Biodiversity Heritage Library

🎉 To celebrate BHL’s 20th anniversary, we’re inviting our community to help sustain and strengthen it. If BHL supports your work or curiosity, please consider supporting it in return. 👉 Support BHL’s next chapter: ancrywkv.donorsupport.co/page/BHLat20 #BHLat20 #ILoveBHL 🧪 🌏 📖 🌱

Missed #BHLDay2026? Or want to relive it? The recordings and slides are now available! Thank you @NHM_London for hosting this fabulous event, and to all the wonderful speakers for sharing their work, stories, and ideas for BHL's future: about.biodiversitylibrary.org/get-involved/e… 🧪

This beautiful illustration is from Alfred Moquin-Tandon's "The world of the sea" (1869) digitized for BHL by @SILibraries : biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13387228

🌏 We think every day is #EarthDay. To take a deep dive into the incredible biodiversity of our precious planet, peruse the 63+ million pages (800+ years) of biodiversity knowledge on BHL. biodiversitylibrary.org #EarthDay2026 #ILoveBHL 🧪 📖 🌱

🦇 Happy #BatAppreciationDay! The ghost bat (Macroderma gigas), native to Australia, gets its name from its extremely thin wing membrane, which gives it a ghostly appearance at night. #SciArt: Proc Zool Soc London (1880) on BHL via @NHM_London @NHM_Library biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28522650

🌻 Spring has sprung in the northern hemisphere! To celebrate, we present this spectacular collection of watercolour & pencil illustrations of "British Flowers" by Elizabeth Wharton and Margaret Wharton [1793-1811] on BHL via @oak_spring: biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/2… 🧪

At #BHLDay2026, Qiangian Hiris Gu, Ben Hartley & Vincent Smith @NHM_London will share their work transforming the biodiversity literature on BHL into structured, machine-actionable data at a planetary scale. 🧪 📅 29 April | London + online 🎟️ Register: bit.ly/bhlday2026

We’re delighted to be joined by speakers from @NHM_London, #KewGardens @theUL, @usflibraries, @dumbartonoaks, @UofGlasgow, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, University Library Johann Christan Senckenberg, and @wikiprojectnz. #BHLDay2026 Register: bit.ly/bhlday2026

Join us at #BHLDay2026: “Towards a Biodiversity Data Ecosystem Built on BHL Data” 🌱 AI + structured biodiversity literature 🌱 OCR + multilingual data challenges 🌱 Real-world systems like @WRMarineSpecies 📅 29 April | London + online 🎟️ Register: bit.ly/bhlday2026

Handwritten notes. Hand-painted birds. A 19th-century field diary that shaped one of the most ambitious natural history works ever published. Explore Osbert Salvin’s Central American field diary in our #BHLat20 series via @museumsvictoria's Library: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/04/salvin… 🧪

@Elliot_Lake The images, which were not generated by AI, are in the public domain, so anyone is free to edit/use them, even AI. There's a box you can check to flag an image is generated by AI, and a slider to block modifications by Grok, but I didn't touch these when I uploaded the images.

@BioDivLibrary Is there a way you can tell the AI not to scan (read: steal) your posts and inages?

🥚 Bird eggs are not just beautiful; they’re essential scientific data. This remarkable 1856 work, Zur Fortpflanzungsgeschichte der gesammten Vögel, features 100 hand-coloured plates used by early naturalists to document and compare species. Explore: biodiversitylibrary.org/item/48578

@Elliot_Lake Clearly it thinks the images are too beautiful to be real. It's underestimating both nature and historic illustrators.

@Elliot_Lake Neither! I think AI automatically added that flag.

We’re delighted to welcome @VandyLibraries as a new BHL Member. Alongside membership, @VanderbiltU is contributing significant in-kind technical support, strengthening BHL’s infrastructure & long-term sustainability. Learn more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org 🧪

Want more news from BHL? 🌱 📚 🧪 🌏 Join 10,000+ subscribers and get stories, discoveries, and collection highlights delivered to your inbox. A new issue is coming soon. Subscribe: lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/YKrBfqY/BHL…

🎉The Biodiversity Heritage Library is turning 20!🎈 We’re starting celebrations with a special anniversary blog series featuring remarkable treasures from BHL chosen by the people who know them best: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/tag/bhlat20 #BHLat20 #ILoveBHL 🧪📚🌏

This is the news the BHL community had been waiting for: the answer to BUT WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE BHL WEBSITE? We've been overwhelmed by outpourings of excitement and relief from BHL users across the globe – thank you @FieldMuseum! #ILoveBHL #BHLTransition 🧪

DYK you can scroll through BHL's most recent additions? The latest 100 items span 200+ years (1823–2026) and include publications in English, French, German, and Russian. From Victorian poultry manuals to modern biodiversity research. Explore: biodiversitylibrary.org/RecentRss/100 🧪 🌏 📖

🎉 Huge news for BHL: The @FieldMuseum is taking over the hosting of BHL’s website, servers & infrastructure, ensuring long-term stability and access for its 63+ million pages of open biodiversity literature. Learn more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/02/transi… #BHLTransition #ILoveBHL 🌍 📚 🧪