Already in 1994 Nikolai Grube and Werner Nahm brought up the idea of centipedes being a model for mythical Late Classic Maya creatures which had previously been accepted as skeletalized serpents. Then Erik Boot produced an unpublished manuscript on centipedes and serpents in 1999. Harri Kettunen and Bon V. Davis II have argued that the Maya creatures are a mixture of snake, centipedes, crocodiles, and even sharks (2004). Although published in 2004 this was a lecture presented in 2000, so they were not able to cite Taube's study of centipedes and serpents of 2003.
During 49 years in Mesoamerica I have learned that studies of the creatures represented in Maya art, in-person, can offer insights not available in even a peer-reviewed journal. For example, after finishing my PhD dissertation which included considerable discussion of water lilies in Maya art, I then spent a total of six years of seasonal field trips to Peten and Monterrico and my knowledge of water lilies is significantly improved. Fortunately my PhD dissertation was also based on field trips in the 1970's and early 1980's.
In other words, if you have the snakes, crocodiles, and centipedes available, in front of you, literally, it is easier to understand their features (in this case especially their dentition, which I assure you is painfully visible when you are physically inside the crocodile or caiman pen at the zoo). The snakes are put on our portable studio table by the helpful herpetologists. And to answer the logical question, yes, the snakes do (rarely) strike at us. Sophia almost got bitten last year. And twice I have woken up with a scorpion on my body (one in a hotel in Mexico; once again while doing field work at Nim Li Punit, Belize).
Images of two different scorpions, near Rio Dulce, Izabal, Guatemala. The centipedes and millipedes we will show later. We have also found another creature that was missed in all the articles about these multi-legged creatures.
Because experience has taught me that library and Internet research (for flora and fauna in Maya art) is not fully adequate, you will see that we are investing in more and more photo sessions with reptiles, centipedes, and scorpions during 2013. Our primary goal is to find the venomous centipedes. Every single person we speak with in Guatemala says they know of large centipedes, but until we have each species on our portable studio table, we are unable to further comment.
All our photographs will be made available to iconographers, epigraphers, zoologists, and students who are interested in these subjects. Please excuse the fact that due to the world economic situation, our budget is rather non-existent, and until a kind benefactor or foundation can assist our field trip research, we may be a tad slow processing the 21-megapixel digital images.
We have abundant information on rabbits in Maya art. Mayanists are long familiar of the role of the male Rabbit Companion with the very female young Moon Goddess. But how many Maya iconographers or epigraphers or archaeologists have had a wild species of Maya rabbit in their hands?
The rabbit you see here is actually the first time in my 49 years in Guatemala that I have seen a native species of rabbit. We are now doing a DNA test on its fur to determine what species it is. It refused to eat carrots or bunny rabbit food, and definitely did not come from a pet store!
Since we are also working on owls, leaf-cutting ants, and felines, it may be a few weeks before we add a new page and new full-color PDF on the Maya Rabbit Companion, but we have plenty of interesting facts both on actual wild rabbits in Mesoamerica as well as on rabbits in stelae, altars, sculptures, ceramic vases, plates, and bowls.
We also have some surprise information on butterflies and their relationship with certain plants of importance to diet in Mayan villages.
Updated January 2, 2013
First Posted December 26, 2012
Since so many snakes are pictured in Maya stelae, murals, ceramics, and mentioned in Maya myths it is helpful to have good photographic references for iconographers and epigraphers.
Bothriechis bicolor, this is one of the most poisonous species we took that day. We have to be very careful and be with a trained person, because the photos are taken within inches of the snake, photographed by Sofía Monzón.
Because of errors in identification of snake species, and confusion between dentition of reptiles and centipede pinchers, we are doing deeper research in reptiles and centipedes.
With the assistance of herpetologist Thomas Schrei we spent another day doing close-up photography of live venomous snakes in Guatemala City. We do this photography in a studio with soft (digital fluorescent) lighting to bring out the detail.
Since so many snakes are pictured in Maya stelae, murals, ceramics, and mentioned in Maya myths it is helpful to have good photographic references for iconographers and epigraphers.
Venomous Atropoides nummifer, of Guatemala. This snake and other local reptiles have scale coloration patterns which are models for snake monsters in Classic Maya art. There were many more snakes with this oVoVo pattern besides just the normal rattlesnake. Plus some non-venomous snakes mimic this pattern.
Photo taken with high-resolution camera, with the snake out of his cage (courtesy of herpetologist Thomas Schrei). This snake is fully alive.
Because of errors in identification of snake species, and confusion between dentition of reptiles and centipede pinchers, we are doing deeper research in reptiles and centipedes.
With the assistance of herpetologist Thomas Schrei we spent another day doing close-up photography of live venomous snakes in Guatemala City. We do this photography in a studio with soft (digital fluorescent) lighting to bring out the detail.
This new web site is dedicated to the photography and study of mammals, birds, fish, shellfish, insects, spiders, and scorpions which were revered, worshipped, eaten, or utilized by the Classic Maya of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. This site is focused on Maya ethnozoology and zooarchaeology of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
The creatures of tropical pre-Columbian Mesoamerica which were the most commonly revered were jaguars, deer, turtles, toads, snakes, spider monkeys and various birds, especially macaws, vultures, hummingbird, and water birds. Fish, snails, conch and shellfish were important in rituals as well as diet.
White tail deer Odocoileus virginianus at Autosafari Chapin Park. Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, Guatemala.
Veined tree frog, Phrynohyas venulosa, at Aurora Zoo in Guatemala City. Photo by Sofia Monzon.
With our academic background logically our initial audience are students and scholars. But in reality the full audience also includes the thousands of enthusiastic bird watchers and animal lovers around the world.
I believe this is the first web site on Mayan ethnozoology which is available in 36 languages. Yes, obviously this is a computer translation. But we believe it is significantly faster than earlier Babel-style translators.
To achive such fast translations requires having computer coding specialists in-house on-staff. But since our goal is to help students as well as faculty and the general public around the world, we decided it was worth the investment to make our material available in languages for China, Japan, Korea, India, Africa, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Every year I travel about 414,000 kilometers, to lecture around the world, but also to learn about advanced digital imaging technologies so we at FLAAR can provide museums as well as zoological, botanical, archaeological, geological, and ethnographic institutes, departments, and field projects with assistance in how to improve their digital photography and printing for exhibits. As I am in all the foreign countries where I visit every year, I notice how enthusiastic people are about learning about the Maya cultures of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras.
So we wish our material to be in at least 36 languages to start with. I thank our capable staff of web masters for their hard work in programming the FLAAR web sites to be readable in so many languages.
Our other older web sites, such as www.maya-archaeology.org, were written in HTML and PHP, so we have to re-write them from scratch into newer computer code. So it will take us a while to make our legacy web sites translatable.
Dr. Hellmuth taking photographs of a Heloderma in the La Aurora National Zoo. Photo by Sofia Monzon, September 2011.
Heloderma, in the La Aurora National Zoo. Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, September 2011.
