The Menagerie Project is a crowdsourced archive that aims to record and identify every artistic depiction of, and every literary reference to, a plant, animal, or other organism. All visitors, from academics to amateurs, are encouraged to contribute to the archive by:
Humans have been taking inspiration from our nonhuman neighbors for tens of millennia - as evidenced by the woolly rhinoceros in our logo, outlined in charcoal by an anonymous genius on the wall of Chauvet Cave some 30,000 years ago. We believe that to collect and give names to these representations is to honor and reconnect with these neighbors - to remind ourselves of our place in the biosphere, and of the power of its countless crawling, flying, and rooting inhabitants to provoke love, fear, and wonder. We also embrace the thrill of the treasure hunt, as we search through the most beautiful and stirring human creations in the museums and libraries of the world, examining the clues they provide about the living things they contain.
The Project was started in 2026 by Matt Smith, a lifelong writer and naturalist, professional web developer and data manager, and the child of an art historian. After fielding multiple requests from friends, colleagues, and family to identify birds and other animals depicted in artworks, he hatched the idea of crowdsourcing this information on a large scale. Several sources converged to inspire the idea and make it feasible for the first time:
Detailed guidance on submitting artworks or excerpts can be found here.
Several new features are already in the works. If you have an idea for another, or if you have any questions or concerns, we'd love to hear from you - the best way is to email us. Also, be sure to join our Facebook group to share your finds and bounce tricky ID challenges off the community!
