John James Audubon and the natural history of a hoax

Brilliant work in the archives has unearthed evidence that the great ornithological artist also enjoyed some rather more fanciful work

Artist and naturalist John James Audubon was a master of ornithological illustration, and also, it turns out, master of the prank.

A new paper in the journal Archives of Natural History, Pranked By Audubon, sees the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History curator Neal Woodman lay out how the author of The Birds of America took time out from his superb illustrations to invent a series of "wild rats of the western states" and other creations with which to fool the naturalist Constantine Rafinesque.