Alien Monster Cattos

© LIA 2024

Commission

Fern.

My first commission! I was lucky that it was for the wonderful and kind @jilly.taylor. This is her beautiful rescued furbaby Fern (10/10 name), also known as the cutest lil guy ever. See him below!

© LIA 2024

Ophion sp. (Ichneumonidae: Ophioninae)

I've been slowly improving my wasp identification skills through the online WaspID Course and I fell in love with a photo of the face of an Ophion wasp (a genus of parasitic wasps). The family can be found worldwide and is most diverse in the tropics. The genus Ophion can also be found worldwide but is most diverse in temperate regions.

Wasps have three simple light-detecting eyes on top of their head, between their compound eyes, but in most of Ophion's family, Ophioninae, these are hugeeeee. This allows them to hunt at night and they will often be attracted to lights, which their main hosts, moths, also are. These wasps are parasitoids, meaning they must live off a host to develop into an adult. A mother will lay her eggs in caterpillars feeding on exposed plants where they will hatch and feed on the caterpillar's body from the inside, leaving them alive just long enough to pupate into an adult.

The name Ophion comes from the Greek word Ὀφίων which refers to the first Titan king of heaven in Greek mythology. I do not know what the story behind that choice of name is - maybe because they're generally pretty big?

© LIA 2024

Velvatto Worm.

This catto is inspired by a group of strange and fantastical creatures known as velvet worms (phylum onychophora), thought to be one of the closest relatives of the arthropods (which include insects, spiders, crustaceans, millipedes, etc).

They hunt at night and kill other invertebrates by shooting an immobilising sticky slime out of glands on either side of their mouth - a mouth that contains a pair of crescent shaped jaws. What look like warts covering their body are called papillae and respond to touch, and most have a pair of simple eyes. They also have, perhaps surprisingly, quite complex brains and many interesting social behaviours, including living and hunting as a group, as has been described in the genus Euperipatoides.

The 200-ish known species are found in tropical and temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere, but there are thought to be many more undescribed species. In fact, a new species, the Tiputini velvet worm (see below), has just recently been discovered in Ecuador (Montalvo-Salazar et al., 2024).

📸Velvet worm (Peripatoides novaezealandiae) by Frupus on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0), https://flic.kr/p/hx6j34

📸The Tiputini velvet worm (Oroperipatus tiputini), taken by Pedro Peñaherrera-R

© LIA 2024

Mimic

I have previously done a rainbow one of these and realised afterwards that I never introduced the creature! Mimics are not cattos but devious impersonators that skulk around in the undergrowth, luring in extroverted cattos hoping to make new friends (who never get another chance to). They have a single, simple eye on the end of each of their tendrils and two slightly lighter-coloured shiny bumps resembling two more eyes. Of course, real cattos often have just one eye so the exact reason for the additional fakes is still not well understood. They must hide their flexible, gloopy bodies so that only their tendrils are visible for the deceit to work. Then when a catto has come up close enough, its tendrils will wrap around them in a flash, restrain them and pull them into its gaping mouth.

My first sketches of it are below.

© LIA 2024

Mant.

Created when I misheard @stephnichollsartist.

The ant parts are based on a lovely Australian species called the green pony ant (Rhytidoponera metallica). I miss Australia, especially all the ants.

© LIA 2024

“The Sturddlefish that Shouldn’t Exist”

Novelecology.com

“One hundred and eighty million years of evolution stand between the Russian sturgeon and the American paddlefish; Stegosaurus was yet to appear when the two turned down separate evolutionary paths. Taxonomically, they are members of entirely different fish families: as much difference as human and howler monkey. Hybridisation seems so unlikely that it has been standard practice in the caviar industry to use a radiation-damaged version of the pairing to make infertile caviar-producing sturgeons. So scientists were astonished when undamaged sperm and egg combined to create an impossible-seeming hybrid which bridges nearly two hundred million years of divergence: the sturddlefish.”

Miles Kitching

© LIA 2024

Bifloratto

© LIA 2024

"The Shrine Shrimp Amphipod (Jesogammarus acalceolus)"

Novelecology.com

"One thousand, two hundred and seventeen years ago, upon the slope of a volcano in the Aomori prefecture of Japan, a shrine was built. Beside that shrine, a small pool was made from a natural spring, providing a water source for visitors and their horses. These features would be cared for and maintained by generations of Shinto practitioners for hundreds of years, all the way to the modern day, and in doing so they provided an extraordinary sanctuary. Those conservators were unknowingly protecting a tiny crustacean, kept safe in that pool while the landscape changed around them. Today, those few square metres of water are the only place in all the world that the amphipod is known to live, since the researchers discovered it to be a unique species. They diagnosed it based on its lack of a calceolus, a part of the antenna involved in sensing when the females are ready to lay (and get laid), and named it Jesogammarus acalceolus. I prefer to call it the shrine shrimp, even if it's not strictly a shrimp at all."

Miles Kitching

© LIA 2024

"Bee-Eaters Among the Beefeaters: A New British Bird?"

Novelecology.com

"Some European bee-eaters have never seen Europe! Watching over a rare nest in the UK a few years ago inspired me to write up a NovelEcology post on whether the birds will soon become regular visitors as the climate warms (TL;DR: maybe in the south-east, if the bugs aren't all dead by then). Whilst at it, I found out that not only are these 'European' birds found all the way to China, not only do they migrate to central Africa each year, but plenty actually spend the Northern summer in Namibia and South Africa. In other words, they have no idea what Europe is!"

Miles Kitching

© LIA 2024

^O-O^

You catch a black catto crossing your path. They are shook. How do you proceed?

© LIA 2024

"The Fitoaty, Madagascar’s Shadow Cat"

Novelecology.com

"The fitoaty is an odd population of feral cats discovered in the wilds of north-east Madagascar. All black, lean and lanky, with an aversion to the tabby 'jungle cats' found elsewhere on the island, it's unclear where fitoaty came from or just how distinct they are from their fellow felines. Madagascar has no native cats, but the unique look and self-isolating behaviour of the fitoaty hints at a tantalising lost history and some extraordinary evolution underway."

Miles Kitching

© LIA 2024

DTIYS

Egg & Legg.

It's been a while but @vossanova's #DTIYS on instagram was too wonderful to miss. I find these characters so sweet. Thank you for the motivation to crush art block!

© LIA 2024

Meowshroom Lane

As I walked past another whimsically named street, here's Meowshroom Lane in its autumnal splendour. This piece features some old friends - the original three meowshrooms: shaggy inkcaps, agarics and generic brown mushrooms. New to the scene is some hoof fungi growing on the tree which I had a great time drawing.

© LIA 2024

Happy Birthday @bumble-beckie

This redrawn catto is dedicated to my incredible and beautiful waify. I am a better bean for knowing you and you continue to bring me endless amounts of joy. Thank you for all the wiggles, naps, head pats, bedtime stories, dancing, gibberish, games, laughs, "runs", cooking, theatrical shenanigans, baking, your exceptional taste in films and anime, and so much more. I love you.

© LIA 2024

Rotifers (Brachionus manjavacas).