sometimes Pangur gets bored of her toys & starts screaming, so I open a door to Forbidden Territory. it makes her feel sneaky and glad
is there a human trapped inside this weasel
she never ate nobody, not once. humans, in this cat?
I feel as she should open her mouth an speak prophecy. She is such a striking kitty. Like she is the type of cat I would expect to see at the side of elves.
y’all are talking about this cat?
why is that cat so long? did it get caught in a taffy stretcher?
compliments cause her to elongate…she’s growing too long, too powerful
This little
guy is the first one in a series I’d like to call Bio-spheres (I was very happy
when I came up with that name and found it very clever :P) I’d like each one of
them to contain an animal I love (or just love to look at) or alittle
environment with different animals. At the moment I decided to exclude animals
with either fur or feathers for I don’t quite know how to pull that off in that
scale, but I might include them once I found a good technique.
So. On to the Octopus. I made him mostly from
polymer clay (this time it was a brand called pardo of which I got a bunch of
jewel colours from a former job. It was a really, really lovely shade at one
point, but I mostly painted over it so you can’t really see it anymore) but
painted him in a lot of layers to achieve the mottled “skin”. I started off
with another Octopus, which, surprise, surprise, turned out a bit too big for
the sphere I envisioned, which turned out to be awesome, though, cause I was
able to play around with painting techniques, and especially with the suckers.
I originally planned to make them in polymer clay too, but then decided that I
don’t want to get crazy yet. So I ended up painting first a little dot of paint
and then taking paint away with a very fine dotting tool. To complete the piece
I added a little bit of sand and small rocks to the base. The Pendant measures
a bit more then 30 mm, the dome itself measures 25. The pictures truly don’t do
this piece justice.
Wulver: a werewolf in Shetland, that is said to have had the body of a man with a wolf’s head. It was reported to have left fish on the windowsills of poor families.
That is the nicest Werewolf legend I’ve ever heard of.
Now I wish I could draw because I’d love to draw this.
Plantigrade vs. Digitigrade Carnivores - the Polar Bear and the African Lion
The foot structure of many animals plays a critical role in their locomotion and environmental niche, and in carnivores, the clear distinction between plantigrade (walking with the podials and metatarsals both flat on the ground) and digitigrade (walking on the toes, with the heel and wrist permanently raised) animals is most evident.
In plantigrade beasts - which include humans, many rodents, bears, racoons, and opossums - the larger surface area that the many bones provide can act as both a stabilizer and a very effective bearer of great weights. In fact, the big ol’ flighted dinosaurs were plantigrade. At the same time, so were the first (and relatively small) mammals, since both of them needed lots of stability in their feet. The weight-bearing ability and stable platform comes at the cost of speed, as the energy and requirements for movement of so many bones and muscles is much greater than digitigrade feet or unguligrade feet.
Digitigrade animals walk on only their toes, leaving their wrists and ankles permanently raised. This affords more speed, much more silent movement. Cats, birds, and dogs are digitigrade. Digitigrade feet evolved long after plantigrade feet, to fit the niche of mid-sized carnivores. However, they cannot effectively sustain large loads, which is why you cannot use a lion as a pack mule. Well, among other reasons. Really, you just don’t want to try using any mid-sized (or large, in the lion’s case) carnivore as a pack mule.
On the Anatomy of Vertebrates. Richard Owen, 1866.
Hank, meet Henry. Henry, meet Hank! These two are so funny, they have become the most unusual pair. Every morning before the Aquarium opens Henry goes inside and sits on the octopus’s tank. The octopus is just as interested in Henry and Henry is with him. #BFF
