My Chimpumpkinzee or Ape-O'-Lantern

enlarge

Here are three of the 10 entries in my family's annual pumpkin carving contest. These three were from my household. The ape-like jack-o'-lantern in the middle was mine; it placed third. When I decided what I wanted to do, I couldn't find anything of the sort on the web, so I am posting this one for anyone who may be looking to do something similar. To that end I am going to throw in the phrase monkey pumpkin, which is a search phrase I used, with only two relevant results seen here and here (halfway down).

I am particularly proud of how the ears turned out. I cut out the ear holes using the desired shape of the ears with a squared off peg on the back, which just plugged right into the cut out portion. Happy Halloween.

Claymation Water Drop

4 Sec., Quicktime, 780 kb

Back in July when I made my first claymation video, I thought I was going to make a ton of them, but since there aren't enough hours in a day, I haven't made another one until yesterday. I tried to produce a realistic slow motion video of a water drop falling into a bowl of water using one of my sons bowls and his blue play-doh. I only took 66 pictures and created a movie sequence using Quicktime pro. The video is not too realistic looking but it turned out better than expected. I spent about 2 hours and 15 minutes on the entire project. The above movie is small but good quality for a quick download. You can go to my time-lapse video download page to view the large version and a small WMV/AVI version.

Friday's Insect: Green Lacewing

enlarge

This is a green lacewing from the order Neuroptera and family Chrysopidae. I found this specimen on my front door last spring. For the sake of giving it a home in my zoo, I will leave it at the family level, since I found very little information on identifying various green lacewing species. Here is some info on the common lacewing, Chrysoperla rufilabris.

According to Wikipedia, the family of green lacewings is very large with 87 genera and about 1300 species. Lacewings are considered beneficial because their larva feed on many pests including aphids. In fact lacewing larvae are sometimes referred to as "aphid lions", though I haven't seen any feeding on my aphids. Perhaps the ants had something to do with that.

Don't forget to check out Modulator's Friday Ark!

Bumper Sticker of the Day

enlarge

I took this early in the summer while sitting in the parking lot at Walmart. The bumper sticker of interest reads: "Get a Taste of Religion. Lick a Witch."

Friday's Insect: Walkingstick

click to enlarge

This is a walkingstick from the order Phasmatodea. More specifically I believe it is a Northern Walkingstick, Diapheromera femorata. I found this nice creature in my backyard lurking among the ivy. Its body was 3-4 inches long which typical for this species. To make use of their camoflauge, walkingsticks can straighten out their antennae and front legs and stay motionless for a long time, as is seen in the top picture. The bottom pic is the tail end of this individual. Walkingsticks can also grow new legs if they are knocked off.

Don't forget to check out Modulator's Friday Ark!