Crane fly,
Tipula sp.❤
(05/2003 in Oberursel, Germany)

Isn't it beautiful?😍 Crane flies are completely harmless.😁 Many believe they are huge mosquitoes.😆 Their mandibles are only suitable for absorbing water and nectar and can't penetrate through the skin.☝ What can end fatally, however, is to get the giggles from people panicking around the whole apartment.😂🙈🙉🙊




Do you see behind the wings these small stems with the thickening at the end? In evolutionary terms, these are reduced wings and serve as orientation. They are called halteres and are a fascinating development of Mother Nature. Many other flying insects have that too. Simply said, the halteres swing through the wing movements, and as the animal changes direction, the vibration also changes.💡

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This is supposed to show a sleeping ground sloth. It's fallen totally exhausted into a dream-filled sleep. It's already clear to me that a ground sloth hardly slept in such a position. This is called artistic freedom! I often sleep in similar position!😜


With their huge claws, these extinct representatives of the South American megafauna were able to dig impressive burrows. A particularly large burrow can be found, for example, in the Brazilian state of Rondonia. It consists of several tunnels with a total of 2,000 feet in length (around 600 meters) and was probably extended over several generations.

In the past, sloths were a very diverse group. There was even a semi-aquatic species in Peru that showed similarities to otters and beavers.

Some cryptozoologists think there may still be live ground sloths, somewhere in the Amazon. Basis for this assumption is a myth of the Carios, according to which a monster (the mapinguari) living in a cave on their tribal territory in the Brazilian rainforest. One may doubt and still dream. I suspect that only well-preserved remains were found in a cave (in fact, ancient fur remains have been discovered) and the rest was done with imagination.

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The mysterious back of my painting. On the dark areas is a thicker color layer. Partly I dug into the layers with the brush, which then created these lines. As you can see, the snake consists of only a few layers of paint. Most of the layers I needed for the wood. You can't see the butterfly, because of the stretcher. The idea for the motif came to me during the painting. Originally I just wanted to paint my snake in a beautiful landscape. It's my first tempera and at the same time my first canvas painting ever.

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I applied varnish to separate the tempera from the following oil colors. The tempera have given the painting its extreme radiance. Now I want more nuances, transitions and spatiality. I hope to achieve this by subtle overpainting with transparent oil paints. I'm curious if it works as imagined. Through the varnish cracks have become visible immediately. The painting already experienced some shocks since spring 2017. I'll try to hide those cracks a bit. Practice makes perfect, so I keep on learning by doing! But I definitely want to start soon with a new detailed painting and this one blocks me. It keeps me trapped, but basically I'm already happy with it and all the statements are already included. That's why I'll finish it now. It later gets a frame that represents a broken terrarium.

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"I'm still here!", it shouts from the rotten sunflower field. The little marigold doesn't give up! It shines on a cold and misty November morning, as if it were the most beautiful summer day! 🙄🌻

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The monument to my great-grandfather Werner Hilpert (1897-1957) in the Dr.-Werner-Hilpert-Siedlung (Dr. Werner Hilpert settlement), east of the former Camp King in Oberursel, Germany.

He was a politician who took his humanist ideals very seriously. That's why he's a very important example for me. If you ask me if I'm a better person because of my great-grandfather, then I can only affirm that. It's my responsibility to keep the memory alive.

In 1932 he became President of the Center Party in Saxony until the dissolution in 1933. He lost all functions. From 1932 to 1937 he was President of the Catholic Action in Saxony and was in open opposition to National Socialism.

In collaboration with Carl Goerdeler he was adviser and authorised representative of Jewish citizens in "Aryanization". The resisters saved the lives of many Jewish families.

He worked as a syndic in a Jewish business building, trying to keep working conditions as human as possible. His office also burnt down during Kristallnacht in 1938.

In September 1939, he was arrested by the Gestapo. He spent the next 5 1/2 years in Buchenwald concentration camp as a political prisoner.

He was member of the Buchenwald Resistance and the Buchenwald Popular Front Committee. They not only campaigned for the prisoners, but also considered how Germany should continue after National Socialism.

In 1945, after Germany was freed from the Nazis, he took part in founding the CDU party in Hesse and was elected President of the CDU Hesse.

The second picture shows an election poster for the state election of Hesse in 1946. [License by CDU, creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.de]

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Dakota snaking around, analyzing everything!🐍💕 The world outside the box is strange and frightening. Just one look and then quickly back to the hide! 😅

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What's your favourite flower? 🙄🌻

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Dakota in the dark!☻
The hide and seek game must be possible!🙄 The more safety a terrarium suggests to the animal, the freer it moves.😉 Don't force it to be openly on display. Let it make its own decisions.🐍 That's how it gets really interesting. My corn snake Dakota feels safe between branches and foliage. My leopard geckos also have some thin branches vertically in the terrarium, in addition to roots on the ground and caves in the back wall.

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Tasmanian Tigers (2010, oil on paper)

Hardly any other animal has inspired my imagination as much as the Tasmanian tiger.
Other than their appearance suggests, they're more closely related to kangaroos than to wolves and tigers. They're considered extinct since 1936. I wish there's still a secret refuge somewhere.❤

This is one of three oil paintings I've done so far. Maybe even the first, but I don't remember that exactly.🙈 The painting doesn't exactly match this picture. I had to hire a spy to get a photo of it. It was a gift to a person I later broke with. So I had to work out the reflections before I could publish it.📸🕵

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