necklace pipistrelle

Finally got the sphinx done and documented now I just need to make the rotational mold. We went to a drive-in located in Gibson City and saw "UP". We had arrived very early in Gibson City intending to explore the town. We talked to a person named Norm who ran and international grocery with three large dogs about his time flying burn victims to Airforce bases for medical help. We ended up not finding much so we went to Paxton. In Paxton we met a man running a novelty shop who had built a stone castle.  He rents out the castle for romantic getaways and requested that we mention it's availability especially during the week to the local SCA. He was also intrigued by the idea of vampire or changeling LARPers.

Art

clean the studio enough to access my silicone

put the first coat on the sphinx

make clay

work on the figure with the Anubis mask.

Animal

Photo by pseudolapiz

The necklace pipistrelle (Arielulus torquatus) is a microbat found only in Taiwan. It was recognized as a separate species in 1998 by Csorba & Lee. They are found at an altitude of 1500 meters and mostly eat small insects.

Close up of one bat

Twin head-tailed monster

Animal 

Photo by fossilmike

Dicranurus monstrosus or since Dicranurus translates to twin head-tail, the twin-head tailed monster was a lower Devonian trilobite with an unusual array of spines. It looks a bit like the shadow ships from Babylon 5 except with ram horns. It is thought that the spines may have been for defense against early jawed fish such as smaller relatives of the Dunkleosteus. The spines also may have been useful for holding the trilobite out of the mud. They were found between Euramerica and Gondwanaland. Most of the fossils of this species today are found in Morocco. They are very popular with trilobite collectors

Giant Palouse Earthworm

Art

goal for the week 15hrs

Animal

In the Palouse area of Idaho and Washington state there is a 3ft white earthworm that smells of lilies. The giant worm also will spit as a defense mechanism. The giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) was believed extinct but a specimen was recovered in 2005 along with several reliable sightings. Since it was rediscovered many conservation groups would like to list it as an endangered species as its habitat is disappearing and it was once described as abundant and is now is very rare. The U.S Fish and Wildlife service has rejected the request of these groups to list the worm citing lack of evidence. It has been implicated that the U.S Fish and Wildlife service's intentions were more politically motivated in rejecting the worm then based on lack of evidence.

Yellow Spotted Boxfish

We had another big brown bat get in today while I was at work it was in my room. Jenn ended up catching it in a blanket on the bed. It was apparently really cute.

Art

Goal for the week 15hrs

Animal

Photo by seotaro

The yellow spotted boxfish (Ostracion cubicus) is probably one of the truest examples of a boxfish being cubical. They are very geometric and they can grow to about the size of a football. They are less oddly shaped when fully mature. When frightened they can release a potent toxin that might explain their bright coloration. They are reasonably popular in the aquarium trade despite the fact they need over a 100 gallon tank, have never bred in captivity, and can kill all of your other fish if they are spooked. In 2006, Mercedes-Benz designed a car based on this fish call the bionic it too is very square and yellow.

feathered tree viper

Art

Goal for the week 17hrs

try to finish the sphinx

Animal

Photo by Al Coritz

The feathered tree viper (Atheris hispida) is a small strange viper from central Africa. They have these long scales that bristle off their body in a way that one usually only sees in drawing of dragons and not so much in actual reptiles.  Like the Amazonian snail eater I mentioned a few weeks ago these also seems to specialize in soft bodied invertebrates. They tend to hang out basking on the very tops of trees. They do very poorly in captivity with a very high mortality rate even among experienced keepers.

Close up of their dragon-like head

Video of someone fussing over several feathered tree vipers and the vipers doing threat displays

Southern Cassowary

I received a Zeraphine cd that I ordered from Russia today. One of the postal services along the way had actually punched a hole in the package to look at the contents.

Art

goal for the week 19hrs

still working on the sphinx

Animal 

Photo by Whirling Phoenix

I've had a few people ask me what a cassowary was since talking about having one guard an MDF. I'm kind of confused by this as I thought cassowaries were charismatic well known animals. So, I'll go with the Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) as it is the largest and most iconic cassowary of the three current species. They are the second heaviest bird and the largest Asian bird. While they are quite dangerous birds and there are many known attacks by captive cassowaries the bit about them disemboweling intruders was not very likely. It's possible that they could disembowel someone with a kick it has never been recorded happening. Despite this people have been keeping captive cassowaries for food and quills for a long time. Their call is very low being one of the lowest calls among birds. They can eat several fruits that are poisonous to other animals.  They also have quite a bit of mythology but that will probably be a separate entry at some point.

