Snowflake Beetle

Snowflake Beetles, linocut with chine collé 18 cm x 18 cm, Ele Willoughby 2016

This is a whimsical mini lino block print of a couple of Snowflake Beetles a widely unknown, and quite possibly, completely imaginary creature. These miniscule insects are camouflaged to match their environment, the fresh fallen snow. Each of their hexagonal shields (the elytra) are disguised as snowflakes. Through an extraordinary instance of biomimicry, each pattern is as unique; it is believed that no two Snowflake Beetles are the same.*

Both their minute size and their successful camouflage adaptation have long hid the Snowflake Beetle from discovery. The Coleopterans include more species than any other order, and the diversity of beetles is very wide. Yet, the Snowflake Beetle is exceptional in several ways. At a typical size of 1.5 m (0.06"), they belong to the Ptiliidae, a highly diverse yet poorly known group of minute beetles, and are amongst the smallest beetles anywhere in the world. Like other ptiliids they have feathery wings and are colourless to white throughout their lifecycle. But unlike any other beetles, they thrive in high latitudes, high altitudes and polar regions where snow is abundant. Other arthopods do live in snow, including mites, snow fleas and some spiders, but insects and beetles in particular were previously unknown in such cold conditions. It is believed that they make a warm little burrow or igloo in the snow and farm fungus for food. Like aquatic beetles, it is believed they hold a pocket of air between their abdomen and elytra (the snowflake shield) to breathe when "diving" in snow.

*It should be noted that the adage "no two snowflakes are alike" is in fact just an adage. It is virtually impossible to prove the non-existence of any naturally occuring snowflake twins. Simple hollow collumn snowflakes are quite common and observers do report (subjectively) identical flakes. Essentially identical snowflakes - even complex ones with hexagonal plate symmetry and elaborate dendrites - have been produced in the lab. While photographic evidence of naturally occurring identical snowflakes may be lacking, it's actually unlikely that they never occur. So, strictly speaking it is more precise to say that Snowflake Beetles are as variable in pattern as snowflakes in nature. Familiar snowflake forms including hexagonal plates, triangular patterns, 12-point star patterns, sectored plates, radiating dendrites, simple stars, stellar dendrites and fern-like stellar dendrites have all been observed on Snowflake Beetle shields. The six-fold symmetry, as in snowflakes themselves, is generally not perfect... though it may appear so at a glance.

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An aside: Okay... the joy of my producing my "quite possibly imaginary" cryptozoology creature series is in inventing the fictional science and I would love to produce a book of them where I never explicitly stated this is SF. The point is to make a sort of scientific pastiche. The reader isn't literally supposed to be hoodwinked**... but needs to suspend disbelief to enjoy it. But, allow me to stop being coy and tell you a bit about the process of creating creatures. Hitting the balance of 'not quite plausible enough to fool' but 'real enough for us all to pleasurably pretend it's out there' is harder than I imagined, for an unexpected reason. Namely, the animal kingdom is a hell of a lot weirder and more varied than most of us know. For instance, I can safely assume that my far-out hybrids, like the Cactibou, Winged Walrus and Mandriltee, will be recognized as unreal animals. Though, hybrids are more common than I realized when I started this project. Merely playing with scale, habitat and amping up more unusual skills like biomimicry on the other hand, may not be enough. I think I inadvertently fooled someone with my Iceberg Squid. Likewise, I imagined the Snowflake Beetle, only to later learn that, of course, there are arthopods who live in snow... luckily for me, they happen to have the wrong number of legs to be insects or beetles in particular. I shouldn't be too surprised. A recent study which got a lot of press, showed that even our homes are complex biomes filled with thousands of insects and other arthopods. They're everywhere! Sometimes, like here, I rely on one peculiar, someone would say magical, attribute to indicate that the animal in question is "quite possibly imaginary". In this case, the idea that each one has its own pattern, as unique as a snowflake, may be the only thing which is unlikely enough to be untrue. Other "facts" are indeed true of existing beetles, including the surprising act of fungus farming or holding air bubbles under their elytra wing covering to breathe if submerged. The beetle igloo though might also be a tip-off.

