Happy faced spider

Yesterday, I should have been doing art but instead I killed a lot of giant naked mole rats in fallout 3.

Art

Goal for the week 20hrs

Today 

work on the sphinx

Animal

The Hawaiian happy face spider (theridion grallator) is a kind of ironic animal, it has highly variable markings but often has a smiley face on it's abdomen. It is theorized that it's odd markings help to keep away birds and other predators, however they really are not sure about that. A really bizarre thing about it's marking is the pattern of inheritance varies depending upon which of the islands it is on. On Maui the spiders inherit there markings in a very predictable Mendelian way. On on other islands the patterns are sex limited. In some cases its color is altered by the food the spider is eating. They are also odd in that the female actually cares for her young, she guards the eggs until they hatch, then brings food to the newborn spiders.

Tigerfish

Art

Goal for the week 20hrs

Today

get the boxes together to be painted in this batch

paint boxes

Animal 

photo by Brian Gratwicke

The tigerfish (Hydrocynus vittatus) is a large African tetra with an impressive toothy maw. For some reason the giant predatory tetras such as piranhas and vampire tetras are always kind of amusing given what one normally thinks of a as a tetra. I can't help but get the idea that it is the doom neon, even though it's only about as related to neons as it is to pacus and piranhas. Tigerfish swim in schools and are fairly enthusiastic carnivores. They are also reasonably popular game fish as they are angry and difficult to catch, they are also apparently tasty. Some people that are very enthusiastic about predatory fish also keep them as pets as they do not get as large as the Goliath tigerfish, but they are still very large fish and require a specialized set up.

Red headed agama

Art

Today

work on sphinx

Animal

Photo by Jason Pratt

The red headed agama (Agama agama) inhabits sub-saharan Africa, and is invasive in Florida. They have adapted to life around human habitations reasonably well and so are fairly common. During the breeding season the males are very brightly colored and can become even more so if agitated. They also become very territorial and will often fight for good elevated positions. Red headed agamas have sticky mucus glands on the tip of their tongues that help them to hold on to prey. They also have relatively complicated teeth with with both canine like teeth for grasping and molar like teeth for crushing. Most of the red headed agamas in captivity tend to be wild caught, though they have bred in captivity, this makes them a poor choice for inexperienced reptile keepers.

Dovekie

I think that I will be getting a drill press for the stop motion project and also because it would be useful for other pieces as well.

Art 

goal for the week 8 hours

Today

cleaning

get a drill press ?

Animal

Photo by Alastair Rae

The Dovekie (alle alle) is a robin sized bird that is one of the smallest members of the auk family. They are odd as they are specialized filter feeders that strain plankton through tiny tooth-like structures in their beak. The live in the northern arctic, with greenland being their main stronghold they can range as far south as new Jersey in the winter. They breed in very large colonies numbering in the millions, and their plumage changes fairly dramatically during the breeding season. They are occasionally driven off course in very large numbers by storms in one case in 1930, 1000 dovekies were found in Sydney Australia.

Marsupial mole

I've been listening to some of Rick and Kristen's radio shows online. Apparently they have been putting their Sunday WEFT shows up in a blog. Pretty much all goth and deathrock.

Art

Goal for the week 13.5 hours

Today 

work on the sphinx

Animal 

The southern marsupial mole (Notoryctes typhlops) is a very strange marsupial from southwest Australia. It is well adapted to swimming through the sand it has no external eyes or ears (they do have ear openings) and it's pouch faces backward to keep sand out of it. It is thought to eat mostly insects, lizards and seeds but very little is known about it's diet or behavior. It is only recently that that scientists were sure it was a marsupial rather then the link between marsupials and monotremes. It shares different characteristics with many of the living groups of marsupials making it difficult to place. Based on genetic evidence they have worked out that marsupial moles split off of  the main group of marsupials about 50 million years ago and have been evolving on a separate branch into something that very much resembles a golden mole. They are difficult to study as their tunnels collapse on themselves after they pass and they do very poorly in captivity. In captivity they spend a lot more time on the surface and tend to faint for hours at a time they tend not to survive more then a month in captive conditions. Some of the the Aborigines call them itjaritjari and they are associated to some extent with the creation of Uluru/Ayers Rock. They were also regarded with sympathy for their helplessness and only eaten durning very hard times. 

