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Larval Flounder with Parasite (Wayne Ferrebee, 2020) Ink and colored pencil on paper
The strictures of the world’s new routine have allowed me to finish coloring/inking an ocean-themed drawing I have been working on. Unfortunately, no matter how I adjust the darkness and the contrast, I can’t get it to look like it does in the real world, so I am afraid that you will have to accept this frustrating digital simulacra (aka the jpeg above).
Broadly speaking, this series of flatfish artwork concern the anthropogenic crisis facing Earth life (particularly life in the oceans, which most people tend to overlook and undervalue), however they are not meant as simple political polemics. Hopefully, these artworks reflect the ambiguous relationships within life’s innumerable intersecting webs of symbiosis, predation, and parasitism.
Humankind appears directly in this artwork–but symbolically rendered as sea creatures so that we can contemplate our nature at a level of remove. From left to right, one of these merpeople is the host of a big arrow crab which seems to have stolen his mind (in the manner of a cunning paper octopus hijacking a jellyfish). The larval flounder is itself being ridden (and skeletonized) by a great hungry caterpillar man thing which has sunk its claw legs deep into the bone. A lovely merlady plucks away a parasitic frond from a cookie-cutter shark as a shrimpman hunts and a chickenman stands baffled on the ocean bottom.
As we learn more about life we learn how it melds together, works in tandem, and jumps unexpectedly from species to species, or speciates into new forms. I wish I could describe this better, since to my comprehension it seems like the closest thing to a numinous truth we are likely to encounter in a world where gods are made up. I have abandoned essays to try to portray the sacred and profane ways that lifeforms come together with art. Let me know what you think, and I will see if I can scan it better.
Watermelon Slices (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)
It’s another August day that ineluctably slipped away–so here are some illustrations/doodles from the little book I carry around with me. I drew the garden (?) image above today during lunch (half) hour and then illustrated it on the train and at my desk.I think the little toy ghost is cutting watermelons and peaches held aloft by a penguin, but the real nature of what is going on is uncertain. That many-legged larva is probably not as innocent as it is pretending to be.
Sundry (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)
Here is some detritus from our culture (and beyond) with sea creatures mixed in to prevent our junk from being boring. The three-eyed being peaks in from the future and the ice cream is the promise of sweetness.
Barnyard Characters (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)
Finally here is a goofy scene of barnyard follies with Mother Goose, a handy goblin man, and a clownish ghost. As happens on the farm, they are all surrounded by geese, ducks, and sundry birds, while a cat looks on with incredulity. Enjoy the drawings and let me know if you have any ideas for tomorrow’s blog. it is officially the silly season of journalism and even our twenty-four-hour news cycle is not kicking up much new material. We’ll have to make our own bucolic summer fun!
The Life Cycle of Phengaris rebeli (image via http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com)
It’s October—the month of costumes, masks…and monsters. To start out this year’s Halloween season on an appropriately ghastly note, today’s post deals with a horrifying creature which relies upon disguise to feed itself: namely, the Mountain Alcon Blue butterfly (Phengaris rebeli).
Native to temperate grasslands of Central Europe, the Mountain Alcon Blue has silvery blue which are stippled in little black spots with delicate white edges. The butterfly flits harmlessly about in gentle meadows, finds a mate, and then the female lays her eggs on a pretty gentian flower.
Aww, it’s on a pretty flower (Photo by Tristan Lafranchis)
So why is this delicate alpine beauty a creature of nightmares? When the Mountain Alcon blue larva hatches, it eats the gentian until it reaches a certain size whereupon it falls to the ground and releases an allomone—a deceptive chemical which makes it seem identical to an ant larva. Foraging ants discover the caterpillar and tenderly carry it deep within the protection of the ant hive to the nursery room where the ant larvae are fed and cared for. Then the caterpillar reveals another dark talent: it produces a sound which perfectly mimics the ant queen. Subject to this all-powerful voice of authority, the ants care for the caterpillar as though it were the queen–even going so far as to attack the actual queen. Obeying the dictates of the awful song, the ants feed the still living ant larvae to the caterpillar which devours the helpless young ants like so many little wiggling burritos (well, if juvenile butterflies ate burritos).
Caterpillar with slave ant (photo by Darlyne A. Murawski)
When the butterfly pupates into an adult, it loses its ability to mimic ant chemicals or produce the queen’s voice. The ants recognize it as an invader and attack, but the butterfly’s scales are designed to resist their mandibles. It flees the crippled and abused ant colony and begins the cycle over again.
Isn’t nature beautiful? (photo by Guy Padfield)
Yet monsters still must fear other monsters and there is an even more invidious predator which seeks out the Alcon larvae deep within ant hives. This is the parasitic wasp, Ichneumon eumerus, which infiltrates ant colonies which are being preyed on by Phengaris rebeli larvae. The wasp locates the caterpillar and then releases an allomone which causes the ants to go insane and attack one another. Then in the chaos that follows, the wasp injects its eggs into the living caterpillar. When the eggs hatch they eat the interloper from inside and then burst out of its carcass.
The parasitic wasp Ichneumon eumerus preying on Phengaris caterpillar while an ant stands by waiting for doom. (Image: J.Thomas/Natural Visions)
ferrebeekeeper 