The Atlantic Wolffish, Anarhichas lupus, is an odd looking creature. The largest of the blennies, it can reach lengths of 5ft. or more. Its derpy expression is caused by the fang-like front teeth that protrude from the jaw. Creepy looking, but harmless to humans, they feed on mussels, crabs and other hard-shelled critters – using the anterior teeth to grasp, and the rounded molariform teeth to grind.

(c) California Academy of Sciences

This illustration of Anarhichas lupus is by Marcus Elieser Bloch, from the book Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische. Published in 1801, it was an influential work in early ichthyology. We displayed this illustration at Deep Sea Nightlife, along with a preserved specimen from the Steinhart Aquarium.

(c) 2013 Diane T Sands
gouache and pencil

What fascinated me about the wolffish was the huge contrast between the blue-grey, striped loner who eats shellfish, and the monstrous looking skull. It was the process of discovering this contrast that I chose to illustrate in the above study.

This month’s Illustration Smackdown takes a look at the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes.  One of the great apes, chimpanzees are, as these things go, closely related to humans. But how close? You can see the current classification chart here, courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Life.

(c) California Academy of Sciences

(c) California Academy of Sciences

(c) California Academy of Sciences

In the 1980s the Jane Goodall Institute “moved to the San Francisco offices of the California Academy of Sciences, where it functioned essentially as a USA/Africa “communication link” and as a repository for files.” (source) and Ms. Goodall continued to have a relationship with the academy after the JGI moved to DC.  She came to the Academy in 2008 to lecture and  promote her pioneering work in primatology. The above images are attributed to Jane Goodall and Hugo VanLanwick

(c) Diane T Sands. carbon dust on Ross board

Comparative anatomy is the study of the difference and similarities of different organisms. I will admit to having a fondness for comparing bones. There is something about placing the same bone from different species next to each other that I find both instructive and aesthetically pleasing. To this end, I created the above image with Pan troglodytes on the left and Homo sapiens on the right. The obvious differences in teeth point to differences in diet and acquisition of food. While both are omnivores, the chimpanzees large canines speak to the ripping and tearing of meat, while humans reduced canines likely came about from years of cutting bite sized portions via tool use. Also evident is the difference in size of the brain case. The human cerebrum is much larger than that of the chimpanzee. The extensive development of this cortex in humans is believed to distinguish the human brain from those of other animals

For those of you able to stop by the Library Reading Room, there is a newly installed exhibit featuring BATS!

Nearly 20% of all mammals are bats. There are roughly 1,240 bat species worldwide. The order Chiroptera (from the Greek, meaning “hand-wing”) is broken into two subclasses. The megachiroptera are large, primarily fruit-eating bats that rely on sight and smell to locate their food. The microchiroptera feed on insects, which they locate via echolocation.

bats from Buffon’s Natural History, 1797, courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

I saw this image on the  Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Flickr stream . It is from Buffon’s Natural history, containing a theory of the earth, a general history of man, of the brute creation, and of vegetables, minerals, &c. &c. From the French, with notes by the translator.  London:1797-1807. And honestly, at first I thought they were some weird sheep, or blocky, ungulate-sized mice. What else for a scientific illustrator to do, but create an improved image?

(c) Diane T Sands 2013, pastel on paper

The three bats presented in the Buffon image done here in pastel, from top to bottom:

• Greater Bulldog bat, Nolctilio nigrita

• Ternat or Greater Yellow House bat, Pteropus vulgaris

• Senegal bat, Vespertilio nigrita

The bat exhibit will be on display in the Library Reading Room through the end of 2013.

The Remora remora, or common suckerfish, is an odd pelagic marine fish usually found in warmer parts of most oceans. They can be found offshore from San Francisco south to Chile. Their front dorsal fin has evolved into a giant sucker disc that they use to hitch rides on faster swimming sharks, rays, sea turtles, bony fishes and even marine mammals. Once thought to be purely parasitic, the relationship to their “host” is now considered to be symbiotic.

