Six more days till Melbourne Supernova!
Time to reveal the stickers I had professionally printed by Rad Stickers! These six designs are weatherproof and long-lasting, so will withstand being on objects that travel around with you!
I will bring my other sticker designs, but I only have a small supply of each design (ink is expensive :c) and they will be of lower quality.
Sacoglossa. This superorder is made up of solar-powered sea slugs, which ingest the insides of algae cells. This allows some of them to perform photosynthesis using stolen chloroplasts, the only animals to do so.
Stylommatophora. This order is made up of air-breathing land snails and slugs, including the garden snail, great grey slug, Roman snail and banana slug
E is for Elysia Chlorotica, the solar-powered sea slug
Just as eating shrimp turns flamingos pink and eating too many carrots will turn you orange (a process called carotenosis), the eastern emerald elysia get their green color from algae. But they also take the Kirby approach of absorbing the algae’s power of photosynthesis. To do this, they slurp the algae up and digest all but the chloroplasts. They then keep the chloroplasts alive and incorporate them into their own cells. The chloroplasts continue operating as usual, photosynthesizing for their new host. This is called kleptoplasty.
Much like with Cadlina Laevis, I hope to return to Elysia one day to better represent her indescribable beauty. Designing her dress took far longer than it should have and really brought to light the limitations of vector art and my lack of experience as an artist. I didn’t end up using either of these vintage dresses for Queen Elysia, but I wanted to share them anyway as I may not use them for future Alphabet Superset cards. This beaded gown looked perfect due to the similarities to the sparkles of elysia chlorotica, but I wanted to pay homage to the 1960s trend of the ruffled collar. I don’t have any other animals planned that I think the ruffled collar would fit except elysia. I tried to replicate this dress but it actually broke my brain. Then my document overwhelmed Inkscape to the point of crashing multiple times and I lost some progress that I didn’t feel like redoing. She ended up with a scalloped collar instead.
Last time, I talked about struggling with motivation. I’ve been trying to curb my avoidance by coming up with another long-term project like the Alphabet Superset challenge that I can turn to when I lose steam. I know it sounds like a ticket to burnout, but I think having permission to procrastinate with a specific project will help keep me invested in the things that I have committed to. The blessing of having a miniscule following is that I can post without worrying that I’ll upset anyone by breaking my established pattern. For those of you with creative blogs like art or writing, what do you wish you could experiment with but are afraid to do so?
Sacoglossa. This superorder is made up of solar-powered sea slugs, which ingest the insides of algae cells. This allows some of them to perform photosynthesis using stolen chloroplasts, the only animals to do so.
Hygrophila. This clade is made up of air-breathing freshwater snails, including pond snails and bubble snails
you would all be getting a very long ramble about sea slugs right now if it wasn't 4am and i wasn't very very tired. i just need you all to imagine i am showing you awesome images of sea slugs and pulling out words like cerata, rhinophores, and sacoglossa
Elysia ornata is a sea slug in the Family Plakobranchidae (Order Sacoglossa). Its body is a translucent leaf-green in color with speckles of white and black. The parapodial margin is black with a yellow or orange submarginal band. The green rhinophores are usually black-tipped, but can also have orange bands (as shown)..
It is also known as Ornate Leaf Slug. They feed on green algae (Bryopsis sp.), and reaches a length of 5cm.
This species is circumtropical and can be found both in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean..
Costasiella kuroshimae, aka the leaf slug, sea sheep, and loads of other names, is a type of sacoglossan sea slug!
Scientific Classifications:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Clade: Heterobranchia
Informal Group: Opisthobranchia
Clade: Sacoglossa
Clade: Plakobranchacea
Superfamily: Limapontioidea
Family: Costasiellidae
Genus: Costasiella
These little cuties are around Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia! They are capable of photosynthesis via a process called kleptoplasty, where they retain the chloroplasts from the algae they eat.
Their lifespan is between 6 months to a year. They are 5 millimeters to 1 centimeter