The Vanished Animals of East Africa
UPDATED, with full pages from book. As a child, one of the most engrossing books I ever happened upon was this national geographic book at the South Bend library, called Animals of east Africa, by Louis Leakey, who is famous for digging up remains of our own half-ape ancestors. I was astonished to find a chapter of the book entitled "The Vanished" which was devoted to prehistoric African fauna, other than australopithicines. There, before me, was a painting of two AFRICAN TIGERS having brought own an eland. Now as everyone knows these days, an African tiger is a contradiction in terms. When I showed my dad, he was astonished too, and said, "Read it. You might learn something." This painting, and others in this chapter, were by famed palaeoartist Jay Matternes. I recognized his work as being by the same artist I'd encountered in many other prehistoric books, although, back then, I didn't know his name. He was and is, one of my very favorite paleo-artists, a...