Therizinosaurus cheloniformis

Art

Goal for the week 12hrs

Animal

Photo by Akma

Therizinosaurus cheloniformis was a theropod from the maniraptoran clade that evolved into sort of a dinosaur version of a giant ground sloth. The first remains of this animal were found in Mongolia in 1954. Their body is large and slow and seems well suited for sitting. They were thought to use their giant meter long claws to help pull leaves to their mouth. It is also theorized that they used the large claws for defense.  An alternate theory for the giant claws is that they were more like a giant ant eater and used them to tear open termite mounds.  They were thought to be over 20 feet long and weigh around 1000lbs. When the claws of this group of dinosaurs were first found they were thought to belong to a giant turtle. 

Giant squid

I think this is the 100th post. Having shifted my schedule it is a little harder to post in the morning so I may be posting at night more frequently.

Art
Goal for the week 14hrs
today
work on the sphinx

Animal
Mythology

It gets a little hard to do the mythology of specific invertebrate species past a certain point since most people generalize them into types that cover quite a few species. The giant squid of the Architeuthis genus (of which they estimate there are between 3 and 8 species) have generated quite a bit of mythology since they are essentially sea monsters. In Norway and Iceland they can probably be linked to the Kraken. The Kraken was often described as a giant squid or crab-like monster that resembled an island and attracted fish. It was said that fishing was good directly over a Kraken, though it was also said that they would occasionally attack and pull down ships. The giant squid may also be the source of the sea monk a really weird looking thing from Denmark. Another creature, a bearded whale reported by Olaus Magus a Swedish writer might have also been a giant squid, though it does seems to have a happy little dog/seal face and claws added. Giant squid are also said to be minions of Cthulhu at many of the conventions I attend.

Elephant shark

I've been kind of debating back and forth about learning more about putting together stop motion puppets. I think I'm going to be starting up a very long term project that I work on one day a a week. I have a lot to learn about machining ball and socket joints and such. As far as the one day a week idea I might try it with the boxes too. It occurs to me that I should be producing those at a somewhat more constant rate. I might regulate the days by the animals so they float (also then I could never spread myself thinner then 6 projects). I guess I'll try it and see if it is more or less productive. 

Art 

goal for the week 16.5 hrs

Today 

go through broken boxes see what I can salvage

match salvagable halves and grind them

glue salvagable halves back together

get together next set for painting and figure out colors

maybe start painting them

Animal

Photo by fir0002

re run from livejournal

The elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii) is a strange cartilaginous fish from Australia and new Zealand. It has an long lobed sensory organ hanging off the front of it's face that it uses to detect crustaceans and mollusks on the ocean floor. They can grow to almost 5 ft in length and take 5 years to mature.  The Maori were very fond of them as a food fish and called them Reperepe which means "drooping lips" or in some cases "buttocks". The Elephant shark is also about to have it's Genome sequenced as it has the smallest genome of all living cartilaginous fishes. 

Rubber eel

I talked to my roommates and I think we will be still doing the April fools party thing for Loki this year. I might end up having to do it the weekend after the day to get more people though.

 

Art

Goal for the week 20hrs

Today

make clay

poke the guy with the Anubis mask access what needs to be done

work on the sphinx

look into how ventriloquist dummy heads are put together

Animal 

photo by Brian Grandwicke

The rubber eel (Typhlonectes natans) is not a fish at all but is an amphibian from a group of amphibians called Caecilians. Caecilian are a somewhat poorly studied group as most members of the group live underground or are fully aquatic. In the case of the rubber eel, it is is fully aquatic. Rubber eels do much of their respiration through their skin, but also need to breath air.  Like other caecilians they have a second set of jaw muscles to help them keep their mouth closed while burrowing they also have a small tentacle between their eye and nostrils that acts as a chemical sensor. Their teeth are small and hook backward to help them grip their prey you can tell that they are advanced highly evolved caecilians as their mouth is below the center of their head. Earlier caecilians have a mouth that is centered at the terminal end of their head. Rubber eels give birth to live young and embryonic rubber eels have natal teeth that they use to bite the oviduct wall of their mother to cause them to secrete a nourishing substance. They seem to be not uncommon in captivity and I found quite a few care sheets while I was looking into them.