A video of a Cassowary kicking a tree in some sort of defensive display

Call recording

Coquerel's Sifaka

Art

stuff

Animal

Photo by Michael Hogan

Coquerel's Sifaka (Propithecus coquereli) is one of nine known species of sifaka all of which are found on the island of Madagascar they are very genetically distinct from other lemurs as a group. Coquerel's Sifakas are very matriarchal and even sub-adult females are dominant over males. Females have preferential access to food sources and males will wait until the group of females have moved on from a tree before moving into feed. They also have an interesting way of getting around on the ground in that they jump forward like kangaroos. In some regions of Madagascar killing and eating these sifakas is considered a fady (taboo) but I can't seem to find the reason why which is too bad I have a feeling there is a story there.

cute video of a Coquerel's Sifaka

Leedsichthys problematicus

Art

Goal for the week 15hrs

Today

finish the sphinx

make clay

put first coat of silicone on the sphinx

work on figure with anubis mask

Animal

Drawing by Dmitry Bogdanov

Leedsichthys problematicus was a giant fish filter feeding fish from the middle Jurassic. They current estimate is that they could grow to around 72 feet in length. They seem to have been fairly capable of defending themselves as individuals have been found with healed Leopleurodon bites. Like the bicher I mentioned early this week, Leedsichthys too was most cartilaginous with some bone. It got the name problematicus due to the fact that it has so many small bones and large chunks of the structure tend not to be preserved due to their being made of cartilage making the skeleton difficult to assemble. In a recent dig in Peterborough where they recovered a large fairly complete skeleton they excavated over 2100 bones.

Acteon beetle

Still strangely depressed. Network + studying is coming along.

Art

goal for the week 17hrs

Today

work on and hopefully finish sphinx

Animal

Photo by photo.gustavomorejon.com

The Acteon beetle (Megasoma acteon) is one of the world's heaviest insects. It might well be the heaviest but that seems to be open to debate. For example gravid giant wetas (really, really big crickets) are heavier, but does it count if it is only heavier when gravid... stuff like that. They are about 4 inches long and quite bulky. Acteon beetles are native to northwestern South America, and I've not found anything that directly says they are found in the rain forest but they seem to thrive in a deep mulch with 90% humidity so I'm guessing. They are carpusluar and mainly found in the evenings between January and November. Vegitation and rotting wood seem to be their main food sources. Males and Females differ greatly as the males have three prominant horns one on their head and two off their thorax. The females have no horns. They are very strong beetles and can easily rip through screen mesh and their exoskeleton is described as thick almost crab-like. Apparently if placed on their back on a smooth surface they can not right themselves and can die if left in that position. The larva which are also quite large and can weigh as much as 1/12500th of a ton, also the larval stage is much longer then the adult stage. The adults tend to live 100-150 days while the larva take 3 years to reach maturity. Even their eggs are quite large often exceeding 2 inches in lenght beforh hatching. The eggs have a very long incubation period for an insect taking up to a month to hatch.

Megasoma Acteon was described by Linneaus in 1758, and retains its original name. This is significant as Linneaus was the one that developed the basis of the taxonomic system used today. Carl Linneaus is known as "the father of Taxonomy" he developed the concepts of hiearchical classification and binomial nomerclature still in use today. He also under went the giant task of trying to classify all known life. Most of his of his original classifications have been disputed, further examined, and changed. So the Acteon Beetle has one of the oldest scientific names that is still in use. This beetle's name probably references mythology, Linneaus seems to have used a lot of gods and mythological figures in the names he gave. For example another beetle with a vaguely canine-like head in the genus Megasoma, that was named by Linneaus is Megasoma anubis. Megasoma acteon probably came from the story of Actaeon the hunter (Acteon in french), who came upon Diana goddess of the hunt bathing in the forest. Diana was angered that Actaeon had seen her and turned him into a stag, which was dismembered by his own hounds. The beetle was probably named Megasoma acteon to refer to the stag-like horns of its thorax.

Grey bicher

Art

Goal for the week 17.5 hrs

Today work on sphinx

Animal

Photo by ictheostega

I ran into these guys for the first time while picking up crickets at a Petsmart labeled as "Dinosaur eels" and thought they were very oddly built fish with all of the spikey little fins in back. The grey bicher (Polypterus senegalus) is an African fish that is from an ancient group of fishes that are mostly cartilaginous but have some bone.  They also have rudimentary lungs and so breathe a little bit from the air as well as the water. One of their lungs stretches almost the entire length of their body. Here is an animation (towards the bottom of the page) that shows that.  The grey bicher also has very well armored scales that may be inspiring future military armor. 

