Goblin Shark

I saw a brown recluse in the attic and I managed to let it outside. Posts are going to be kind of irregular I'm moving.

Art

I'm not sure.

Animal

Photo by Peter Halasz

The goblin shark is a pinkish deep sea shark with a protrusible jaw that has been found in many places around the world. The large snout contains electro-sensitive organs which it uses to find prey. It was called a "tenguzame" by Japanese fishermen as their long snout resembled the long noses of certain tengu. They have no swim bladder like a basking shark. So far, they have not done well in captivity the longest one has survived in captive conditions being only a week.

Video of a goblin shark and its odd bite.

Blue Tongued Skink

packing

Art

I'm not sure still need to raku fire stuff and coat the sphinx

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8007281@N08/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

The blue tongued skink (Tiliqua scinoides) is a 2ft skink from Australia. As their name implies they have a bright blue tongue which they use for threat displays. When threatened they will puff up their body to appear larger and stick out their alarming blue tongue. It is thought that their display may also mimic a death adder's as they are similar in coloration and share the same range. Blue tongued skinks are omnivores some have a particular fondness for snails. They give birth to live young after the eggs have developed inside their body, some give birth to more then 10 offspring at a time. They are very common in the pet trade and commonly captive bred. Most of the ones I've met tend to have good natures and they tend to be reasonably hardy.

Video of a blue tongued skink eating peas

Bar Tailed Godwit

Lots of stress. Packing.

Art

Now that I have a nice protective layer on the sphinx divide the pieces of the mold off and put a coat on one piece

glaze rabbit and fly

raku fire rabbit and fly

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmrfsc/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The bar tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri) breeds in Alaska and then winters in Australia. They complete this migration in one non-stop flight of over 6400 miles it can take them 175 hours. This is the longest non-stop flight known in any bird and they do this without feeding. Before they leave they double their body weight yet despite all the physical activity they do not arrive in Australia completely emaciated. Around the time of the flight their internal food processing organs shrink greatly in size and it is thought that this helps to balance out the new fat reserves they have just put on. The other subspecies have similarly long migrations ssp.lapponica goes from Scandinavia to southern Africa and ssp.menzbieri goes from Northern Asia to New Zealand.

Greater Glider

Lost my connection yesterday. We went to goth night and were vaguely social. Rick got a giant antique scythe that he is planning to hang on his wall.

Art

put a coat of silicone on the sphinx

glaze rabbit and soldier fly parts

raku fire rabbit and soldier fly parts

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozjulian/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

The greater glider (Petauroides volans) is a gliding possum from Australia, and it's coloration and markings show a great deal of variety. It has been observed to be able to glide up to 120 feet. They are competitors of the Koala as they too feed almost exculsively on Eucalyptus leaves.

Pig Footed Bandicoot

I tested the welder last night and it still works that is good.

Art

put another coat of silicone on the sphinx

Animal

The pig footed bandicoot (Chaeropus ecaudatus) is in my opinion the most under appreciated of the recently extinct mammals. It was a small herbivorous marsupial with a long snout, a bulky body and extremely tiny fragile legs with hooves. It was about the size of a kitten. Recently they seem to have gotten their first cryptozoologist when someone thought they heard their mating call in an AC/DC video.

photo of stuffed specimen's odd feet

Knobbed Argonaut

I tested some of the silicone last night. I found that the kicker had done something odd and I was concerned about it still curing. To test it I ended up making a mold of some turkey vertebrae I had sitting around. I'm sure I can find a use for copies of those.

Art

add a coat of silicone to the sphinx

Animal

The knobbed argonaut (Argonauta nodosa) is not a type of nautilus but a type of octopus that also has a shell that the female swims around in. The paper thin shell is actually an egg case that only females of this species create. They display extreme sexual dimorphism males are under 1 inch long, while females can exceed 4 inches. They live in the open ocean in the southern hemisphere and occur most frequently around Australia. There shells are highly prized by collectors as they are rare and fragile.

