i (heart) odd-toed ungulates

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...

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...

Make Way for Penguins

I'm really loving my 2010 membership at the New England Aquarium - it's a joyful thing to be able to stroll in on a Friday morning on my way home from the dentist; spend a few hours drawing, catch a training session with the fur seals, and bask in the tranquility of tropical tanks... then make a break for the exit just as the crowds reach maximum capacity and start to turn a good thing into an utter annoyance. Add to that a slight detour into Modern Pastry for a cannoli on the way back to the T, and you've got yourself one bang-up morning - with plenty of day left to work back into the sketchbook and frolic through Photoshop... Boston, slowly but surely, you're winning me over.
 

Sketchbook : Penguins & Sea Dragons

More drawings from the New England Aquarium: Rockhopper penguins, a weedy and a leafy sea dragon (in purple pencil), and a pygmy crocodile (who is actually a tagalong from a day at the zoo...). Penguins are generally a lot of fun to sketch - simple silhouettes, but between grooming, squabbling, darting around underwater, and hip-hopping around the rocks in their exhibit, they offer up a surprising amount of gestures, and as much expression as birds are capable of. And if you're ever at the NEAQ, you must, must, must check out the sea dragons - they are by far one of the most brilliantly beautiful and incredible fish you'll ever see. Sea dragons are native to the southern and western coasts of Australia and belong to the same family as sea horses - as evidenced by their long snout and gracefully arched necks. The Weedy sea dragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) is painted in a contrasty array of canary yellow, neon blue, glowing orange and deep purple, and has a sleek, undulating body that sprouts a handful of oar-shaped, "weed-like" projections from head to tail tip. By contrast, the yellowy-orange colored Leafy sea dragon (Phycodurus eques) is completely covered in ruffly protrusions and looks remarkably like a dense cluster of drifting kelp strands. Sea dragons lack the prehensile tails of their cousins, the sea horses, but like sea horses, male sea dragons are tasked with safeguarding their mate's eggs after fertilizing them; instead of using the sea horse's kangaroo style pouch to incubate the eggs, sea dragons have a spongy "brood patch" on their tails to which the eggs are attached and receive oxygen through for roughly nine weeks until they hatch.

I decided not to work color into my above sketch, but after a little photo research online I found this beautiful painting of weedy sea dragons by the incredible 18th century natural history artist, Ferdinand Bauer (image from the collection of the Natural History Museum, London). Bauer accompanied the famous Flinders' expedition of 1801-1803 - the first voyage to cicumnavigate Terra Australis, the island continent of Australia (then called New Holland). Working closely with on-board botanist Robert Brown, Bauer generated a remarkable 1500+ drawings of Australian flora and fauna (and hundreds more from specimens collected on surrounding islands), including marsupial mammals, colorful parrots and tropical fish. Studiously true to nature, Bauer has even drawn one of the fish in his painting with a thick row of eggs lining the underside of it's tail...