i (heart) odd-toed ungulates

World Tapir Day 2012

Hello, FRIDAY! And for those not already in the know, there's another, much more novel reason to delight in this fine 27th of April, 2012... it's World Tapir Day!! Oh yes. You heard that right - today is World Tapir Day - a most fitting occassion (if one needs an excuse) to celebrate, raise awareness, and otherwise spread the good word about one of the coolest odd-toed ungulates to saunter the underbrush of equatorial rainforests: the TAPIR. *Don't be fooled by the 4 toes on each front foot - they only have three on the back! Taxonomically speaking, they are odd-toes, and all 4 species are simply amazing...

I've posted on tapirs previously, having been aquainted a few summers ago with the brilliant family of 3 living at the Franklin Park Zoo - Milton, Annie, and Tupelo are Baird's tapirs, and Tupelo, like all baby tapirs, was a heart-breakingly cute wee thing covered head to toe in spots and stripes when she was born (few things rival newborn tapirs on the squee scale...). Baird's tapirs are one of the 3 tapir species native to Central and South America, where they are the largest land mammal (Baird's are smaller than the Malayan, but larger than the Brazilian and Mountain species). The fourth species, the Malayan, or Asian tapir, calls Malaysia, Thailand, and Sumatra it's home. There is some size range between tapir species, though all fall somewhere between 300 and 750lbs in adult weight. Crepuscular or nocturnal forest dwellers, they spend most of their time forraging for vegetation with their great ungainly snout, and contrary to their somewhat dumpy appearance (and I use that term only in the most affectionate way), they are marvelous swimmers. Favorite food (in captivity, at least)? Bananas.

Below, a visual summary of Tapirdom:


In honor of this wonderous day - and the magical fantastical tapir! - I've designed a template to make your very own tapir mask out of paper! It's super simple - you just need paper to print on, scissors, glue (tape will work in a pinch, but it won't look nearly as dashing), and some string. Click the SINGLE mask graphic below for a SMALL template (will print on one 8.5 x 11 sheet and fit only a very small child's head... To make a mask of more adult-noggin proportions, click on the DOUBLE mask graphic for a LARGE template - this will print on 2 letter-sized sheet which can be cut, afixed together, then traced onto a larger, single sheet of paper before assembling). *You can print on any color paper (brown craft looks surprisingly "tapir-y") or print on white and then color to match your favorite tapir species... seriously fun stuff here - go to it!





*CONTEST EXTENDED*
And in the spirit of craft and contest - I'm going to add a twist - anyone who sends me a photo of themselves - or their little ones - wearing the above tapir mask, will be entered into a drawing to win a copy of my illustrated zoo book, Tropical Forest! Milton, Annie, and Tupelo are featured on page 5... so get crafting! Customization to resemble any of the 4 tapir species is encouraged... This contest will be open for 5 days 7 DAYS - I'll pick the winner at 12 noon EST next Tuesday THURSDAY! Please email your photo submission to: natalya (at) natalya (dot) com - OR tweet it to @natalya_zahn

...And for further reading/viewing: discover the tapir's propensity for "tantrums"; check out a (not too rosey... and I would 100% agree) review of the taxidermied tapirs at my beloved HMNH; and explore research and conservation efforts, because all 4 tapir species are highly endangered due to habitat loss and hunting. Most of all, have fun - tapirs are awesome!  

*For more paper tapirs, check out this Japanese paper-craft website (downloadable pattern), and this origami animal site. And oh how I wish I were better at knitting... HAPPY TAPIR DAY!

Primates for the Postman

It's been mail art central over here this week. Not all envelopes are being scanned and archived for posterity (one of the joys of the "you have 2 hours before the post office closes" game is accepting that a lot will go unfinished...). These wee fellows (Lemur catta) came out quite alright, however - lucky little buggers! Perhaps they've benefitted from my recent Ring-tailed kick... must be those cheeky tails... but wait, there's more!

