rodents have proven that they're likely going to exist even if it's all destroyed.

In areas where people have encroached, they've adapted to city life like a raccoon in Chicago. They can scavenge, eat tree bark, and forage like a pro. These guys are survivors. Sadly, the same cannot be said for many of the other species of Malaysia and Indonesia that are losing habitat and being poached at an alarming rate.

Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1876.