A much better picture of one

Spotted Garden Eel

I finally found that silicone.

Art

add a coat of silicone to the sphinx

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goyaboy/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Spotted garden eel (Heteroconger hassi) forms impressive colonies with hundreds of individuals in the western Pacific. They were not discovered until scuba diving became popular in 1959, they tend to be easily spooked and pull themselves back into their burrows when disturbed.

Texas Threadsnake

Art

waiting on the kiln

Animal

Photo by LA Dawson

The Texas threadsnake (Leptotyphlops dulcis) is a small burrowing snake from the southwest United States and Mexico. They are well adapted to life underground and only surface when their habitat floods. Their eyes have been reduced to vestigial eyespots. Eastern screech owls will catch these snake alive and release the in their nests. The snake prey on larva and nest debris in the nest that might be detrimental to the baby owls. Owls with a threadsnake in their nests grew faster and had a lower mortality rate.

Crested Auklet

Art

Still carving the rabbit

Animal

The crested auklet (Aethia cristatella) nests in giant colonies numbering sometimes over 1 million birds in the Bering Sea. They are said to smell strongly like tangerines, so strongly in fact that humans can smell crested auklet colonies for miles. It is thought that the birds use the scent to find their colonies. Crested auklets eat mostly very small invertebrates such as krill and copepods.

Sun Bear

It's a shame more apartment listings don't add the feature "grimy unfinished basement" (even better "with floor drain") in their list of features. I've been kind of spoiled in terms of studio space.

Art

still carving the rabbit

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44603071@N00/ / CC BY 2.0

The sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) is one of the smallest bears and is native to southeast Asia. They have an unusually long tongues that they use to extract honey from bee hives and termites. Among bears they are the most adept at climbing trees their back legs are specialized for climbing with well developed muscle around their tibia. They are not doing terrible well in the wild due to habitat destruction and over hunting. It does not help that their bile is prized as a traditional treatment for liver ailments.

Video of a sun bear cub

Sloan's Urania

We have a lot of packing to do. I'm also going to probably have to give up a lot of the found objects I've gathered in the studio. Hopefully I will find some people that could use boxes of high quality garbage.

Art

still carving the rabbit

Hopefully bisque firing the rabbit and soldier fly

Animal

Sloan's Urania (Urania sloanus) was a day flying moth with interference based colors similar in appearance to the Lolonandriana I mentioned a while ago. It was native to Jamaica and has not been seen since 1895. It is thought that it was wiped out as the Jamaican low land forests were cleared for farm land. Currently only one preserved specimen of the moth exists in the Peale collection at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. It was named after the Muse Urania that specialized in astronomy and astrology.

Fire Beetle

Art

carve rabbit

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctam/ / CC BY 2.0

The fire beetle (Pyrophorus noctilucus) has the brightest bioluminescence of any insect. It is bright enough to read by at 45 millilamberts. Unlike a firefly it can not turn off it's bioluminescence but it can brighten and dim. The bioluminescent spots are on it's thorax and resemble LED's. It is native to Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.

Atlantic Croaker

Big life changes this weekend.

Art

carve rabbit

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88158121@N00/ / CC BY 2.0

The Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) is a member of the drum family that occurs along the east coast of the United States. They are the loudest of the drums and produce sound by vibrating their swim bladders with special sonic muscles. They create sounds for a number of reasons most often to attract mates or when they are distressed, they have also been observed to make a knocking sound in the presence of juveniles. They are an important food fish and as far as saltwater food fish go are doing reasonably well (declining but in a less rapid way then many) and not caught in a hideously destructive manner. On the downside they are full of PCBs. They breed quickly and grow to breeding age at around 2 years, though they can live for 6 to 8 years.

Sound of an Atlantic croaker croaking

Sorry forgot to mention I won't be posting until Monday or so as I will not have access.

Malagasy Rainbow Frog

I may be posted in a not very regular manner for the next month and a half. We are doing a long distance move soon and I will likely have a few periods where I have no internet connection. (It is also going to cut into the Art quite a bit). Things should get back to normal after that.