Red spotted newt

In the network + 2009 book I've been reading they go a bit overboard with the security section. They start out perfectly reasonably with firewalls, various network set ups, and encryption and then they moved to mantraps, 8ft fences with razor wire, and guard dogs. I suppose hackers would not be expecting a guard dog in the MDF. They open the dog suddenly an angry German Shepard flies out at them. The night crew and I at work then talked about other animals what could guard and MDF. We went through the usual big cats, poisonous snakes, and crocodiles. We eventually decided that the Cassowary might be the best choice as they would first confuse and then eviscerate the intruder.  

Art

Goal for the week 17hrs

work on the sphinx.

Animal

Photo by Janet.powell

The red spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens) is a mildly toxic newt that has an interesting life cycle. They start out aquatic like other amphibians, then they go through a very cute terrestrial stage where they are tiny bright red newts that disperse to other ponds, and once they find a pond they return to a fully aquatic stage as adults and loose most of their bright coloration. The red spotted newt's range some how just misses us, but they can be found in northern and southern illinois.

Horned screamer

Art

goal for the week 18hrs

Work on sphinx

Animal

Photo by gennaropascale.com

The horned screamer (Anhima cornuta) is a relative of waterfowl that lives in tropical South America. It has a horn-like corneous that projects from the center of it's forehead and it has sharp spurs on its wings. The wing spurs are used in territorial disputes the spur break off frequently during these fights but will re-grow later. They are said to form monogamous pairs. Typically, they are not eaten by humans because their flesh is full of air sacs and considered unpalatable. 

Sounds of their calls 

Fishing cat

Stuart and I got a couple of foam swords yesterday to practice with and probably confused our neighbors.

Art

work on the sphinx

Animal 

Photo by Muzina_shanghai

The fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is an endangered lynx-sized cat from that ranges from Pakistan to southern Asia. They are said to be extremely ferocious for their size it was reported by (Edward?) Blyth that one he had captured had broken out of its cage into the leopard enclosure next to it and killed the leopard at least twice its size. They eat mostly fish and aquatic animals, tend to live in marshes, and are having a hard time due to habitat destruction. Their claws are very long and can not be fully retracted in the front and their feet are somewhat webbed. They are said to be able to pull their ears so closely to their heads in an effort to keep water out of them that they resemble otters.

video of fishing cats fishing

The Golden Toad

Art

Goal for the week-not happening 

Today 

Work on the sphinx

Animal

The coming climate change is likely to be causing quite a few extinctions, the golden toad (Bufo periglenes) has the honor of being the first extinction definitely attributable to global warming. They bred in mass in small pools in the cloud forests of Costa Rica. The effects of an effects of El Niño-Southern Oscillation caused these pools to dry up for several years killing all of the toad's young. They have not been seen since 1989.

Lolonandriana

For the record My pancreas (like Rick's) has no medicinal benefits.

Art

goal for the week 18.5 hr

work on the sphinx

Animal

photo by Cody Hough 

The Lolonandriana (Chrysiridia rhiphearia) is a moth that is native to Madagascar and migrates to Asia it is often considered one of the most striking Lepidoptera. It does not have pigment, its color instead comes from interference on it's wing scales so it is a bit difficult to get a true impression of the moth from photographs but if you have seen much dichroic glass you can probably get the idea. The moth's bright colors are a warning of its toxicity. Some of the Native Malagasy believe that this moth is a form that their dead ancestors souls would take to inhabit the earth, so to destroy the moth would be an attack on their ancestors. I would guess that they were just thrilled to death by all of the vast interest by butterfly collectors, can't find any real information on how that went.

Hairyfish

feeling kind of depressed lately, Stuart too.

Art

goal for the week 19hrs

today

maybe paint some boxes

Animal

The Hairyfish (Mirapinna esau) is a fish with hair-like projections covering it's body that was found near the Azores islands in 1956. The species is known from only one collected female specimen that was a little over 2 inches long . They are thought to live in open water at about 13,000 feet below the surface. It was grouped with the tapetail whalefish and is thought to eat mostly copepods. The species was named after the biblical character Esau whose defining characteristics seem to be that he was hairy and had sort of a lentil fixation. There is currently debate as to whether this fish is a separate species from Procetichthys kreffti (another whalefish which is also known from only one specimen) or if it is the post-larva form of P.kreffti. They are occasionally mentioned when people are discussing legendary fur bearing trout as an actual "fur" bearing fish.