Somewhat long video about these caecilians that shows a variety of their behaviors

Spotted pardalote

Sorry forgot to post yesterday. Stuart and I went out of town to a wildlife park near Peoria called Wildlife Prarie Park. It is a nice park it features a lot of animals they wished were still native in Illinois and a few that still are. The enclosures were huge and well forested for the most part and most of the animals were rehab cases that could not be released back into the wild. They had an entire pack of wolves which we got to hear howl all together for about 5 to 10 minutes. They also had a massagua rattlesnake which I often think of a quasi-mythical, they are supposed to be native to this area but are so endangered you would never see one. I tried to get a few pictures but only managed to get clear ones of the copperhead and the bobcats.

Art

Not sure what is going on today

work on the sphinx

Animal

Photo by Marj K

The spotted pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) is one of the smallest birds in southern Australia. They tend to spend most of their time hidden among the eucalyptus. When they nest they tend to do so in burrows, but can get creative with their definition of a burrow. They have also been found nesting in rolled carpets, closed garage door, and the crevices of buildings. Studying their nest had been traditionally very difficult recently Christopher Boland and Robert Phillips developed a method to build an inexpensive burrowscope which can be made for around $400 and they have had a lot of luck with it. Here is a link to the the paper the device is featured in the paper is unfortunately not free but there is a free picture of the device and a complete materials list at the bottom. It strikes me as a neat thing for biologists and perhaps biology teachers.

Finless Porpoise

Went to club last night, the music was good though kind of in a Christian Death vein. Stuart and I hung out with Bill and Andrew and complained about 4th edition D & D and discussed the artist colonies popping up in Detroit. It is possible that Detroit is going to be a very interesting place in about 20 years. 

Art

Goal for the week 14hrs

Today

work on the sphinx

Animal 

photo by ori2uru

Re-run from livejournal

Remember the Yangtze river dolphin that went extinct and was in the papers not to long ago, it actually was not the only cetacean in that river there also still was and still is the Finless Porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). Locally they are far less appreciated then the Yangtze river dolphin, while the dolphin was being called a river goddess and they are referred to as river pigs. Fortunately they are found in other places as they are very rapidly declining in the Yangtze, which just isn't very habitable for cetaceans at this point. A few of them were moved to the conservation area intended for the Yangtze river dolphin, which is good as they are quite endangered in China. There actually are no estimates as to how they are doing in other places, they just have never been counted. They are odd as they are found in both fresh and saltwater environments, they are some of the smallest cetaceans, and they lack a dorsal fin. In saltwater environments they tend to spend most of their time near the coast and they do reasonably well in captivity for ceteceans living up to 15 years and having bred. They also are adorable I'm not sure why they don't make the pretty dolphin calenders and what not.

Video of one following someone's finger

Hesperonis regalis

I'm shifting schedules a little I think. I'm going to try to get a longer block of work in at night and sleep during the day.

Art

Goal for the week 14.5 hours

Today

make clay

work on the sphinx

Animal

Photo by unforth

Hesperonis regalis was a prehistoric flightless aquatic bird from the late Cretaceous it was found in the marine limestone from Kansas. It was found in the late 19th center and was an important early find in avian paleontology. It had teeth in it's beak which it used to hold down prey and lobed toes that acted like webbing. Early depictions showed them standing upright like penguins but it is unlikely that they could do that, they may not have been able to walk on land at all. It is thought that they got around on land by sliding on their belly it is also thought that they were migratory as more juveniles were found in northern sites.

Video with CGI Hesperonis

Eastern bloodsucking conenose

I'm having  hard time finding good blocks of time to work on art. I tend to get better results from longer blocks of time. I may start experimenting with new schedules. 

