Brazilian Gallery

South American cannibals, 16th century

South American cannibals. 16th-century artwork of indigenous people of South American dismembering and roasting their slain enemies. Artwork from Cosmographie universelle (1575) by the French explorer and writer Andre Thevet (1516-1590). This book described the history and geography of the lands in which Thevet had travelled. The two volumes and four tomes contain over 1000 pages divided into 23 books. This woodcut is from chapter XV of book XXI

© MIDDLE TEMPLE LIBRARY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Amazon Basin, satellite image

Amazon Basin. Satellite image of the Amazon Basin (highlighted area) in northern South America. North is at top. Water is blue, and land is colour-coded according to elevation above sea level: dark green (sea level), pink (2000 metres), and white (4500 metres). The Amazon Basin, over 7 million square kilometres in area, is the drainage basin of the Amazon River and is the largest in the world. The source of the Amazon lies high in the Andes mountain (down left). The waters drain eastward through the vast Amazon Rainforest, emerging at the mouth of the Amazon (upper right). In 2007, a new source for the Amazon was reported in southern Peru, which would make the Amazon the world's longest river. This image combines Shuttle Radar Topography Data and HydroSHEDS river data

© Nasa/Science Photo Library

Tapejara pterosaur

Tapejara pterosaur, artwork. Tapejara was a flying reptile that inhabited what is now South America between around 112 and 98 million years ago, in the early Cretaceous period. The crests on its head may have been used in sexual displays. It is thought that Tapejara was a coastal predator, feeding on fish which it caught from the sea. It had a wingspan of up to five metres

© JOE TUCCIARONE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY