Traveling Olms

Mattes, Traveling Olms Traveling Olms: Local and Global Perspectives on the Research on Proteus anguinus (1700-1930) Johannes MATTES Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna doi.org/10.26337/2532-7623/MATTES Riassunto: Menzionato per la prima volta dallo studioso sloveno Johann Valvasor nel 1689, Proteus anguinus, chiamato anche « blind cave salamander » o «human fish» dai locali per il colore della pelle rosata, rappresenta l'unico anfibio di abitazione in caverna in Europa. La sua presenza, attestata in circa 200 località in Slovenia e nelle aree carsiche dell’Italia e della Croazia, attirò l'attenzione di locali, visitatori e studiosi. Dopo la sua prima descrizione scientifica e illustrazione del 1768, alcuni esemplari di Proteo iniziarono a « viaggiare » attraverso l'Europa in piccoli acquari, come oggetti scientifici, doni o in forma di illustrazioni colorate, che destarono interesse. Basato su un approccio storico-culturale, l’articolo esamina queste reti a lunga distanza, i cicli di scambio e i regimi di accumulazione come un processo di circolazione della conoscenza locale e globale. Abstract: Firstly mentioned by the Slovenian scholar Johann Valvasor in 1689, Proteus anguinus, also called «blind cave salamander» or «human fish» by locals because of its rose skin color, represents Europe’s only cave-dwelling amphibian. In contrast to its restriction to approximately 200 localities in Slovenia and the surrounding karst areas in Italy and Croatia, Proteus soon became a world-famous model for troglobites and attracted the attention of locals, visitors, and scholars. After its first scientific description and illustration in 1768, specimens of Proteus began to «travel» through Europe physically in small fish tanks, as scientific objects, gifts or in form of colorful illustrations, which aroused interest in this strange-looking animal. Based on a cultural-historical approach, the paper examines these long-distance networks, cycles of exchange and regimes of accumulation as a process of local and global knowledge circulation. Keywords: Circulation, Animal, Local & Global, Slovenia Introduction Not only humans travel, also animals do. As pets, companions, scientific objects or curiosities of a collection, they are crossing borders, building bridges, connecting different spaces, cultural concepts, social groups, and are dealing with the different scales of the local and the global sphere. Circulating between these mutable fields and cultures of knowledge, collected specimens and other scientific objects often serve as cultural mediators and play a key role in the spatial concentration of knowledge in different environments. To better describe this multifaceted process of scientific exchange that does not normally progress in linear fashion, historians have coined the term «circulation»1. To put it concisely: Similar to communication, processes of exchange usually function multi-directional, are constituted through direction vectors, questions of extension or recession, transformation in the notion of speed, time and duration across places and scales of knowledge and are far more complex than we expect. Especially in the history of science, where the exchange of objects normally went hand in hand with the production and transformation of knowledge. Since the global turn in the history of science, the concept of circulation has become a buzzword for the field’s current areas of research, which mainly focuses on the practical aspects of transmission and exchange of knowledge, skills, trading, and material objects. Meanwhile, several serious publications were accomplished, among them Nicholas Thomas’ book «Entangled Objects»2 (1999) on the exchange between Pacific Islanders and European collectors or Lorraine Daston’s «Biographies of Scientific 1 Comprehensive work on the exchange of concepts and objects transmitted by mediators and go-betweens across cultures was accomplished by K. RAJ, Go-Betweens, Travelers, and Cultural Translators, in B. LIGHTMAN (ed.), A Companion to the History of Science, Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons, 2016, pp. 39-57. 2 N. THOMAS, Entangled Objects. Exchange, Material Culture and Colonialism in the Pacific, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 1997. 