Art

Goal for the week 18.75 hours

Today

make clay

work on the guy with the Anubis head

Animal

Photo by Cotinis

The eastern bloodsucking conenose (Triatoma sanguisuga) is an assassin bug that ranges all over from the eastern United States to South America. Assassin bugs in general prey on other insects such as cockroaches and bedbugs and a number of the very beneficial north American assassin bugs also have the spots on side and that general body shape so one should take care not to jump to conclusions. The eastern bloodsucking conenose does feed on the blood of vertebrates particularly rats and mice though it is not completely unheard of for them to go after sleeping humans. When they do bite humans it is generally around the mouth. The nymphs have a sticky coating on their body that they use to pick up dust and debris to help camouflage themselves. They are long lived insects and can take 3 years to fully develop. Their feeding bite is generally painless , but they should  be handled  carefully as they also have a defensive bite that is very painful and can cause nausea and in some cases severe allergic reactions. 

A blood feeding assassin bug that looks sort of like the Eastern bloodsucking conenose but might be a different species versus an adorable baby vampire bat video

Northern Pike

The company I work for was under a giant DDOS attack from a Bot net yesterday that was kind of odd, took down the network until I left for the day. Mondays are normally a good art day for me but yesterday I was having problems working up the motivation to do anything so I ended taking a day off. 

Art

Goal for the week 19.25hrs

Today

work on the figure with the Anubis make

make clay

Animal

Photo by Paladin27

Mythology

On a personal note when I was younger I thought that a Northern Pike and a Muskie were two different species of fish, I had then been informed they were the same and the different names were a regional thing. I now find out that I was right back then Northern Pikes and Muskies are different species, same genus though. For several cultures the northern pike (Esox lucius) is a preferred form for water spirits. The Russian water spirit the Vodyanoy often took the form of a pike and was often placated by fisherman with tobacco to bring fish. In their native form the Vodyanoy is described as a naked old man with an greenish algae covered beard with fish eyes and tail they also had a tendency to break dams and steal the souls of drown persons. There was also a Russian wise old pike which can grant wishes to anyone that catches it so long as it is released. In Norse mythology the dwarf Andvari took the form of a pike. At one point Loki caught him in the net of the sea goddess Ren and extorted gold from him. Andvari cursed this gold heavily but Loki used all of it to pay a wergild and avoided the curse. For the Potawatomi the Northern Pike was assoicated with the god Kinoje a water deity. In Estonia in the village of Lemmaku dried Pike is eaten around the equinox near March 25th to sustain the luck of fishermen.

Minute leaf chameleon

The sewer smells seems to be mostly taken care of. We had some drama at game last night, I will have to talk with one of my roommates.  

Art

Goal for the week 20hrs

Today

work on the figure with the Anubis mask

start the modeling clay sphinx figure.

Animal

photo by glowingz

The minute leaf chameleon (Brookesia minima) is a tiny chameleon from the island of Nosy Be off the coast of Madagascar. They are one of the world's smallest reptiles at just a little over an inch long. Like other chameleons they can change their coloration they tend to be a very dark brown when calm and almost white when agitated. Their prey includes tiny insects like fruit flies and springtails. When in danger they first rely on their camouflage to escape if this does not work, they feign death, and if they are gripped they will vibrate at a high frequency. They have been bred in captivity but their eggs are so tiny that the preferred method is to incubate them in the enclosure.

Clip from a Jeff Corwin documentary featuring B. minima

A good clear picture of one

Pied butcherbird

We had a gas leak scare last night. I came in from Mike's game and thought I smelled gas, it was much stronger near the water heater. So we called the landlord and power company. We evacuated the house with the cats. It turns out it was really a problem with the sewer line though, smelled very similar to gas.

Art 

Goal for the week 10hrs

Today

work on the figure with the Anubis mask

start the modeling clay sphinx to be cast

Animal

photo by aaardvaark

The pied butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogularis) inhabits much of Australia and eats insects and small animals. They similar to shrikes in that they have a larder behavior and will gather large numbers of insects and small animals hooked into tree crevices in an effort to impress mates. It also hooks larger prey on tree crevices and thorns to hold it down while it tears them into edible chunks with it's hooked bill. It does this as it's feet unlike a raptor's are not strong enough to hold large prey. Unlike shrikes they are known for having a beautiful flute-like complex song, they also include the songs of other birds in their own. They are occasionally featured in studies that look at the ability of birds to appreciate music. When in urban environments they respond well to peoples efforts to feed them and will sometimes become quasi-tame enough to eat from people's hands. It is advised if you do feed them to stick to items that are good for insectivores like mealworms and other whole insects, bread and processed foods are bad for them.

