Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
April 1789
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale's Diary for April 1789; Selected Papers, 1: 557
Additional Source Text:
"Biped eel-shaped Animal, furnished both with gills & lungs the former placed intirely without the body."
Notes:
Peale was interested in mud iguanas, or sirens, beause they seemed to possess hybrid features, having lungs like reptiles and gills like fish. The greater siren (Siren lacertina) is an eel-like amphibian and one of the three members of the genus Siren. The largest of the sirens and one of the largest amphibians in North America, the greater siren resides in the coastal plains of the southeastern United States.
This specimen was described and illustrated in Columbian Magazine, 3 (1789): 12-13 / https://archive.org/details/sim_universal-asylum-and-columbian-magazine…
Palisot de Beauvois described this specimen in a paper read at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society on 19 Feb 1796, when he reported that it represented "an intermediate class" between amphibians and fish. "On a New Species of Siren," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 4 (1799): 277-281 / https://archive.org/details/jstor-1005106/page/n1/mode/2up
For similar animals acquired by the Peale Museum, search "Siren" and "Syren."
See also Charles Willson Peale to Thomas Tims, 10 June 1796, Selected Papers, 2, part 1: 149-151.
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Peale's Scientific Name:
Siren lacertina (Palisot's name)
Current Common Name:
Greater siren
Current Scientific Name
Siren lacertina
