day three-hundred-and-fifty-five - ruby-tailed wasp

seeing as i have vowed to do no homework this weekend (and i kind of consider this home work), you will get no entertaining words. only these ones. words of doom...

oh and this drawing, naturally

© jem barratt

and in the words of david byrne: i kinda like that style*

thanks dave

xj


* these may or may not have been song lyrics, and thus may not directly reference my drawing. but i've heard good things

day three-hundred-and-forty-five - honeypot ant

an ant with a tasty butt

© jem barratt

yum yum

these guys are basically a living pantry for the worker ants, who 'extract nourishment' from them (which sounds pretty bad, but not as bad as 'milking' them) as needed. despite the intrusion (and the inevitable feeling of being used), i think i might rather be a honeypot ant than a worker ant.

stashing food for later is not unusual, but stashing food in your friends is a little bit unique.

xj

day three-hundred-and-nineteen - pink katydid

oh no she katydidn't

© jem barratt

yep. i sure did.

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 three-hundred-and-six - miami blue butterfly

oh man. i planned to draw the next seven animals yesterday so i could keep on top of uni stuff, and now it's 8:30 PM on saturday and i only just finished them. uh ohs. sorry uni.

i'll start with the crappest, but will not proceed tomorrow in quality order:

© jem barratt

i think it's time to give up on butterflies. they're pretty sweet in person, but my drawings of them have always been pretty terrible.

no problems. there's shitloads of birds i can draw.

how do you like that butterflies?! and what are you going to about it, flap your tiny wings and cause a distant earthquake? pph.

xj

day three-hundred-and-two - red-spotted purple butterfly

you may think that name is weird once you see my drawing...

© jem barratt

there are no spots, no purple and no red. but to be fair the picture i drew from didn't have a name for this butterfly - so in all honesty it might not even be a red-spotted purple butterfly. but you can take a look and judge for yourself.

i can't talk anymore - got to learn year 11 and 12 chem in one night.

adios!

xj

day two-hundred-and-ninety-four - dead leaf mantis

it's hard to choose which name sounds better - the scientific or the common. deroplatys lobata or dead leaf mantis?

let's be honest... they're both cool, and the bug himself is cool too:

© jem barratt

that's probably the most time i've spent on a drawing for this stupid challenge of mine. although that damselfish did take hours too. and that damned guineafowl.

hang on just a minute. do you think there might be a correlation between effort and quality? surely not. i can't confirm until i start my science degree and learn the difference between correlation and causation ok?

in any case, i love mantises. hence me dating someone with the pseudonym 'the mantis' i guess. but also tiny mantises like to hitch rides on me for some reason. and i'm happy to be their transport, because tiny mantises are cute.

and as you can see the bigger ones aren't bad either.

xj

p.s. i'm not attracted to mantises ok?