Singing pied butcherbird video

Video of a butcherbird being fed in someone's yard

Tiger quoll

Art

goal for the week 12.5 hours

Today

work on the guy with the Anubis mask

Animal 

Photo by herper715

The tiger quoll (Dasyurus maculatus) is a carnivorous marsupial from southern Australia. It can group up to 4 feet long and is considered an apex predator of it's ecosystem. They are the largest surviving marsupial carnivore on the Australian mainland. Two thirds of their diet consists of mid-sized mammals and they occasionally take down mammals larger then themselves. In addition to being ambitious hunters they have also been know to steal kills from dingos.  They are good climbers and ridged pads on their feet assist them in getting up trees. Tiger quolls are not particularly long lived and tend to make it only 3 or 4 years in captivity. The northern subspecies is quite endangered and may not have enough individuals left for a viable population.

A tiger quoll grabbing meat from a person's yard

Odobenocetops

Art

goal for the week 12.75 hrs

today

work on the guy with the Anubis mask

Animal

drawing by Pavel Riha

Odobenocetops (Odobenocetops peruvianus) was a relative of modern Narwhals and Beluga whales. This very early member of the dolphin superfamily was found off the coast of Peru about 4 million years ago. While it has a very walrus-like head this is an example of convergent evolution it is not actually related to walruses.  It has been suggested that it sucked bivalves out of their shells in a manner similar to a walrus. Like a walrus it had tusks it is thought that the tusk were either some sort of sensory organ or that they were part courtship process. The tusks on either side of it's head were uneven the right tusk being twice as long as the left. It is not uncommon for toothed whales to have asymmetrical skulls this being just a very extreme example. It is thought that asymmetrical skulls were part of the development of sonar. Odobenocetops peruvianus did not have sonar so far as paleontologists can tell it was probably not needed to catch bivalves. 

Northern snakehead

Art

goal for the week 13hrs

today

work on the figure with the Anubis mask

Animal

photo by Brian Gratwicke

The northern snakehead (Channa argus) is a predatory freshwater fish from Russia, China, and Korea. It is also invasive in the Potomac area in the United States. Initially, when this snakehead was found to have a breeding population in Crofton pond of Maryland in 2002 there was quite a scare about them in the United States. The snakeheads had come from a local man who had been planning to make soup out of them for his sick sister, she recovered before the fish arrived so he kept them in an aquarium for a while and then released them in them in the pond. Biologists were concerned as it is a predatory fish that could outcompete the top level predatory fish of the area,  introduce diseases, and that it would be damaging to populations of prey fish and other small aquatic animals in the area. The northern snakehead also has the ability to breathe air with a special suprabranchial organ, this can allow it to survive out of the water for up to four days, longer if buried. It was worried that the fishes ability to survive out of water might allow it to spread to new areas more quickly. In the case of the population in Crofton pond it there was concern that the snakehead might spread to the Little Patuxent River which was only 75 feet away. They ended up poisoning Crofton Pond to kill off the snakeheads.   The snakehead scare got a lot of media attention and it was even suggested that snakehead can attack people. In the aftermath a few horror movies were made about northern snakeheads (mutant or otherwise) based on the incident, examples include Snakehead Terror, Swarm of the Snakehead, and Frankenfish.

Snakehead Terror trailer

Post will be late today I got tied up doing shipping things.

Egyptian Cobra

I put up a post about Lunacon in the Necropolis Studio's blog I also put up some pictures of recent big pieces. 

