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6236
From: Nasirah, [DNS_Address]
Subject: An Octopus Painted With 95-Million-Year-Old Ink
|
Dutch wildlife artist Esther van Hulsen was recently given an assignment unlike her typical drawings of birds and mammals from life—a chance to draw a prehistoric octopus 95 million years after its death. Paleontologist Jørn Hurum supplied Hulsen with ink extracted from a fossil found in Lebanon in 2009, received as a gift from the PalVenn Museum in 2014. After several millennia Hulson was surprised to find that the color had remained so vibrant, preserved all of this time in the cephalopod’s ink sac. “Knowing that this animal has used this ink to survive is absolutely amazing,” said van Hulsen of the prehistoric ink. The idea to make such a drawing came from the story of Mary Anning, an English paleontologist and fossil collector who made a similar drawing from a fossil’s ink sac in the 1800s. Hulsen’s replication of the octopus now hangs beside its material origin in the Natural History Museum in Oslo. (via MetaFilter) |
6245
From: Polydactyl in N. Bay, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: An Octopus Painted With 95-Million-Year-Old Ink
| Beautiful drawings! I'll have to look up her portfolio. There's something really cool about the artistic integrity of using the octopus' own ink, especially from a fossil. |
Responses:
[6246]
6246
From: Polydactyl in N. Bay, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: An Octopus Painted With 95-Million-Year-Old Ink
| Esther likes illustrating dinosaurs too, some fanciful. Awww. |
Responses:
None
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