Black Tree Monitor

Art

Goal for the week 19.5hrs

work on the sphinx

Animal

Photo by Robert Lawton

The black tree monitor (Varanus beccarii) is a 3 or 4 ft arboreal monitor from the Aru Islands of New Guinea. It was once thought to be a subspecies of the green tree monitor but is currently considered to be a separate species. Locally they are called "Waweyaro" the Kamoro supposedly do not eat them though I can't find a reason why. They have prehensile tail that assists them in climbing. It has been commented that they are reasonably intelligent for lizards. They are sometimes found in the pet trade but they are uncommon and the individuals tend to be wild caught as they are difficult to breed in captivity. 

The Pied Kingfisher

Things went reasonably well with my parents. I ended up taking them to the Gordyville flea market as my mother wanted to look for antiques. We did not find any but they did have a lot of tiny puppies which went over well with her.

Art

Goal for the week 20 hrs

Today 

work on the sphinx

Animal

photo by aftab.(away)

The pied kingfisher (Ceryle rudis) is the world's third most common kingfisher and it is native to Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. One of their closest relatives is the American green kingfisher and it is possible that they are descended from a population of them that crossed the Atlantic about a million years ago, but this is debated. Unlike other kingfishers they hunt in both fresh and salt water (the one pictured seems to be eating a cichlid).  They are the largest birds that can sustain a hover and will often hover as part of their fish hunting procedure. Three or four times a day they will cough up a pellet of undigested fish bones. It is thought that they have excellent color vision and can see into the ultraviolet range. They are also not terribly afraid of humans and tame well if fed.

Short video about their fish hunting behavior

Springhare

My parents are coming to Champaign today. Hopefully that will go alright.

Art

off

Animal

The Springhare (Pedetes capensis) is the only member of its family it is an eight pound south african rodent resembling a small kangaroo or rabbit. Generally they get around by hopping not unlike a kangaroo and they can leap up to 6 feet. They spends a good deal of their time standing up right and have a serious over bite even for a rodent. Their lifespan is generally about 15 years and they take 2 years to reach maturity. Springhare were threatened for a time but have recovered, they now can occasionally be found as exotic pets.

Iberomesornis romerali

Today was sort of mind numbing at work. It should be slowing down with finals wrapping up. Maybe I will try to get out of the house tonight. Stuart and I got into a strangely long conversation about clove cigarette smell last night. I do have kind of a weird story regarding that. I was walking to the ceramics lab  during the period when I was getting my BA and it was way out in the middle of no-where in some metal shacks near the agriculture departments test fields and livestock. It was just dark and there was no breeze and I was on a road between a large empty field and a tiny cemetery. I hit this patch of clove cigarette smell on the middle of the road that was about ten feet in diameter and intensely strong like someone had smoked a whole pack of them. It was very concentrated to this one little spot. There was no one around and it really was not a good place to have done so no where to sit it was just in this big empty field no where near the entrance to the cemetery and not inside it at all. It was kind of a mystery did someone just stop in the middle of this road smoke multiple cloves then move on, stop smoke a bunch of cigarettes and drop a bottle of essential oil, invisible goth? I probably need better mysteries.

Art

still off

Animal

Iberomesornis romerali was an enantiornithine bird from the early Cretaceous that was found in Spain in 1985. It was about the size of a sparrow and while it retained a few unbirdlike characteristics like wing claws and teeth it was capable of true flight. Enantiornithine birds are also different from modern birds also in that their shoulder bones have a concave-convex configuration that is the inverse of modern birds.

The Blue Dragon

I went to Stitches tonight. Tonight we worried Rick that Bill may be trying to steal his pancreas with the aid of two priests. We also had a very drunk man ask us if we were alive. 

Art

still off

Animal

photo by tarotastic

The blue dragon (Glaucus Atlanticus) is the only sea slug in the genus Glaucus, it travels along upside-down being held aloft by a gas bubble in it's stomach. It is a part of a group of organisms dubbed "the blue fleet" by Sir Alistair Hardy. They are open ocean invertebrates that travel around colonies of Portuguese man-o-wars and other Cnidarians being carried by the wind. The blue dragon is much smaller then the Portuguese man-o-war but is actually one of it's predators, it is completely immune to the venom. Upon eating a Portuguese man-o-war it actually stores the venom in at the tip of it's cerata, those wing-like structures, in a more concentrated form which makes it far more venomous then the man-o-war. The name Glaucus comes from a greek sea god translate to the color of the sea.