Art

Goal for the week 16hrs

Today

Lunacon do the forms so that I can mail it out

find a new con for April

work on the guy with the Anubis mask

Animal

Mythology 

In ancient Egyptian mythology the Egyptian cobra (Naja Haje) plays a nearly opposite role then the horned viper. Probably the best known association in Egyptian mythology with the cobra is that with the goddess Wadjet, who represents lower Egypt, she is generally depicted with Nekhbet the the vulture goddess of upper Egypt or alone on the king's headress as the uraeus. She is also depicted as the eye of Horus, or the Wadjet eye, and she was combined with Bast and Mut on occasion (in the later periods when they were sticking gods together). The cobra was also associated with the goddess Renenutet who was often depicted as a cobra with a woman head or a goddess with an entire cobra as a head. Renenutet was believed to bring the Ren part of the soul "the true name" to a new born during the first day of their life. She also had associations with fertility. It is also likely the case that this  cobra would have been the snake Cleopatra killed herself with rather then an asp, as we would think of one as this snake was also called an asp during that period.

Depiction of Wadjet and Nekhbet you have probably seen before

Picture of Renenutet

American coot

I got an email from Lunacon looks like I got in so I will be doing that con. I'll put up an announcement in the Necropolis Studios journal with the dates and what not tonight after 10pm. 

Art

Goal for the week 17hrs

Today

work on the figure with the Anubis mask

fill our art show forms for Lunacon so that the work can be mailed off tomorrow

Animal

photo by NDomer73

The American coot (Fulica americana) is a rail from southern and western North America. They are the only social rails, they tend to live in large flocks and have fairly complicated vocalizations. They also have great feet the lobes on either side act like a webbed foot they often swim in a duck-like manner. Of all of the rails they are some of the best adapted to life in the water, as a consequence they are clumsy fliers and can not take off from a standing start. They have a tendency to bob there head while walking and swimming in a somewhat chicken-like manner, they do this to help judge distance. Nesting American coots have and odd tendency to lay some of their eggs in the nests of other nesting American coots. They are also known to steal food from other water birds. 

Spix's Disk-winged Bat

We started Jenn's 3.5 D & D game last night, I felt a bit bad as my character was only half finished. I take a really long time making D& D characters.  I think Nick had decided to stop running his Lovecraftian game. 

Art

goal for the week 20hrs

today

make clay

work on the porcelain parts of guy with the Anubis mask

Animal

photo by Alumroot

Spix's disk-winged bats (Thyroptera tricolor) are  insectivorous bats that range from Mexico to southeastern Brazil. They tend to roost in curled leaves and are one of the few bats that does not sleep upside down. They stay upright with little specially muscled suction cups on the base their thumbs and ankles. Each one of these suction cups adheres with enough strength to hold up the whole bat, so if one comes loose during the day they don't fall out of the leaf.  To get the suction cups to better adhere to the leaf they do lick them, they also have special sweat glands in the suction cups that helps them to maintain the bond. They tend to roost in small groups containing one male and several females.

Hallucigenia sparsa

I'm having to make all of this clay because I was really dumb and let my 6 year old Grolleg porcelain dry out. Sketches are done, made some porcelain, guess I'm really ready to get started. 

Art

goal for the week 6 hrs

Today

make more clay

Start making parts of the figure with the Anubis mask

get a little more modeling clay for the sphinx figure sculpt

Animal

drawing by Stanton F. Fink

Hallucigenia sparsa was a tiny (about 1 inch long) middle Cambrian invertebrate that was found in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. I was discovered in 1979 by Conway Morris and dubbed Hallucigenia because it was so oddly put together. Morris depicted the animal as having a double row of spines that it walked on and a single row of feeding tentacles along its back. See the linked picture below. Critics pointed out to Morris that there were no known animals that walked on spines but Morris pointed out that he had found only a single row of tentacles on the animals back and these would not have made effective legs. In the late 1980's a dentist that had become a paleontologist named Lars Ramskold got permission from the curator of the Walcott Collection to excavate for a second set of tentacles to see if they could have acted as legs. This permission was very odd as this fossil was exceptionally rare and it was amazing that they would allow this sort of excavation which would damage it. Lars excavated and found the second set of legs, they then were able to flip the creature over and the little hooked tentacle legs were like other animals they had seen before in the line of ancestors of the velvet worms. Some of the ancestors of the velvet worms also had spines.