Not eaten themselves, they have been used by fishermen who attach a line to the Remora‘s tail, letting it free to swim. The tethered Remora then attaches it’s sucker disc to a larger fish as they are wont to do. At this point when it is noted that the Remora is accelerating,  the fisherman then reels it back in and captures the larger fish.

(c) Diane T Sands 2013.
carbon dust on illustration board.

(c) California Academy of Sciences.

In 1905, the California Academy of Sciences sent 11 men off for a year and a day on an eighty-five foot schooner destined for the Galapagos Islands. While the expedition was underway, the California Academy of Sciences would fall into ruin during the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The specimens gathered during that expedition would come to form the crux of the new California Academy of Sciences’ collections. Of the young men on that voyage, entomologist Francis Xavier Williams kept field books (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/123606) and made drawings of all of much of the wild life he encountered. This illustration of the Remora remora was one of many fish Williams ran across in his exploration of the islands.

Mora Remora!

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Remora_remora/

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Remora-remora.html

Stepping away from our previous animal focused Smackdowns, our focus today is Foeniculum vulgare, also known as common fennel. This culinary herb from the carrot family (Umbelliferae) is native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. You can read more about its usage and cultivation in Culinary Herbs, among other volumes.

(c) Henry Evans. to order prints, contact Marsha Evans: marsha@henryevans.com

Henry Evans made numerous botanical prints throughout his career. This fennel image is among several housed in the Archives, likely from an exclusive Academy exhibit.  Revered by botanists for his faithful portrayal of important characteristics, each species is created life size.

Henry Evans at his press, courtesy of the CAS Archive

(c) 2103 Diane T Sands gouache & colored pencil; magazine image created in Photoshop

(c)2013 Diane T Sands

I approached my own image of this plant by asking the question, what sort of client would ask me to create a botanical image of this species today? The most likely option would, I think, be a cooking magazine. So I laid out my image as if it were a magazine cover. The painting was created using gouache, and colored pencils.

This Smackdown we feature the largest beetle in the world, Goliathus goliatus. Goliath beetles are often described as the largest and heaviest of all beetles. Adults range from 2-4 inches in length, while the larvae can top 5 inches and weigh 0.25 pounds a piece! There are five different species of Goliathus across the African continent (see this link for a nifty map).

Black and white drawing of beetles, genus Goliathus From Cyclopedia published by Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme 1810

These magnificent engravings of spiders come from Natural History volume five in the Cyclopaedia or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Science and Literature.  Abraham Rees, Presbyterian minister and educator, produced this Encyclopedia in 45 volumes between 1802 and 1820.  On the title page of the Cyclopaedia, Rees’ 100 contributors are qualified with the “assistance from eminent professional gentlemen” and “illustrated by most distinguished artists”.

18th Century ‘encyclopedists’ developed the modern idea of recording and widely distributing knowledge as distinct from only publishing facts. The still familiar Encyclopedia Britannica was first published between 1768 and 1771. Rees’ Cyclopedia was noted for its high quality of illustrations. And we can still enjoy the beauty of nature through these 19th century engravings.

The publisher of this book put out some beautiful and strange illustrated books in the early 1800’s including Musci exotici :containing figures and descriptions of new or little known foreign mosses and other cryptogamic subjects by William Jackson Hooker. (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/41803) and A Dissertation on Gunshot Wounds by Charles Bell. (http://www.bibliopolis.com/main/books/1869071/A-dissertation-on-gun-shot-wounds-Bell-Charles-Jeremy-Norman-Co.html) Regardless of the subject it looks like they were masterful printers and included really amazing etchings in their work.

(c) Diane T Sands. Gouache and colored pencil on colored paper

Drawn from specimens housed in the Academy’s Naturalist Center, this color image contrasts the female (left) and male (right) of Goliathus goliatus. For the black and white image below, I wanted to show less of a dead, pinned subject and more of a living critter.

