This is a titmel. It's been first described in 2007. Other than camels, it lives in the mangroves only. When the flood comes, it sticks its long trunk inside a tight and wet hole. The thickening at the tip of the trunk serves as an anchor. At the back it has two huge humps which always float on the surface. They feel very nice. Because the titmel can't breathe underwater, there's a nose on each hump. It can't flee in water, so it follows a very interesting defense strategy. If an enemy appears (mostly sea cucumbers), it sprays milk out of its noses. That's very confusing for the enemy, because milk signals offspring. Every predator knows not to fight a feeding mother. When living at land, this weird animal behaves almost like a common rabbit. Always hopping around, looking for huge carrots and fresh holes. Scientists still try to figure out the reproductive system of that species. There's no evidence for sexual reproduction yet. It seems as if they just appear out of random holes in the swamp. Scientists definitely need to dig much deeper, harder and faster!

🏨🐜 News from the insect hotel:


That's my bud, the stink bug! I thought of it as a different species, but thanks to a friendly hint I know that it's the introduced species Halyomorpha halys. Since 2011, this species has been detected in Germany and comes originally from East Asia.

It sat on my finger for about 8 minutes.☝ Then my patience was over. It has nothing to do with the little gift that made it to me.💩😂 I was hoping it would fly away, for recording.😐 It's very affectionate.😅😘 This stink bug has been with me for at least a month now. Sometimes it lands on my desk and struggles to get back up.😂 Stupid sweet little bug!❤ I'm very happy about this roommate, but I've just read that they don't survive the room temperatures in winter. Next time I see it, I free it! 🤗

Cleopatra 💖☄☄

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.💡

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.📸🕵