Art

work on ceramic parts of rabbit and not flower but soldier fly

Animal

Photo by Franco Andreone

The Malagasy rainbow frog (Scaphiophryne gottlebei) lives in narrow sandy canyons in the Isalo Massif area of Madagascar. They burrow in the sandy substrate much of the time and will climb the vertical rocky walls of the canyons they live in for several meters. Tadpoles of this species have a psammonektonic feeding behavior durning the day the sit along the bottom at a 45 degree angle and filter feed on the substrate then at night they swim freely feeding as well. They are critically endangered for a variety of reasons habitat destruction logging, fire, and overgrazing being the big one. There is also a great deal of concern about sapphire mining activities in their range. It has also been determined that a significant cap needs to be put on the number of individuals collected for the pet trade the Edge suggests no more then 1000 individuals per year. While they recover very well from individual predation their range is too small to sustain the level of collection that currently occurs, so it is currently very damaging. While they have not yet successfully bred and fully reared in captivity it is thought that there is reasonably good potential that they can be bred in captive conditions, it is the hoped that extremely limited collection will allow a breeding captive population to be established.

Link to the Edge amphibian and weird mammal conservation charity

sociable weaver

Art

begin sculpting the ceramic parts of the rabbit and flower fly

Animal

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thunderstar/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The sociable weaver (Philetairus socius) is native to Southern Africa. They build enormous communal nests that may house up to 500 birds. The nests can represent 1000's of hours of labor and can last for up to 100 years. Some examples have been recorded to be up to 13 feet tall and 24 feet across split up in to individual apartments. On occasion other birds such as the pygmy falcon (Polihierax semitorquatus) will also take up residence in the nests.

Asian Small Clawed Otter

finished the cricket

Art

start the rabbit and flower fly

Animal

Photo by guppiecat

The Asian small clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea) is the smallest of the the otters. It is native to southern Asia and tend to live in small groups of about 12 individuals. They climb well, I once saw several of them at a zoo scale the chain link side of their enclosure. Their claws are very short and fingernail-like this is said to give them greater manual dexterity then most otters. It has been recorded that they have 12 different vocalizations they communicate with.

Video with baby Asian small clawed otters

Dunkleosteus

Sadly the catfish does not seem to have turned out.

Art

paint the cricket

Animal

Drawing by Frederik Spindler

When I worked at Taylor Studios the company that made museum exhibits, they kind of had a prehistoric totem animal, it was on everything. That animal was the Dunkleosteus, a giant Devonian fish about the size of a school bus. It is notable for having the strongest jaw strength of any animal and eating funny looking sharks. There was a large mural of it in the hall, and a picture of one they had sculpted on the truck. It was in the brochure and on the website. They had a skull in the office and molds in back. I have personally cleaned lugged and organized on a shelf their silicone dunkleosteus love. I'm not sure why the obsession but Taylor studios really likes the Dunkleosteus I really think more companies need an inexplicable prehistoric totem animal.

Curved Spiny Spider

Art

paint the cricket

Animal

photo by Malaysian Spiders

The curved spiny spider (Gasteracantha arcuata) is a small orb weaver with a spiny abdomen from southeast Asia. They are sexually dimorphic, the males are much smaller and lack the giant horns. It is thought that the horns make them less palatable to predators. They have a tendency to build their webs in places where they might be disturbed by flying birds so they will actually build visible tuffs of silk into the web, it is theorized that these help the birds avoid their webs.

long-tailed sea moth

I think the cricket is working but the catfish less so (maybe a better pose would help). I may continue this experiment where I grab a couple of random things in the studio and make a small piece based on them.

Art

assemble cricket and catfish

Animal

photo by wildsingapore

The long-tailed sea moth (pegasus volitans) is a 3 inch relative of the sea horses. Like a chameleon they can change their coloration, also like a chameleon they can move their eyes independently. They use their enlarged pectoral fins to pull themselves along the bottom.