Hevelius’s depiction of Lynx
The animal shown by Johannes Hevelius on his star atlas Firmamentum Sobiescianum, above, did not look much like the tufty-eared, medium-sized member of the cat family that we know as a lynx, but neither did the illustrations in Johann Bode’s Uranographia or John Flamsteed’s Atlas Coelestis. Like all Hevelius’s figures, it is shown in reverse, as it would appear on a celestial globe. Hevelius’s atlas was dated 1687 but was not published until 1690.
(Image courtesy ETH-Bibliothek Zurich.)
