Meerkats are Amazing but very hard to draw.

I'm very easily distracted by animals, ohh look a Meerkat.

 

This is my lap, so its pretty easy to understand why my favourite animals at the moment are Meerkats. I was at Melbourne Zoo on Monday ready to do the meerkat encounter. Usually there is a pretty long waiting list to get a reservation because only four people can do it each day, but because I went alone they were able to fit me in with a group of three. Fortunately for me the other group canceled ( something about having a baby today...priorities, you're doing it wrong)so I had the most amazing solo encounter. I was allowed 25 minutes with five of the cutest animals climbing all over my lap. Supervised of course but the thought still crossed my mind to tuck one into my jacket.They make you sit on your hands so you aren't tempted to touch them, in my case I can understand why they did this.

The main female claimed my lap pretty early on and wouldn't get off, she was making little growlie noises when the others tried to join her, I like to think we had a connection, the keeper said something about food and warmth, I'm sure it was unrelated to my Meerkat though, I wasn't paying full attention to the keeper I was a bit distracted with forming a life long bond with a Meerkat called Chardonnay.

Meerkats have really dark skin on their tummy's so when the sun is out they will stand with their belly to the sun as a way to warm up...I am researching meerkats literally as I write this for my own benefits and naturally images of Timon come up, my world just changed a little bit as I realised...The Lion King lied to me. I know that I am an adult and this shouldn't bother me but I am genuinely sad that The Lion King lied. It depicted Timon with a really lite coloured stomach. Like I know that the dark skin is under the fur but you can still see it. See I can draw a Meerkat with a dark stomach, I use the word draw very loosely here cause Meerkats are very hard to draw, much harder than I was expecting. What I should of said was I can colour in a Meerkat so that it has a dark stomach.

 Here is another drawing and a picture from my poster so you know which animal I actually meant with all the rambling this week.

 << Haha Mare-cat. Cross between a carebear and a nightmare...A Nightmarecat.






#Animaloftheweek

Sharks are totally awesome!

This shark is at Melbourne Aquarium.

 So the reason sharks caught my attention as my favourite animal for this week: My boyfriend and I went out on a a fishing charter. I say fishing loosely because he fished I got distracted, I talked to the captain, I drove the boat, I got really sea sick, and I had a nap ( fishing is hard work).  While I wasn't extremely busy fishing there was a blue shark swimming around the boat. Not only did this shark distract me from being sick but it sparked a passion to know more about this majestic creature. The captain said it would have been between 2 and 3 meters long. It had four Remora fish swimming underneath it, and it was truly amazing to see. We ended up moving on to another site cause the shark was a bit too interested in our fish, but I could have watched it all day. I didn't manage to get any decent photos, with the reflection of the water and the sharks natural camouflage.

Ever been to a gym... don't worry I haven't either but I've walked past a few, an you see guys there that have massive shoulders going down to a small waste and normal legs. A sexy triangle if you will. This is what sharks are a big triangle, beautiful, powerful creatures. Wide "shoulders" going down to a narrower tail. The jocks of the ocean,  Fun to look at but tend to get a bit annoyed if you touch them.
See I totally draw a shark with a triangle as the base.

Sharks are triangle shaped animals.

You can't really tell from this picture because its his bad side, but um hes really actually quite friendly. Sharks don't have hands so if they want to investigate something they use their mouth. Much like a puppy or a baby.
Sharks have been represented across pop-culture as evil killing machines, we have all heard of the movie Jaws or at least know the concept. A great movie, a powerful movie. It shaped the image of sharks for many years. Peter Benchley was the man who wrote jaws, he regrets everything he had to do with creating that image of sharks. After going on many expeditions and spending a large amount of time with experts in the field he devoted the rest of his life to preserving the great shark species and spreading a message of conservation not fear. I highly recommend watching this video all the way to the end. It is a short clip about the legacy of Peter Benchley. Support our sharks is another great group to get behind for news and relevant information on the progress in conserving what sharks are left. Sharks are definitely a species I would recommend reading up about. There is some really interesting stories and information out there.
Just to put it into perspective hotdogs kill more people a year than sharks do. Here's another 19 things. And some more attempts at drawing a shark.Plus a picture from my poster of animals around the world ( ill tick them off as I go).