New Work: Elephant Seals

The Early Bird Gets...Stuck Outside

I woke up this morning at 7am, feeling ambitious and ready to work in my studio. I was out the door bu 7:45, picked up the Sunday NYT, and got to the bus stop by 8:00. And waited. And waited until I realized the buses don't start until 9am.

So now I'm the only person in the Michigan Leauge lobby, enjoying some coffee, and pouring through the Times. Still not a bad way to begin my day, but I also wish I had a car.

-Michael-

Chamelon and His Hemipenes

Writings

Hi all,
So I started writing this blog post around 10am this morning and am finally ready to upload it. I initially had a tough time writing the sample chapter that I'm going to include in our All Student Exhibition, but eventually put it together after dinner (IP has been such a good exercise in figuring out when I work best: Morning's good for writing, doing busy work and errands, afternoon time is good for drawing (especially mindless patterns) and evening is good for writing and painting. Anyway, here's what I worked on today:

Good Morning. I know it’s been awhile and I’m trying to get back in the habit of writing. Just writing and writing and writing. Now that my senior thesis consists of a book, this is something I should be doing everyday. Like doing scales on a piano. Today is going to be fairly stream-of-consciousness. Maybe I’ll edit it, maybe I won’t.

I just checked my library account and I have 25 books checked out of the library for research. While I can keep renewing them all year, I really hope that I’m able to find them all when I finally have to turn them in. Otherwise I won’t be able to graduate.

Funny story from last night: my friend Sara and I were watching the movie “Flightplan,” which I would recommend to anyone. Having finished my Woodchuck Cider, and being the type of person that has to always fidget with my hands, I unconsciously stuck my left middle finger in the bottle. It was a perfect fit and I continued to insert it past my big knuckle, for whatever reason. As you all can guess, my finger became stuck. I jimmied it around a bit, hoping that Sara wouldn’t notice and that I could remedy the situation with my dignity intact. No such luck.

I turned to Sara, with this green bottle awkwardly dangling from my middle finger, and looked at her with the panicked expression of a 5-year old. She, in return, gave me the I-can’t-believe-my-22-year-old-friend-just-got-his-finger-stuck-in-a-bottle look, a smirk with bemused pity. Our options ranged from oiling the finger, heating the bottle so that it expands, or breaking the glass. I opted for the first choice, and within seconds, it popped off (and got jammed into Sara’s stomach in the process). Having learned my lesson, like any other toddler exploring his new environment, I can now happily report that I will no longer be sticking my fingers into bottles.

I started looking at apartments in Seattle last night, not because I’m looking for anything specific, but just to get a feel for my options. I’m so excited to be an independent adult.

Okay, on to my thesis writing.

Last I wrote, I had a very rough brainstorming session. Normally, I would be refining this into a more coherent outline, but I’m jumping ahead and going to start working on a specific chapter. Our All Student Exhibition goes up on Friday, November 16th, which means that the work is due by Tuesday, the 13th. Because there is a significant amount of money available through awards ($1,200 for seniors), it’s a big deal. I’ve won an award for the past two years, but I’m a bit worried about this one. My classmates are producing very strong work, evidence of our IP experience, and the need for extra funding is causing everyone to be more competitive than usual. On the other hand, everyone’s so focused on their individual IP projects that not everyone has work that could stand alone at this point in the year.

For my submission, I’m including 5 illustrations of animal penises as well as text to accompany and explain. I’m considering it as an excerpt from my final project. This past weekend, I finished Pig, Squid, and Slug and in the next two days, I’ll complete Duck and Lizard. Now before you start rolling your eyes or start to blush, just keep reading- the evolution and diversity of the penis is fascinating. I’m keeping the tone of an amused natural historian and creating illustrations that are fairly appropriate (kid-friendly in style, though not necessarily in content). Maybe I should just show you what I’ve been working on.


THE PENIS

THE FUNCTION OF THE PENIS is quite simple: remain erect during intercourse and transfer sperm into the female. However, it’s evolution and distribution within the animal kingdom is both complex and diverse.

The penis does not have a single common ancestor from which all modern-day penises can trace their lineage. Instead, the penis--as found in mammals, birds, reptiles, and some invertebrates--is a product of convergent evolution. This means that different animal species realized independently of each other that a penis is a pretty effective way of bringing sperm closer to eggs. For example, birds have an internal structure that becomes erect when filled with lymph fluid; in contrast, mammalian species rely on dilated blood vessels to fill their muscled members.

The form of the penis has been shaped by natural selection over millions of years of copulation. To explain the evolution of any behavior or anatomy, one has to assume that competition exists; there’s a winner and a loser and only the winner gets to pass along its genes.

In relation to mating, one also assumes that both males and females have multiple sexual partners (research in animal behavior is showing that strict monogamy is actually a rare trait). For males, more sex increases the likelihood of their genes being passed along. Females, who have a limited resource and perhaps the ultimate upper hand, may mate with multiple partners to ensure only the highest-quality sperm fertilize her eggs. The shape of the penis has responded to this challenge in a surprising number of ways.

Some have ridged heads that scrape and displace any remaining sperm from previous males. Others, like the tiger, have backwards facing barbs that prevent either partner from disconnecting until the erection subsides. Most reptiles have two penis-like structures called hemepenes, not for the three-some orgies one might imagine, but for the fact that they have two sets of urinary and reproductive tracts. Some of the largest vascular organs, like those found in elephants and whales, contain enough muscles to be prehensile.

The size of the penis, however, is variable and doesn’t necessarily correspond to size of the animal. Gorillas can top the scales around 550 lbs yet only have an erect penis that averages 1.5 inches (“hung like a gorilla” is an insult in some African countries). Our next closest relative, the chimpanzee, comes in at 3.0 inches. Humans have the largest out of all the primates, rising to an average of 6.0 inches.



Slugs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, meaning they contain both male and female sex organs. During mating, they dangle from tree branches on a thread of slime. As their bodies wrap around each other, both penises emerge and elongate until these too, begin to intertwine. It is only at this point that sperm is released and collected on each other’s penis. They disengage and retract their members, which now contain fresh sperm to fertilize their own eggs.


The male squid lacks a physical penis and instead relies on a specialized tentacle, the hectocotyl arm. After sufficient courtship with a female, he uses it to scoop out and distribute his condensed packets of sperm. These spermatophores should come with a “contents under pressure” warning label because upon insertion into the female, the capsule explodes and sends the sperm flying towards the female’s eggs. In some species, the specialized tentacle breaks off and remains stuck and writhing in the female as she swims away. This at first seems painful to the male (and female too), but it may also act as a plug that prevents further copulation with other males.


In their flaccid state, pig penises seem fairly normal. Upon erection, however, the tip spirals into a distinctive corkscrew shape. This apparently binds the boar to the sow until the act is complete, around 25 minutes later.

It should be noted that a pig can produce up to 500 milliliters of ejaculate, enough to fill, oh, about 2/3 of your average wine bottle.



And that's what I have so far.
My goal for the next two days is finish the last two illustrations as well as the captions. That way I don't have to really work on this when I go home this weekend. And then just print and frame the work on Monday and Tuesday and have it ready for the exhibition!

k, g'night