(c) Diane T Sands. Ink on scratchboard

“Sketch of Grizzly” Storer, Tracy I. (Tracy Irwin). 1889-1973.

(c) Diane T Sands 2012   gouache on illustration board

In her recent book, State of Change: Forgotten landscapes of California (2010), Laura Cunningham looks at the grizzly bear Ursus arctos and the habitat it roamed. She recreates East Bay landscapes in paintings and juxtaposes them against modern photographs. It is an amazing look at a species extirpated from the state, yet represented on the flag.

For myself, I wanted to create and illustration that shows something about Ursus arctos that cannot be shown with a photograph. Always fascinated by bones and their articulation I decided to superimpose the skeleton of a brown bear over the more recognizable furry bulk.

The Lobster by Douglas Florian
See the hard-shelled leggy lobster
Like an underwater mobster
With two claws to catch and crush
Worms and mollusks into mush
And antennae strong and thick
Used for striking like a stick
So beware when on vacation
Not to step on this crustacean

Spiny lobsters have two noticeable anatomical differences from the more well known Maine lobster. First are the thickened spiny antennae (hence the common name). Secondly, the first set of walking legs do not end in enlarged chelipeds (or claws). The Japanese spiny lobster, Panulirus japonicus, lives off the coast of Japan, Korea and China. Many restaurants will have it labeled Ise Ebi. It is similar in appearance to the California spiny lobster, Panulirus interruptus.

Asaeda, Toshio. Panulirus Japonicus, Thai Lagoon, Malaita. May 31, 1933. ©California Academy of Sciences Archives, San Francisco, CA.

This image is a part of Toshio Aseada’s collection housed here at the California Academy of Sciences Archives. Gifted in the arts of painting, photography, and taxidermy, and educated in geology, zoology, botany, and geography,  Mr. Aseada found work at the California Academy of Sciences beginning in 1927 as an artist for the Academy’s ichthyology department. Asaeda accompanied Templeton Crocker and Academy scientists on several scientific expeditions, including a 1933 trip to the Solomon Islands. Because specimens lose their pigmentation quickly when preserved in formalin and other aqueous solutions, Asaeda was tasked with painting the specimens when they were collected in order to capture their brilliant colors. This specimen was captured in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the island of Malaita and drawn from life. Reproductions of some of Aseada’s  specimen illustrations are on display on the California Academy of Sciences’ main floor in the Islands of Evolution exhibit.

Asaeda, Toshio. 1933. ©California Academy of Sciences Archives, San Francisco, CA

For me, this species was more difficult to research. Not only was I unable to get hold of a live lobster, but the literature was either highly specialized (Spiking induced by cooling the myocardium of the lobster, Panulirus japonicus) or very broad (Marine Lobsters of the World, QL444.M33 H658 1991 Main). 

Paniluris japonica (c) 2012 Diane T Sands

I wound up using an older illustration technique for this image. Carbon dust was introduced in 1911 by Max Brödel, the first director of the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. It is one of those methods that produces amazing results, but has become lost due, I believe, to the complexity factor. Most illustration manuals devote two pages to setting up the supplies and preparing the board, followed by one paragraph on application, and another page on keeping everything clean. Computer illustration programs can now produce similar effects for publication with much less mess and without the storage issues carbon-dust involves.

Nonetheless, I readied my piles of dust scraped from various carbon pencils using fine sandpaper. I used good quality paint brushes that have never touched water, their bristles flecked with black dust. I measured the illustration board, lifted all blemishes from the surface with a kneaded eraser, and rubbed the whole thing with a chamois. Bilateral symmetry allowed me to render both the ventral and dorsal surfaces of the lobster in a compact illustration without losing detail.

by Diane T Sands

I was asked by a colleague who viewed the Wild Pig Smackdown,

As a person who has no background in scientific illustration, I am curious to know how these two really different drawings can be produced of the same species and be useful?