**Friends will tell you I'm generally horrified when anyone is hoodwinked by pseudoscience, whatever its intentions.

carving cats in a blizzard

I'm making a custom cat portrait for a customer in Japan. She runs a cat rescue with her husband, because Yokohama doesn't have shelters for strays. This is the lovely Papico, her permanent pet, rather than one of the cats for whom they hope to find new homes.

Meanwhile here in Toronto, we're in the midst of the largest snowfall in five years. The media are having a field day with it, of course, riffing on the fact that this is the meeting of two 'cowboy' weather systems, from Alberta and Texas respectively. Though, really, this is Canada in February and supposed to happen; it's been the lack of snow in recent years which is the real anomaly. It started last night. I shovelled at 6 pm. RJH shoveled at 8 pm. Then this morning, RJH shovelled at 7:30 and by 7:35, I could see a centimeter already on the recently cleared steps. I went out there this afternoon and shovelled again. I'm sure it will need more shovelling by the time he gets home. It is very quiet, despite being a busy street. There are more entrepid pedestrians out there than cars.

I need to make Papico into a pillow, but I am out of stuffing. I've decided that it is entirely reasonable not to try to get a 25 pound bag of stuffing on a day like today. It's an unwieldy sort of item to wrangle on public transit on the best of days.

Monoprints

I had one final screenprinting class yesterday, so I thought, since I had only 3 hours of time, to make some monoprints. This is not a method I've used before. The word 'monoprint' can be applied to unique prints made with a variety of printmaking methods (so long as there are not multiples). In this instance, I mean screenprints made by applying a pigment directly to the screen and then lifting and disolving it and printing with the squeegee as if one were printing with ink. You can do this with, say, silk paints and screenprinting medium, or even wallpaper paste. Any sort of decent medium which can disolve water-soluble pigments, and has good printing properties (like viscosity - not too thin or too gloopy) will work. I printed all of the following on heavy weight paper with a deckle edge (moreorless 10 inches by 14 inches). I experimented with the silk paints:



There are white areas where the pigment was too thick, and actually blocked the screen - but I like them.Also, you can see the mesh, which is interesting to me. I also tried paper stencils (snowflakes) combined with a silk paint + wallpaper paste monoprint:


Then, I tried the crayons (also with cut-paper snowflake stencils). My first attempt wasn't quite what I intended (but still sort of pretty I think). The instructor pointed out that there was still pigment on the screen, and with more medium and pressure (a recurring problem for me, I feel like a weakling) that I might be able to get another print. He gave it a try and got much better results:



Lastly, I drew a discomedusa jellyfish directly onto the screen with colour pencils and crayons. This proved harder than expected. The screen itself is not an ideal medium for drawing. The mesh tends to hinder smooth, curved lines (which are sort of necessary, at least if you are me, and you are attempting to draw the least rectilinear animal in the world). Here's my first attempt, which is pale, but appeals to me:



Again, there are places where the pigment blocked the mesh, but I think it works. There is white, often, within water, and I think it helps give a sense of movement. Here's the no-nonsense instructor's 2nd attempt:



which shows hom much more can be transferred with more strength and experience. I also like the surviving snowflake stencils. The ones made from strong Japanese kozo paper survived:


I feel I should do something with the screenprinted snowflakes, but I'm not sure what.

Snowflakes

I thought I'd make some snowflake ornaments.

I hope this pretty thing helps me face my dreaded teleconference *shudder* today. Wish me luck!

Feathers and Snowflakes

This month the Mad Scientists of Etsy challenge is the Feather. As some of you know, I am allergic to feathers. I made a block printed Guinea fowl feather fabric (feather-free, vegan even) brooch.




Meanwhile, the Trans-Canada Etsy Team chose the theme of snow. Bizarrely, we currently have no snow. It felt like spring out there today (though, I'm not sure I believe it... it might change at any moment). I carved two snowflakes (based on microscopic photographs of individual flakes) and printed them on irridescent silk. Here's a sneak peek of a two-brooch set in the works.