The rejected Conway Morris way to put Hallucigenia sparsa together

Animation of the way Hallucigenia was thought to have walked

Lettuce sea slug

We saw Watchmen last night it was truer to the comic then I had thought it would be. I finally have the compositions worked out for the fine art pieces. Now I just need to work out how the internal supports and channels for the wire are going to fit together. Unfortunately, all of my ideas this time were very complicated so I'm probably looking at 2 100+ hr pieces. So if I'm good I'm probably looking at June or July for those.

Art

goal for the week 11.75 hrs

today

do internal armature sketches

put slake on plaster, wedge, make more clay

Start the guy with the Anubis mask or work on wax dragon depending on clay availability

Animal  

photo by laszlo photo

The lettuce sea slug (Tridachia crispata) is a not uncommon sea slug from the Caribbean. They can range quite a bit in coloration from white to red to solid electric blue. They are herbivores but eat in an odd manner. They insert a fine tube into the plant and actually suck out the contents of the cells. They have been described as like a mosquito for algae. By removing the cell organelles from algae they can actually incorporate the chloroplasts into themselves and to some extent produce their own food from sunlight. They do also digest the other plant organelles that are not chloroplasts. They also produce a bad tasting compound from the organelles called chlorodesmin that helps to protect them from being eaten. They are sometimes kept in the aquarium hobby. They are said to control algae but don't really eat it at a high enough rate to be very effective at this.

Weather loach

Art

goal for the week 12.5 hrs

Today

sketches

make clay

unknown I would like to get started in some capacity

Animal

photo by whisper photography

Re-run from livejournal

The weather or Dojo loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus)is a fish I used to recommend quite often at the pet store. People were always looking for something that could live with goldfish (not in a bowl, please don't put one in a bowl). Weather loaches are cold fresh water fish and that become very agitated and zip around the tank wildly when the barometric pressure changes. They are very sensitive to barometric pressure, so they are reasonably accurate in detecting when it will rain. In addition to this they also shed their skin as a whole piece and have a specially modified intestine that allows them to survive in low oxygen environments. The weather loach is some times served as a soup or in a dish called yanagawa-nabe. 

Here is a video of one reacting to a weather change you should get the idea fairly quickly (might want to turn the sound off unless you are fond of the Beach Boys)

Blue crested lizard

The Comptia website has very fast shipping. I got my book in less then 12 hours of ordering. I think that is a record.

Art

goal for the week 12.75 hrs

today

really need to make sketches

work on dragon 

Animal

photo by travlinman43

Ok, this one is a bit of a "look pretty shiny lizard" article, they do not really do any tricks, nor biolumenese, they are not the sacred to the god of corn. It is shiny isn't it. The blue crested lizard (Calotes mystaceus) is a 15 inch bloodsucker agamid from southeast Asia they are also occasionally seen in the Florida everglades as an invasive species. No one can really agree on a common name for this lizard I've seen at least 6 in use so far. They are arboreal insectivores and the males tend to be more brightly colored then the females. They can also undergo a color change when stressed or excited. They are strangely not at all popular in the pet hobby despite the popularity of agamids. They have been occasionally found to be infected with mud fever (Dermatophilus congolensis), but this does not seem to be a common occurrence. 

Chicken mythology

Finally finished sanding the boxes. Also I found out that our date for the certification got pushed back to June 1st that will help a lot.

