i (heart) odd-toed ungulates

I Heart the MCZ Week (day 5): Mollusks

In addition to the reliably amazing permanent exhibits at the MCZ, there is a hallway gallery space for special exhibits that rotates a handful of times each year. I was saddened to see the last exhibit, titled Head Gear, taken down - it was a phenomenal exploration of horns, antlers, and other bony noggin growths across the animal kingdom (including insects, birds, and fish)... heaps of stunning taxidermy and the most beautiful skulls... BUT, the new exhibit that has been quietly coming together all week - unveiled last night - does not dissapoint in the slightest. Mollusks: Shelled Masters of the Marine Realm takes visitors through a tour of the evolution, ecology, and diversity of this phylum of invertebrates that make up nearly a quarter of all known marine species. A sampler of snails, clams, oysters, octopus, and squid, it's a small but densely packed exhibit - and rounding out all the wild specimens collected in the field is a gorgeous case of glass mollusks, masterfully created by the renowned Rudolf and Leopold (father/son) Blaschka - the magicians behind Harvard's world-famous glass flowers.

All the specimens on display are surprisingly lovely, but my hats off to the HMNH's exhibit designers, who heightened the intensity of the experience through clever presentation, bold signage, and a magnificent use of color (the walls and all display cases are a delicious shade of deep peacock blue - the perfect compliment to an abundance of glossy tangerine and peachy-pink seashell shades - my photos reeeeeally don't do it justice). Much like the insects that held my attention yesterday, the broad array of simple, sweeping shapes in Mollusks was enough to keep me focused for hours this afternoon...

I Heart the MCZ Week (day 4): Bugs & Birds

I've written about days when impromptu sketching feels like second nature - smooth as sailing through a conversation with an old friend, where every word is perfectly timed, and even more perfectly chosen... today was decidedly not one of those days. So be it. But it does make working on a personally imposed deadline a bit of a challenge. After struggling with colored pencils and water color in front of a display of handsome pigeons for a good hour, I abandoned ship and decided to relocate. As I passed through the invertebrates exhibit, I stalled in front of a case of coleoptera: beetles - jewel-toned, patterned, and pinned in an orderly arrangement worthy of a meticulous philatelist. Despite the rainbow before me, I took out a Micron and let gesture override adornment - thankfully, the result felt 100% better than my previous exercises that afternoon, and if I had had more time, I would have drawn every specimen on the wall. There's something so pleasingly mathmatic about drawing insects - like sketching architecture or bicycles - they are a perfectly orchestrated collaboration of geometic shapes - a spray of hinged line segments, anchored by some elaboration on the shape of a pill... and symetry - at least when viewed dorsally over the head of a pin - is king.

Whale Fall (into the afterlife)

What happens when a whale dies? Answering the question in artful detail, this brilliant animation seemed a fitting post for a Halloweeny Monday. From Sweetfern Production's Sharon Shattuck and Flora Licktman, Whale Fall poetically chronicles the ocean-sustaining life after death of... a whale. Produced in collaboration with NPR's phenomenal Radiolab (for an episode themed "Loops") this haunting, compelling short was carefully filmed with live-action paper puppets and cutouts - a refreshing compliment to the current trend in stop-motion graphics. So, before you drop into a sugar coma this evening, fill your head with the dark but thriving population of crabs, hagfish, and polychaete worms that inhabit the midnight regions of the deepsea - the combination just might result in some stellar nightmares...

Tasting the Rainbow

When the science lab and the craft room combine: Crazy, juicy images of ants whose abdomens reveal their contents. These guys clearly prefer citrusy "lemon/lime" flavors...
Photo credits: Mohamed Babu/Solent News and Photo Agency (via designyoutrust.com) 

Aquarium Zen & the Brilliance of Cephalopods

The octopus exhibit has always been a favorite destination at any aquarium that I visit. More often than not the beast is crammed up into one corner of it's "cave", looking completely, indignantly bored with it's life through unblinking eyes... and unlike most of the simple fish, robotic crustaceans, and literally brainless jellies and sponges that surround it, the octopus, I know, is sincere in it's expression.

Cephalopods in general (including cuttlefish, squid, and octopuses) are known for their intelligence, and octopuses specifically are some of the most crafty - their spacial learning skills, navigational ability, and tool use has been well documented. Similar faculties have been lauded in many mammal species, but are somewhat even more remarkable coming from creatures without a backbone (for comparison, fellow invertebrates include oysters, snails, and slugs...). The NEAQ actually takes pride in the story of a legendary octopus that would escape it's tank each night, crawl across the floor and hunt and consume members of a single fish species in a neighboring tank (once discovered, a heavy weight on the top of the tank lid was enough to keep the critter in). On account of this propensity for mischief, some aquariums provide their 8-legged wonders with "enrichment" puzzles: elaborate, maze-like, or well latched containers requiring thoughtful, or just amazingly dextrous, solutions to obtain food rewards. The recent story of Paul, the World Cup oracle, contained a perfect example of "themed" octopus enrichment, albeit with somewhat higher stakes...


The drawing at the top of this post is of the NEAQ's Giant Pacific octopus, Athena, during a rare moment of affection with a keeper - the disembodied hand reaching down from above is that of a staff aquarist. The suction cups on an octopuses tentacles contain chemical receptors akin to a nose or mouth (in addition to their obvious tactile reconnisance) - they're so sensitive that they can distinguish between individual humans. Athena clearly had good rapport with whomever was giving her back scratches that day, clamoring and squirming at the surface of the water when the hand was removed, then sinking into blissful suspension with it's reappearance.

Unfortunately, the life span of most octopuses, even the largest, and even in captivity, is only between 3 and 5 years. At 3 years old, Athena is getting on in cephalopod time... but she's a sight to behold, no less. Click here to read more about the wonders of suction cups, and see a GPO from the Georgia Aquarium using it's well suctioned tentacles to maneuver across the glass of it's tank.

And now for your moment of aquarium zen...