May is crab month for #InsertAnInvert2024 🦀 & the first prompt is “true crab.” Time after time shrimp like crustaceans have evolved crablike forms (through a process called carcinization) & do a good job of pretending to be crabs, but this odd looking fellow is the real deal, a true crab. My red frog crab (Ranina ranina), also known as a spanner crab or Huỳnh Đế crab, is hand-printed on Japanese kozo paper. 🧵1/n #linocut#printmaking#crustacean#crab#frogCrab#MastoArt#wildlifeArt
My beaver lino block print is hand printed on delicate, translucent, handmade Japanese paper with a deckle edge. This is a North American beaver (Castor canadensis), symbol of Canada.
April 7 is International Beaver Day. While a species of “least concern” according to the IUCN Red List of mammals, numbers of NA beavers have been literally decimated since colonization. 🧵1/2
A "Scaldicetus" I made for the Steinkern Magazine. "Scaldicetus" is considered to be a wastebasket taxon, consisting of various prehistoric sperm whales, often used as a name for tooth fossils.
March is seashells month for #InsertAnInvert2024, starting with infauna or animals which live inside the sediment, burrowing into it.
Corculum cardissa, the heart cockle, is a species of marine bivalve mollusc in the family Cardiidae found in the Indo-Pacific. If viewed from the side, it looks like a heart. There is a lot of colour variation in shells, but they often have patterns in coral pink like this. 🧵1/
A modern sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus) and its 5 m long relative Carcharias cuspidatus from the Oligocene. The size is known from a partial skeleton that was found near Rauenberg in Baden-Württemberg.
It’s the day to celebrate the superb owls! All owls 🦉 are superb but here are some local favourites.
I love the whimsical terms of venery for groups of animals and have an ongoing series of #linocut#termsOfVenery prints. For my parliament of owls I made two columns of local owls - you can decide for yourself which are the government an which the loyal opposition in this parliament!