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| Heart Cockles, 6.5" x 8" linocut by Ele Willoughby, 2024 |
Was thinking of both the #PrinterSolstice prompt monochromatic and the upcoming #InsertAnInvert2024 prompt infauna for March (shell month) when I made this print... and of course, Valentine's Day.
Corculum cardissa, the heart cockle, is a species of marine bivalve mollusc in the family Cardiidae found in the Indo-Pacific. If viewed from the side, it looks like a heart. There is a lot of colour variation in shells, but they often have patterns in coral pink like those in my print. Interestingly, the shells are translucent in places, allowing light in which benefits its symbiotic relationship with photosynthesizing dinoflagellates (zooxanthellae), which live within its tissues. The cockle takes in the dinoflagellates by its mouth. Their presence causes a tertiary series of tubules develop from the walls of the cockle's digestive system which are a safe environment for them to live and photosynthesize, producing metabolites which help the cockle.
The next #PrinterSolstice prompt was split complimentary and it lead me to another #InsertAnInvert2024 prompt. To make a split complimentary colour, choose two complimentary colours, like yellow and purple, and replace the second colour by the two colours adjacent to it on the colour wheel - fuchsia and indigo.
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| Fuchsia Flatworm, linocut by Ele Willoughby, 2024 |
One of the suggested #InsertAnInvert2024 organisms is the strange and beautiful fuchsia flatworm (Pseudoceros ferrugineus) with its gorgeous aposematic colours, a warning to predators that it's not worth the trouble to try and eat. A flexible ruffled oval creature it is a little hard to capture but it does indeed have a split complementary colour scheme. It crawls around eating on the reefs of the Indo-Pacific without any fear of predators.
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