Glowlight Tetra

It looks like my parents will be coming to Champaign this Sunday.

Art

still off

Animal

Photo by gonzalovalenzuela

The glowlight tetra (Hemigrammus erythrozonus) is a small brightly colored schooling tetra from the Essequibo River in South America. They are reasonably popular as aquarium fish as they are brightly colored, hardy, unaggressive and breed readily in captivity. Interestingly they also have an alarm chemical in their body, so that when they are eaten by predatory fish the fish excudes pheromones that alert other glowlight tetras. This was tested using small shoals of glow light tetras and exposing them to Jack Dempsey cichlids with different diets. The tetras had a very different response to Jack dempseys that had not eaten glowlight tetras. Glowlight tetras that sensed these pheromones began flicking their fins to alert the shoal of the predator. In some cases it was found that the predators were also deterred by the fin flicking behavior.

Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman

Not feeling well tonight I think I'm coming down with something. Went to the goth event thing at c-street last night.  It was probably Greg's last time DJing in Champaign. They randomly had some guy eating fire and walking on broken glass it was a friend of Jill's I think. 

Art

Still off

Animal

photo by Grufnik

Cuvier's Dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus) is the smallest of the crocodilians only reaching a length of about 3 feet. This make them quite popular as pets as unlike other crocodilians they stay a somewhat manageable size. They tend to be very aggressive for crocodilians in captivity, but have bred in captivity and can live up to 40 years. They tend to live in rivers and streams in north eastern South America it is theorized that their small size helps them to navigate through faster running water. They have the most bony plates of any crocodilian and they have some of the strongest stomach acid found in any known vertebrate.

Picture of a skeleton

Red-billed Quelea

Art

taking a week off to deal with personal things and cleaning

Animal

Photo by Alastair Rae

The red-billed Quelea (Quelea quelea) is one of the world's most populace wild birds with an adult breeding population of 1.5 billion. They are found over most of sub-Saharan Africa excluding areas with dense rainforest. They can form flocks of over 1 million birds that will feed in a group. They will prey on insects during the breeding season but most of the year they tend to eat grass seeds. Red-billed quelea have been unpopular with agriculture for thousands of years as they occasionally will feed on farm fields in this manner stripping them of all of their grain. Due to their swarming behavior they are also called locust birds. People have used fairly extreme measures try to control them such as dynamite, fire bombs, acids, and all manner of poisons, farmers kill roughly 200 million of them a year, not to mention a lot of other things.

Video of a red-billed Quelea flock

Western Tree Hyrax

I may take a few days off of art to take care of life and moving stuff. 

Art

goal for the week (not going to happen)

Animal

Photo by Valerius Tygart

The western tree Hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis) is a small mammal from western and central Africa that of the other living mammals today (besides other hyraxes) is most closely related to elephants. Hyraxes are not directly related to elephants but represent a different branch of mammals that developed off of the prehistoric giant hyracoids. Like elephants they have similar foot pads and toenails, there are also skeletal similarities. Hyraxes also have enlarged incisors which are very rodent-like. Tree hyraxes are arboreal and can use their foot pads to cling to branches. Unlike other hyraxes the western tree hyrax is mostly nocturnal. They are mostly herbivores but will on occasion also eat insects. Chimpanzees in Bossou Guinea have occasionally been observed to capture western tree hyraxes then carry them around for several hours occasionally grooming the hyrax and the Chimpanzees were not observed eating the hyraxes durning these sessions.

Tree Hyrax skull showing the very rodent-like incisors that in more elephant like animals developed into tusks.

Here is a video of one climbing a tree.

Falkland island Fox

Art

goal for the week 15.5 hrs

Today

work on the sphinx

Animal

While I'm on depressing island wildlife. The Falkland island Fox (Dusicyon australis) was the only native land mammal of the Falkland islands and the only member of its genus, it is also the first canine driven to extinction in modern times. It is thought that it may be related to the coyote and perhaps even could have been the coyote's progenitor. There are many theories as to how it got to the Falkland islands. They were noted to be tame and curious which may be why its genus name Dusicyon means "foolish dog" it was not uncommon for trappers to lure them close with a piece of meat and then stab them to death. Settlers regarded them as a threat to their sheep and began a campaign of poisoning and trapping which wiped all of them out. The last Falkland island fox was shot in 1876, they were completely extinct 169 years after their initial discovery.