bestiary: american crocodile by donny nguyen

#drawing

these guys live as long as humans. i didn’t know that, like many of the animals i have and will be drawing, they’re endangered. that’s part of the point of this project of mine. i remembered from school that you can tell crocodiles from (american) alligators by their longer but thinner snouts. also, they don’t like the cold as much as alligators. they seem to eat just about anything, including humans but that (apparently) is rare. crocodylus acutus in moleskine

american bullfrog

these guys moo. seriously. they sound like cows. which is awesome. it seems like they’re pretty easy going. they live in many, many parts of north america, asia, south america, europe….nearly everywhere. seemingly like their cousins, they’ll eat just about anything they can put in their mouths. insects. of course. mice? yup. snakes. ok, let’s do it. birds. why not? wait, what? yeah, they eat birds. craziness. see? easy going. then again, some of the latter animals are also their predators so size matters here people. i didn’t know that they hunt nocturnally. also, people eat their legs. bullfrogs, aside, calling them american bullfrogs only makes me think of budweiser commercials from back in the day. rana catesbeiana in moleskine

bestiary: american bison

not to mistaken with buffalo, these guys can weigh a tonne but can run at speeds of nearly sixty five kilometers per hour. they eat grass though so they won’t be coming after you for a meal, only if, you know, you piss them off. i didn’t know that the males and females generally live separately save for mating season. like many a good male, they fight over the ladies but they don’t go to the point of killing eachother. sensible, right? another fun fact is that their hides are so well insulated that snow can accumulate on their backs not melt. bison bison in moleskine.

bestiary: amazon horned frog

their nicknames? pac man frogs. because of their large mouths. apparently they’ll eat just about anything, often hiding until something that isn’t bigger comes near. then they pounce and try to eat. i say try because there apparently have been cases of deaths due to trying to consume something that couldn’t be swallowed. they don’t chew. this is just pure craziness to me. i like me some food but not that much, ha ha. this accounts for their large size. strangely enough, there is no real explanation behind their horns outside of the thought that they might aid in camouflage. interesting. ceratophrys cornuta in moleskine.

leslie nielsen

leslie nielsen passed away on the 28th. he kind of fell out focus (at least with me) but understandably so considering how old he was – how many people keep working after a certain point? i kind of grew up on his movies in that his were the comedies that were sort of prevalent / popular when i was young and my dad loved them. and i watched what he watched. who didn’t see airplane? or the naked gun movies?

i had no idea how prolific nielsen was. he was in more than a hundred films and appeared in more than fifteen hundred tv programs. that’s just crazy. he lived a pretty decently long life (eighty four years), has stars on the canadian and hollywood walks of fame, and is an officer of the order of canada. rest in peace. i won’t call you shirley.

bestiary: alligator snapping turtle

whew, been pretty busy with a couple of jobs and an illustration i’m chipping away at. yes it’s 30 rock related. anyway, here’s another one for the bestiary. these guys are also indiginous to the u.s. but have found their way to asia. they honestly look a little dinosaur…ic….to me and apparently i’m not the only one to think so. they’re carnivorous but they scavenge, mainly on fish from what i’ve read. no natural predators for these snappers. i didn’t know they can live to more than one hundred years! apparently they don’t bite. much. they can amputate your digits! macrochelys temminckii in moleskine.

it’s a doodle-off!

i just found out about this and despite the lack of time, i couldn’t resist doing something quick just to participate. doodlers anonymous has started a showcase through which they’ll run contests with themes not unlike (i’m guessing) illustration friday. i’ve spent a lot of time on more involved drawings and such lately that little quick things like this are pretty refreshing. showcase #1’s theme is: napkin. go draw something quick, there’s only 15 hours left!

bestiary: alligator gar

so here’s a fish that i had no idea existed. these guys are the largest of the gar species, reaching ten feet and 300 pounds. i cansee these guys being (mis)featured in some 3d horror fish movie but they don’t really seem to attack humans. they’re eggs are poisonous to us though. they’re native to waters in the US and seemed to be fished for pretty regularly. some parts of the states consider them a bit of a delicacy not unlike, well, alligators. atractosteus spatula in moleskine.

bestiary: albatross

i don’t remember much from my high school english classes. being the techno-geek that i am, english was not very high on the interest scale after the ninth grade. the asian six pack was though! but for some reason i do remember the rime of the ancient mariner, by samuel taylor coleridge. i had never heard of an albatross and after having heard the description, i imagined them to be quite giagantic birds. what i didn’t remember about the poem was the reference it made to the birds being a sign of both good and bad luck. ravens seem to share this same ambiguous symbolic meaning so for me there is a nice alternative when it comes to imagery. i find it funny that of all the animals i’ve drawn for the bestiary though, the two with such ambiguity happen to be birds.

they are indeed large birds with wingspans that can exceed three and a half metres (over eleven feet for you empirical folk). i guess this helps them to efficiently soar over large distances with minimal effort. they eat fish and shell fish but they do scavenge as well (another similarity to ravens). there are twenty one species of albatross and nineteen are considered threatened. the amsterdam and chatham albatross are considered endangered. long line fishing is not a friendly activity for these birds. hopefully they’re still around by the time i finish this bestiary.

bestiary: african lion

i thought these guys live longer but their average life span is ten to fourteen years. males are closer to ten due to the fact that they fight with rivals regularly. apparently the stamina of lions isn’t great. they can get up to pretty fast speeds of fifty miles per hour but they’re sprinters, not lovers i mean marathoners. they hunt in packs. although i think the lionesses do the hunting. unfortunately, the populations of lions is also diminishing due in part to loss of habitat and humans being humans. panthera leo in moleskine.