Or
not. But I do think she’d be miiiiiighty impressed.
Besides
phromina, there are a lot of other neat organisms in the ocean.
Team
Trainwreck (what we sometimes call ourselves in the lab in memory of
certain events), just in our studies, have specifically been looking
at myctophids (lantern fish), krill, shrimp, juvenile squid,
siphonophores, cheatognaths, amphipods.
Today
I came across a deep sea friend with which I go way back.
…the
Dragonfish.
 |
| Today’s big dragonfish find! A male? Ooooooooh eerie eyessss. Photo by Emily Markowitz. |
Back
a long, long time ago when the world was young, a fledgling high
school Emily was in the midst of a very big decision. She had to
decide whether to go to a science school and pursue her interest of
the deep sea or to undertake a fine arts degree so she could
appreciate them for their amazing portrait.
OK,
so it was a little over a year ago, but still…
In
the build up for this great life changing decision, Emily was taking
a variety of science classes as well as Mrs. Burger’s AP Studio
Art. Our concentration portfolio had to include 12 pieces and a
common theme. I choose deep sea marine life.
 |
| My rendering of a dragon fish from when high schoolers roamed the earth. Watercolors by Emily Markowitz, 2011 |
Back
then, my renderings were inspired by The
Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
by Claire Nouvian (Check out:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/nouvian/index.html,
too bad I don’t see my original dragonfish there). It’s funny to
think that now, as turn of events would have it, I’ve now seen some
of them in real life.
The
dragon fish above may not look too similar to my ‘interpretation,’
but this larval dragon fish may give a better representation…
 |
| Still not clicking for you? Oh well, I guess that’s why I choose science. Photo by Emily Markowitz. |
The
dragon fish, for all their visual worth, have no really cool story
(or at least that I know of) to tell like Phronima does.
According to fishbase.org, the order etymology of Stomiiformes means
“mouth-shape” (stoma is Greek for mouth and forma is Latin for
shape)… which is pretty self explanatory.
Until
next time,
Em
Post
script: NOM
 |
| Mouth of a larval dragonfish. Photo by Emily Markowitz |
I like your painting.
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