Halmaturus giganteus

Very rare elephant folio size lithograph, the largest made of the Eastern Grey Kangaroo.

Modern common name Eastern Grey Kangaroo

Modern binomial name Macropus giganteus

First described Shaw 1790

Distribution Eastern Australia S.A., Vic, TAS, NSW and QLD.

Reference The Mammals of Australia, Strahan, 2nd edition. Page: 335-338, ill.335-337

From Naturalist Atlas by Georg August Goldfuss. The work was released in parts comprising 20 per year, from 1824-1842 in Dusseldorf. The work was never released as an officially bound copy. Exceptionally Rare

The first illustration of a ‘Kangaroo’ drawn from an Australian species, is acknowledged as that drawn by George Stubb’s from a specimen collected at Endeavour River in 1770 by James Cook’s crew while the Endeavour was being careened.

The subsequent engraving was published in 1773, in the official accounts of the voyage of the Endeavour. That iconic image captured the public’s imagination for over sixty years and was the first depiction of any Australian animal in western art.

The first sighting of a kangaroo in fact was an earlier one, by Francis Pelsaert of ‘the teeming cats’ on 15th November, 1629 on the Abrolhos Islands where the Batavia had been wrecked. The first illustration of a Macropod was made prior to the Stubb’s illustration, titled ‘Kangaron’ and made on 15th November 1629 by Matthys Pool and described by Cornelis de Bruyn in ” Reizen over Moskovie door Persie en Indie”, 1714 but the animal depicted was not an Australian species but Thylogale brunii (Dusky Pademelon), a Filander native to New Guinea.