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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Sarcastic Fringehead

feet

Art

finish carving cricket and cory and fire the pieces

study for the net +

Animal

Photo by Magnus Kjaergaard

The sarcastic fringehead (Neoclinus blanchardi) is a relative of blennies from the southwestern coast of North America. They spend most of their time hiding in crevices and eat small fish and invertebrates. Their mouthes are larger then you would expect. It has been reported that they are fairly aggressive and will occasionally charge scuba divers. 

A video of two sarcastic fringeheads fighting.

Amazon Molly

Stuart and I are going out of town for the weekend. I probably won't be updating this weekend as I don't think I will have net access.

Art

We are going out town so the goal won't really apply this week

work on floor tiles for piece

Animal
The Amazon Molly (Poecilla formosa) is a small live bearing fish from northeastern Mexico and the southern United States. All Amazon mollies are female and nearly genetically identical. They reproduce via gynogenesis and though they must mate with the male of a different species of molly to reproduce they do not include any of the male's genetic material in their offspring.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

White-margin stargazer

Sorry today the post seems to have shown up on the blog long before I finished it. I'm not sure how that happened. I blame a cat.

Art

Goal for the week 17hrs

today

work on the sphinx

Animal

Photo by WLA

The white-margin stargazer (Uranoscopus sulphureus) is found in southern Asia and northern Australia. They spend most of their time buried under the sand with only their eyes and mouth exposed. They have cirri along the edge of their mouth to help keep it clear of sand. On their tongue they have a worm-like structure that they use to lure in fish (that is not what the brown thing is in this picture I think that is just a piece of seaweed). They have two spines above their pectoral fins with which they can administer venom.

Video of one burying itself in the sand

Tripod fish

Art

goal for the week 16.75hrs

Animal 

The tripod fish (Bathypterois grallator) is a very strange fish with three long extentsions off it's pelvic fins and tail that allow it to stand on the ocean floor for extended periods of time. It also has extended pectoral fins that it holds out and waits for small crustaceans to bump into them, then uses to direct the small crustaceans into it's mouth. The fish itself is reasonably small under 14 inches long, but it's fins can span up to 3ft long. All tripod fish are hermaphrodites thus when two tripod fish meet both can spawn, also in extreme cases they can reproduce by themselves. They tend to be found 800-4000 meters on continental ridges.

picture of the real fish

Pituriapis doylei

Art

Goal for the week 12hrs

Today

Sphinx

Animal 

Drawing by Stanton F. Fink

Pituriapis doylei is a jawless fish that lived in Devonian estuaries in what is now Australia.   Very little is known about it's body aside from the fact that it had pectoral fins as it is known most from the head shield that gives it's kind of sawfish-like shape. Given it's shape with that long rostral process that might have had some sort of sensory function and it and the position of it's mouth on the bottom I'm going to take a wild guess that it ate bottom dwelling invertebrates. I've not really found anything speculating on it's behavior. The genus was named Pituri an Australian Aboriginal nicotine-based drug that can put one into a hypnotic state. 

Highfin snake eel

We have a new person at work on my shift I showed him the Elder sign video and he was amused and got the joke, so that bodes well.

Art

goal for the week 15.75

Today

assemble and attach arms for Serenity

paint the new hands to match the rest of the sculpture

perform minor repairs to the rest of the sculpture as needed

If I finish paint boxes

Animal

Photo by Doug.Deep

 The highfin snake eel (Ophichthus altipennis) is a poorly studied burrowing eel that ranges from southern Asia to Northern Australia. There are also reported sightings in Madagascar. They tend to lie in wait almost fully submerged in the sand near reefs. They eat small fish and crustaceans and can grow over 2 feet in length. From the picture I gather they sometimes have a symbiotic relationship with cleaner shrimp. The genus Ophichthus are related to morays but tend to be less aggressive and have a more pointed tail which they use to burrow.

Man o' war fish

Last night the head fell off  the sphinx and got was fairly smashed so I spent most of last night doing reconstructive surgery.  

Art

Goal for the week 17.25 hours

today

do the initial sculpt on a new pair of hands for serenity

paint boxes

Animal

The man-o-war fish (Nomeus gronovii) is a small (8 inch) drift fish that forms a symbiotic relationship with siphonophores like the Portuguese man o' war. It is theorized that it is immune to the Physalia's stinging cells. The fish gains protection from predators by living among the deadly tentacles and it in turn lures other fish into the man o' war. They may also remove debris from the tentacles of the siphonophores and occasionally eat the tentacles. They may leave the man o' war when they leave the juvenile stage. It is the only member of it's genus Nomeus.

photo of the real fish

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.

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. 

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.