@pastvue.org: Two bird-of-paradise skins reached Seville on September 8, 1522, aboard the Victoria, the ship from Magellan’s voyage, sent from the sultan of Bacan as a gift for the king of Spain. They were the first known to reach Spain, though one was reported in Lisbon in 1514. The islanders who prepared the skins removed the flesh and bones, the feet and sometimes the wings. In Europe, the belief spread that the birds had no feet. The Italian natural historian Ulisse Aldrovandi depicted one without legs and suggested its two long tail feathers served instead. By 1605 the botanist Carolus Clusius knew they had legs. In 1758 Linnaeus still named a species Paradisaea apoda, “apoda” meaning footless. Illustration by John Gould and William Hart

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Monday 02 November 2026 05:10:24 GMT