day two-hundred-and-sixty-one - amur leopard

david attenborough once told me (via a tv show not in real life unfortunately) that there were only 35 amur leopards left in the wild. THIRTY-FIVE!

and that was at least five years ago, so hopefully this species is not extinct. i'm glad the one i drew looks quite sad because it's more evocative that way.

© jem barratt

also his body is vanishing which is just so deep.

i got accepted into a science degree today, so hopefully i can eventually help save some species. the amur leopard will no doubt be extinct by then (aside: can you believe black rhinos are actually extinct in the wild!? humans are the worst), but maybe we'll discover some new species that i can then proceed to save

either that or i'll do absolutely nothing with it just like my other two degrees...

xj

day two-hundred-and-thirty-three - xmas panther

on the FIFTH day before xmas, jemma realised she uses caps too much (and also she drew a panther card):

© jem barratt

i particularly like this guy because he's so cool about having his tail wrapped in fairy lights... 'what of it?'

what of it indeed mr xmas panther. or should i say mr black leopard?

no. that sounds stupid. and i don't care if panthers are just reverse-albinos, they're still cool enough for me to treat them as their own animal. also i haven't drawn a normal leopard yet so it doesn't matter.

xj

p.s. how cool would it be if there were 'panthers' in other species, like kiwis and snakes. then we could pit good (albinos) against evil (panthers) in a huge animal fight... if that were acceptable and ethical of course

p.p.s. it's not

p.p.p.s. also didn't that da vinci movie teach us that albinos are maybe the evil ones

p.p.p.p.s. maybe i should have read about melanistic animals before i wrote this...

day two-hundred-and-two - clouded leopard

clouded (nebulosus) leopard (neofelis [or more accurately 'new cat']). ol' cloudy new-cat here is an excellent climber, but rather vulnerable to extinction. some good and bad news there.

however, the markings on their back APPARENTLY resemble clouds - which i am abivalent about, given the actual real-life resemblance...

© jem barratt

not that i drew its body of course. that's way too much effort for lazy ol' me. hey at least i drew a whole head. it's a start.

apologies (i just typed that as spologies, which frankly sounds 17 times better) for using the preface 'ol'' twice. and also for quoting 'ol'' because it looks super weird.

xj