#crustmas

“As the poem at the left is by the leader of the Katsushika poetry group, Bunbunsha Kanikomaru (Little Crab), it is not surprising that the subject of this surimono is the tiny benkei crab, drawn, as customary, to appear somewhat comical. The second poem, on the right, is by the important actor and figure in Edo, Ichikawa Danjuro VII, signed Sansho the seventh, his pen name.”

Little self portrait for today’s daily doodle.

this was honestly so fun, I'd never made one before xD

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Half a billion years ago the world was an incredibly different place. Life had yet to struggle onto land and the atmosphere was a bit toxic to things as complex as us. The world was ruled by arthropods of all shapes and sizes. All were restricted to the zero-gravity environment of the oceans and only some had developed hard enough armor plating to be captured by the fossil record. A relatively small slice of this time period, the Burgess Shale of Canada, preserves a snapshot of what many animal communities may have looked like in other parts of the world. Among those ishy squishy mini-beasts smooshed into the shale of Canada is a flat, shrimp-like critter named after the jolliest of us all during this time of year, saint Nicholas, meet Sanctacaris.

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