day three-hundred-and-fifty - superb bird-of-paradise

birds o paradise are cuh-razy

© jem barratt

yep. attenborough agrees.

he eloquently agrees i should say.

but i didn't. but then i did.

xj

day three-hundred-and-forty-two - great crested grebe

grebes, deploy crests!

© jem barratt

thanks grebes.

xj

day three-hundred-and-thirty-eight - jackdaw

jackDAW!

sounds like something you should yell. yell-type.

© jem barratt

pew pew pew, laser eyes.

consider yourself laserized jackdaw.

or am i?!

xj

day three-hundred-and-eight - spiny devil katydid

katydids are kind of like crickets, and are apparently known as bush-crickets in british english. sucks to be them (even though i realise that would pretty much incorporate so-called 'australian english'), because katydid is a much better name.

and even better, you're meant to pronounce it exactly how you think you should. though it would be understandable for any katys to find it grating and confusing.

maybe this will cheer the katys of the world up:

© jem barratt

spiny devil may not be the correct name (i must stop trusting the telegraph), but boy are they crazy. and spiny. theit devilishness is a little more subtle. but maybe their goofy looks allow them to be truly evil, and thus like the devil?

hopefully all my conjecture and postulation has distratced you from the fact that there were little to no actual facts in this post...

egads! what have i done!?

xj

p.s. just found a hot pink katydid. i promise to include actual facts in the future torrent of katydid posts i plan to make

day two-hundred-and-seventy-nine - partula snail

you would not believe how many snails i kill a year. i pretty much step from snail to snail, never touching ground.

this is an accident of course, but it is an uncanny skill (or curse perhaps).

now these guys are tiny, which either means i am likely to kill heaps of them or none - depending on if they are so small that they fit in the grooves of my soles (/soul).

© jem barratt

now that is terrible, so let's just forget about it and hope i drew something good for tomorrow (i did).

xj

p.s. i should probably point out that partula is a genus of snail, and not one specific species. also they are not actually pink and gold, i just wanted them that way...

day two-hundred-and-eighteen - douroucouli

or night monkey, which frankly is a cooler name and much easier to type

© jem barratt

i stuffed up the good sketch, so decided to make the whole thing silly. his left-chin should also be 'white' (i.e. cardboard coloured).

in any case, douroucoulis are weirdos and seem to have a penchant for stuffing themselves (and as many friends as can fit) into holes. that's the best example, because each looks different - the baby looks typically cute, the one at the back looks like a gremlin, the main one just looks plain creepy (as most night or owl monkeys do), and the last guy just looks awesome and also shows off his tiny, tiny face.

i bet they also have a penchant for staring into human souls and plotting their demise...

it's really a shame that i didn't illustrate their feet, because that makes them seem even creepier and as though perhaps they'll reach out to stoke your sleeping head before they eat your face (they probably don't do this...)

ok i may have been a bit harsh. they are cool, being the only nocturnal monkey and all, and they live in sout america which is always a plus, but really all i can truly feel about them is unease.

and suspicion...

*squinted eyes*

xj

day one-hundred-and-seventeen - "the leaptitude of a bobcat"

you may think "huh?" but it speaks for itself really...

© jem barratt

if you still don't understand maybe this will help.

although i suspect it's more about the climbatude of the bobcat than the leaptitude.

xj