A Tern for the Worse

Forgive the pun... This beautiful creature - a tern of some description - is quickly sketched here before preparation for the Harvard Natural History Museum archives. The poor thing was collected this year from the southern US coast - the victim of a bad storm, she washed up already quite deceased on the beach. Fortunately, thanks to a banded leg, the individual could be traced, and most wonderfully appeared to have lived just past 20 years before being taken by environmental hazard. Her head here is resting on a pillow of fine sawdust (used to soak up the inevitable bit of blood exposed during the skinning process - and no, the red background is not said blood, but rather a brick-hued lunch tray).

Celebrating Fabulous Mr. Muybridge

Our lives in the 21st century are increasingly dominated by moving images - powerful camera and editing technologies makes it possible to endlessly manipulate (speed or slow frames) and accentuate certain actions, ultimately exposing the intricate movement of everything from humingbird wings in flight to the precise tongue flicks that a cat uses to lap milk. It's easy to take the accessibility of this visual information for granted, but 150 years ago, things that moved faster than the human eye and brain could register in sequence were mysteries left to artists to interpret. 

In 1872, a popular debate arose regarding whether a running horse's feet were ever in fact all 4 off the ground (as they appeared commonly throughout Victorian horse-racing art), or whether the stride required at least one hoof on the earth at any given point. In an attempt to settle the issue with visual evidence made by a device that "couldn't lie" (the camera), former governor of California, and racehorse owner, Leland Stanford commissioned English photographer Eadweard J. Muybridge to produce proof. After much study, experimentation, and the development of new techniques involving multiple cameras and carefully placed triggers, Muybridge delivered an irrefutable answer in 1877: a single photographic negative (one in a series) of Stanford's trotting horse, Occident, clearly shows the horse "floating", not a single toe touching the ground below. Further photographic series' of Stanford's Thoroughbred, Sallie Gardner, proved that not only was there also an unsupported point in the stride of a galloping horse, but that it occurred while all 4 legs were tucked beneath the body, as opposed to stretched out front and back, as was the common artistic depiction. The success of Muybridge's efforts prompted many more studies, with many more types of animals and actions, generating hundreds of thousands of images. These experiments also resulted in the zoopraxiscope - a precursor to cinematography and the motion picture.


Today marks the 182nd anniversary of the pioneering Eadweard J. Muybridge's birth. Muybridge's work fascinated me as a teenager and prompted numerous animated animal projects using tracings of his photos, and original drawings based on the studies. As a kid enamoured with anatomy, Muybridge's massive volumes of stills exploring the various gaits of dozens of different creatures, were a goldmine of reference imagery and inspiration for me. To this day my copy of Animals In Motion remains a powerful tool for researching form and gesture... So, a proper hat tip to Mr. Muybridge, for his incredible - and prolific - contributions to early scientific imaging and the arts.

The fantastic little video above was made in conjunction with a 2010 Muybridge exhibition at the Kingston Museum. To read more, check out eye magazine's little commentary on Muybridge's role as an artist; explore social scandals and multiple name changes here; and go look something up today! - Google Doodle for the day is a lovely tribute.

Special Delivery

I'm a big fan of mail art - nothing says happy day like coming home to find a personalized envelope waiting in the mailbox. Call me crazy, but I also love the concept of creating something that will be "enhanced" by the environment I send it off into. The USPS may not be often credited with enhancing anything it gets it's grubby paws on, but all the nicks and scrapes, stickers and stamps, water damage and bootprints that befall those utility bills and boxes of cookies from grandma are a wonder to me when they become part of a randomly generated composition. I'm lucky if I get to see the final product (since I've never sent anything to myself!) but when I do, I'm rarely dissapointed - so it was with giddy surprise this week when I got a lovely update on one very special delivery...

The extraordinary Jean Aw - powerhouse behind the NOTCOT empire - just became the proud recipient of a member of the mail art menagerie. She was also kind enough to give me an exceedingly generous post on the subject, which you can check out here. Many thanks, NOTCOT - for the Tropical Forest love, and the reveal on how my Takin fared on her epic cross-country journey in a mailbag!