186 Mattes, Traveling Olms Objects»3 (2000), introducing a broader understanding of objects and their cultural mutuality. In the article «Animals as Scientific Objects»4 (2017), the author Mike Michael addresses the transformation of animals to scientific objects using an example of biomedicine. A new and enlightening approach takes Marianne Klemun (2012) by focusing on the «Spaces in Between» museums, laboratories or botanical gardens, pointing out that natural objects finally «acquire through mobility their scientific, cultural or economic significance»5. This is of particular importance, because natural objects could be used either as a «scientific or cultural or economic object»6 and were transformed by different practices and cultures of knowledge. Proteus anguinus _ a «traveling» object? Taking these concepts into account, the present paper addresses the circulation of Proteus anguinus – Europe’s only cave-dwelling amphibian – between different communities of practice and its mutual transformations from an economic to a scientific and cultural object and vice versa. Special dedication will be laid on the process of traveling, where these «“moved” natural objects»7 are getting a new setting as cultural and scientific determined objects of knowledge. The present article examines these long-distance networks and regimes of accumulation as a cultural process of local and global knowledge circulation. Addressing these cycles of exchange, the paper serves as a contribution to the question of how different graduations of global and local practices influenced knowledge production. According to recent publications on the exchange of knowledge at a variety of scales and on the close relation between place and practice by Robert Kohler8, Paul Sillitoe9 and Jeremy Vetter10, it is necessary to contextualize the hierarchy and dichotomy of the global and local. Representing no simply static or bounded sites, their dimensions are currently repositioned and redefined. Both scales and spaces of knowledge are mutually linked to self-concepts and self-images of individuals, larger communities and cultures. In my case study, it is useful, to look closer on the «spaces in between» these spheres and the different scales of the local, national and the global. But why using a quite strange looking cave animal for a case study on circulating objects of natural curiosity? In contrast to its restriction to approximately 200 localities in Slovenia and the surrounding karst areas in Italy, Croatia and Bosnia (Fig. 1), the olm or Proteus anguinus – an aquatic salamander in the family Proteidae – became a world-famous model for troglobites (= species strictly bound to subterranean habitats) soon after its first scientific description in the 18th century11. Because of the olm’s adaptation to a life of complete darkness in its underground habitat, its regressed eyes and pigmentless white skin, Proteus anguinus attracted the attention of locals, visitors and international scholars, who tried to enlighten the olm’s life in the underground and particularly its reproduction as an example for understanding evolution and adaption processes to natural environments.12 Until 1808, only four habitats, 3 L. DASTON, The Coming into Being of Scientific Objects, in L. DASTON (ed.), Biographies of Scientific Objects, Chicago/London, University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 1-14. 4 M. MICHAEL, Animals as Scientific Objects, in L. KALOF (ed.), The Oxford Handbook on Animal Studies, New York, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 380-296. 5 M. KLEMUN, Introduction: ‘Moved’ Natural Objects – ‘Spaces in Between’, in «HOST Journal of History of Science and Technology» V (2012/1), pp. 9-16. 6 Ivi, p. 12. 7 Ibidem. 8 R. KOHLER, Labscapes. Naturalizing the Lab, in «History of Science» XL (2002), pp. 473-501. 9 P. SILLITOE, Local Science vs. Global Science. Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge in International Development, New York/Oxford, Berghahn, 2007. 10 J. VETTER, Knowing Global Environments. New Historical Perspectives on the Field Sciences, New Brunswick/New Jersey/London, Rutgers University Press, 2011. 11 See for an actual, but compact description of Proteus anguinus and the world’s three other cave dwelling amphibians, the Grotto Salamander (Typhlotriton spelaeus), the Texas Blind Salamander (Eurycea rathbuni), and the Georgia Blind Salamander (Haideotriton wallacei): D.R. KHANN, P.R. YADAV, Biology of Amphibia, New Delhi, Discovery Publishing House, 2005, pp. 94-99. 12 Comprehensive work on the popularization of Proteus anguinus for science and tourism has been carried out by T.R. th SHAW, Proteus for scientists and tourists. A history of its 19 century collection and captivity, in «ENDINS» XXVIII 187 Mattes, Traveling Olms respectively caves, were known and in 1850 not more than 31 finding spots were recorded13. In fact, Proteus anguinus represents an exceptionally «local» and endemic animal that quickly became of global importance for zoologists and collectors. Souvenirs for curious travelers: Proteus anguinus as an economic object The first, who literally reported on frequent findings of olms by locals, was the Carniolan natural historian Johann Weichard Valvasor in 1689. After examining some specimens that a farmer brought him from the river «Bela» in the valley of «Vrhnika» (Slovenia), Valvasor concluded,

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