day one-hundred-and-fifty-four - african spurred tortoise

say hello to the bronze winner of the 'largest tortoise award'!

© jem barratt

the gold and silver winners (i.e. the galapagos and aldabra giant tortoises). oh no, i've looked at the word 'tortoise' for too long and it looks weeeeird.

anyhoo, if you get the chance to see tortoises mate at a zoo (or elsewhere i suppose) you should relish it. sounds perverted, but it is a hilarious thing to witness. particularly if the man-tortoise topples off on to his back.

the guy i drew above was actually carrying a baby tortoise on his head. now's probably the time to admit that if i owned a zoo i would spend most of my time placing tiny animals on top of other animals' heads. especially if i had some hyraxes...

(pretty sure i've linked to that before, but it's worth linking to at least [if not more than] ninety more times)

xj

day sixty-three - hyrax

behold the many (hilarious) faces of the hyrax:

© jem barratt

i seem to be the only person in the world who loves hyraxes. not five minutes ago my drawing was questioned and the subjects called ugly.

they are so fat, chinless, have tiny fangs and frankly the closer an animal's nose is to its mouth the better. oh how they make me laugh. and i haven't even shown you a hyrax tower yet... or two. (or three)

i'm all squealy with hyrax-love now and i hope you are too.
xj

p.s. i can highly recommend a thorough googling of hyraxes (not as gross as it sounds...)