Art

Goal for the week 13.5 hrs

today

work on ideas for fine art pieces

make rough sketches

work on wax Dragon if I'm not coming up with anything

Animal

photo by QbiT

Mythology

The red jungle fowl or chicken (Gallus gallus) holds a very important place in the mythologies of many cultures. In Norse mythology the coming of Ragnarok was to be for told by 3 roosters Gullinkambi in Valhalla, Fjalar in the wood of Galgvior, and an unnamed red rooster of Hel. In early Athenian vase painting a creature called the Hippalektryon, with the legs and wings of a chicken and the head and forelimbs of a horse shows up, this may be a very early depiction of Pegasos. In another ancient Greek story Ares charges Alectryon to keep watch while he snuck in and spent some time with Aphrodite. Alectryon failed and fell asleep, so Helios walked in on Ares and Aphrodite. As punishment Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster so that he would never forget to announce the sun again. In ancient Greece the rooster was associated with valor and was linked to Ares, Athena and Heracles, it was also not an uncommon sacrifice to Asclepius god of medicine. In later Christian depictions of Greek myths in paintings the rooster had gotten associated with resurrection and was often shown with Persephone/Proserpina and on the lap of Hades. In Slavic folklore Baba Yaga has a house that runs around on chicken feet. The cockerel was put on the land by the god Oduduwa and it in turn dug the hole the first tree came from in Nigerian mythology. In Indonesian Hindu cremation ceremonies a chicken may be tethered by the leg and kept at the ceremony to ensure evil spirits go to the chicken and not the family members. The rooster is also a part of the Chinese zodiac (that would be the one I got) it represents someone who is brave, tenacious, pretentious, self absorbed, and overly romantic. In Chinese Confucian weddings sometimes a chicken can be used as a stand in for a relative that is seriously ill or has recently died. A red scarf is tied around the stand in chicken's head and it is held by the closest relative of the person it is representing.  In Vodou traditions roosters are favored by the Loa Ogun and Papa Legba, and Papa Legba in particular has the colors red and black. I could go on but this is getting a bit long so I will stop here.

Sunda flying lemur

Ok for the certifications I found out that I need to take the Network + 2009 by April 1st. I notice there is a lack of study materials for this test, fortunately the Comptia website had a package I could order. Shame about the deadline being on April 1st though I guess with it being in the middle of the week it would not have been ideal for a party.

Art
Goal for the week 17hrs
Today
still working out new fine art piece ideas
sanding

Animal
photo by Loochie

The Sunda flying lemur or Colugo (Galeopterus variegatus) is a gliding mammal from the order Dermoptera which inhabits south east Asia. While they are not primates and not particularly related to true lemurs, they are in the same branch of mammals as primates and tree shrews. Colugos are thought to be primates closest living relatives though they went in a fairly different direction specialising for gliding. As an order are the most capable of gliding mammals and can sustain a jump for up to 200 feet. It had been suggested that they may have represented a link between primates and bats, but genetic evidence has not supported this theory and bats have been placed in Pegasoferae with carnivores and odd toed ungulates. Flying lemurs are nocturnal heravores that raise their young in an almost marsupial-like manner. The young are born less developed and spend the first 6 months clinging to their mother's belly protected by skin folds. They breed very slowly and the young generally stay with their mother's for the first 2 or 3 years.

Galapagos damsel

I did not quite finish the boxes this weekend but I am nearly done. I also found out this weekend that 2 of my large pieces at Cinema Gallery have sold and the gallery is going to expect some new work soon. I've got some old stuff I can tide them over with but I should probably push the new set higher up on my priorities.

Art

goal for the week 19.75 hrs

today 

work on ideas for new fine art pieces

sand boxes

Animal

drawing by Edmund Heller and Robert E. Snodgrass 1903

The Galapagos damsel (Azurina eupalama) was a 6 inch damsel that lived in the reefs around the Galapagos and Cocos islands. It was a planktivore and in turn it and a fish in a similar niche Chromis atrilobata were an important source of food for the blue-footed booby. It went extinct in 1982 due to warming of the water as an effect of El Nino. The warming water eliminated the plankton production around the islands for a year and the fish being a planktivore starved. The last sightings of the Galapagos damsel were in 1983 and the fish is now thought to be extinct. Chromis atrilobata survived as it feeds on a greater variety of prey and has a larger range.

Here is a picture of the living fish from the 80's

Devil Flower Mantis

Art

Goal for the week 5.25 hrs

Today

sanding boxes

Animal

photo by Destinys Agent

Today I thought I would cover one of the weird mantis of the world as they are many and worth looking at. The Devil flower mantis (Blepharopsis mendica) is a two and a half inch mantis from north Africa and the Canary islands. They specialize in flying insects which they snap out of the air from a camouflaged position. They are not very long lived the males only live about 6 months and the female can make it about 11 months. The Devil flower mantis pictured above is a nymph as they mature their abdomens straighten out and they grow large spotted wings. They seem to be somewhat popular in captivity among collectors of mantises. One keeper of these insects noted that it was a shame that they could not run on a hamster wheel so they may be very active for mantises (or that person might be odd).

And now a video of one eating a bug