Raturday.

Another edition of Rats Past. Agnes, Amelia’s sister, was firmly in the Wicked Smart McSmartypants category. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t figure out, and it never took her very long to figure anything out, either. Agnes was also a generally happy, affectionate girl too. She would raise the ire and jealousy of all the others every Ratmas though, because she was the only one who figured out the easy way to get the mineral chews – you just cut the thread!

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© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

There Be Whale Here!

From “the”, wonderful photos of a humpback whale. Exciting! Click for full size.

1) What one sees most of the time: just a large, humped back after it surfaces, blows, inhales, and does a shallow dive.

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2) Showing its flukes – normally (always?) seen just before a deep dive (when it will feed). This is one of the species’ signatures, almost no other large species shows the tail consistently before sounding.

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3) …and, every once in a while, a tour will be very, very lucky, and see the whale perform a series of saltos like this; it did this about 7-8 times in a row, this was the only one I caught clearly (despite the evidently calm seas, it wasn’t entirely flat – the boat was doing irregular “pitches” of about 50 cm in amplitude).  Just breathtaking.

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Photos taken off St. Anthony, NL, Canada, July 28 2016.

© “the”, all rights reserved.

Raturday

Velma and Rémy. Velma is only a week younger than Rémy, but she’s Violette’s babe, and Violette is a ‘small’ rat. (She’s not small now, Vi is a serious eater.) Velma seems to have mum’s appetite, so I expect she’ll catch up soon enough. Click for full size.

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© C. Ford. All rights reserved.

Takumi Kama.

I’m a at a bit of a loss as to where to start with this most wonderful artist, who has a pointed and humorous take on many subjects. Okay, I have to start with the McD’s Fries:

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This wonderful work is one of many which can be seen here. Takumi Kama also has two pieces which are what I would refer to as Turtle Island, and they are delightful.

“I am terrified of high school girls,” admits artist Takumi Kama. “If I encounter a group of them on a train there is a high possibility I will escape to another car.” And Kama surely isn’t alone in his fears.

In Japan, this adolescent subset of beings known as joshi kōsei (女子高生) are fetishized and eroticized to the extreme in all types of media. But instead of hiding from his fears, like he normally would do, Kama has decided to confront them head on in the only way he knows how: by creating intriguing anthropomorphic portraits of schoolgirl animals.

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More of these portraits can be seen here.

Then, it’s the leaf insects.

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To avoid becoming prey, leaf insects use mimicry to blend into their surroundings. But in Takumi Kama’s imagined future, when the insect’s natural environment has been completely destroyed, these masters of camouflage will have no choice but to move in with those who took away their home.

They may not look it, by Takumi Kama’s insects are 2D, and you can see more here.