This is a great question. A fair amount of historical scientific illustration, particularly during the Age of Exploration (1450-1700), was completed as a record of existence. Many of the items being illustrated on expeditions had never before been seen by Europeans and served as a record of the great things discovered, often proving to the expedition funders that their money was not wasted. Natural history specimens preserved using alcohol, drying, tanning or other means can readily lose color, shape and 3-dimensional character. Illustration was the most expedient way of preserving posture and indicating natural coloration.

While we have no real provenance for the Cole image or why it was created, it appears to fall into the this-is-what-a-boar-looks-like/historical camp.

As time has progressed, illustration remains a useful tool. Illustrators are able to show multiple or uncommon views, and to emphasize characteristics that would not be obvious in a photograph – cutaways that show animal burrows underground, or the complete cycle from flower to fruit, for example. In the systematic literature, illustrations of the whole plant or animal are often supplanted or used in combination with close-ups of the physiological or morphological characteristics that make each species unique. This can include geographic area, dentition, genitalia, or pollen structure – all things not easily photographed. The following image is one visual example.

Penny, N. (2002) "Lacewings of Costa Rica" Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, vol. 52 no. 12. Image 117 by Diane T Sands. Images 118, 119 by Victoria Saxe*

As I researched Sus scrofa, I thought about why someone would call me up and ask me to illustrate this species today. I also thought about what was it about this species that most interested me. What had I learned that I could convey visually? I was struck by the fact that while there are subspecies of Sus scrofa that are often isolated by region (and thus considered distinct), for the most part, the main question was: are they wild or domesticated? Since wild pigs of one sort or another have been introduced – either accidentally or purposefully – on islands around the world, the answer often blurs.

Is there an absolute distinction between the wild boar and the domestic pig? In my preparatory research, I came across an article** that looked at this issue from the point of view of prehistory, and porcine remains of archaeological digs. The illustrations accompanying the article are primarily area maps, and graphs of statistical measurement metrics. While well done and highly informative, one does need to know a higher level of vocabulary and maths to get the picture. I asked myself how I might visually explain at least one difference between a wild and a feral population in a way that even a non-biologist would understand.

The result is here.

*Victoria Saxe

** Rowley-Conwy,P., U. Albarella, and K. Dobney (2012) Distinguishing Wild Boar from Domestic Pigs in Prehistory: A Review of Approaches and Recent Results Journal of World Prehistory Vol. 25(1),  Pages 1-44. http://www.springerlink.com/content/6446560r166488x7/abstract/?MUD=MP

For the Illustration Smackdown explanation, click here.

From the Academy Archives:

This illustration of a wild boar was stumbled upon while looking for another image in the Academy’s oversized collection in the Archives. Little is known about how the image was used, but it came to us from our own Exhibits Department and was meticulously drawn by Michael E. Cole.

From Sands:

The wild boar and the feral pig are considered the same species despite differences in height, weight and skull shape. I designed this illustration to highlight some of these anatomical anomalies. The skull on the left is a wild boar; the one on the right that of a feral pig.

More about Sus scrofa: Wild Boar, Feral Pig
The wild boar is native to Europe, but has been widely introduced as a game animal throughout the world. In North America, it has successfully interbred with escaped feral farm pigs. This has happened so much that most writings simply refer to Sus scrofa under the blanket term Wild Pigs. In California, these wild pigs run amok through open space land and regional parks. Omnivorous opportunists, they wander the landscape vacuuming up vegetation, and just about any other living thing in their path.

The females become sexually mature at 18 months of age, producing 6-10 young per litter, often having more than one litter per year. A large group of females and their recent young are called Sounders.  Adults can reach sizes over 750lbs. Males are usually solitary and can sharpen their tusks by rubbing the lowers against the uppers.

Here’s a great article about the infestation of wild pigs in the East Bay Regional Park District :
http://baynature.org/articles/oct-dec-2010/ground-invasion/?searchterm=feral%20pigs