I'm A South African Marine Bio Masters Student And TA And The Discovery Of Coelacanths Is My Supervising

I'm a South African marine bio masters student and TA and the discovery of Coelacanths is my supervising professor's favourite to tell the undergrads, and he does so at every available opportunity. When Marjorie Courtney-Latimer recieved a call about a strange fish, she went to examine it and immediately knew this was something important. She wrote a letter to JLB Smith at Grahamstown, including this drawing.

Unfortunately, Smith was on holiday at the time, so the letter had to be rerouted, which resulted in significant delays. But the moment he saw the drawing, Smith knew that what had been discovered was important enough to pack up his holiday. Because of the delay, by the time he arrived, the fish had had to be taxidermied for preservation (cold storage was not as effective at the time). But Smith immediately recognised the Coelacanth from fossil records. This kicked off a wave of fishing as people tried to find more of these awesome fish, but it was a long time before any more were caught. Prof likes to use this story to illustrate the importance of being able to pick the most important features of a fish when drawing. I just think its a cool story.

J.L.B. Smith – Scientist of the Day

James Leonard Brierley Smith, a South African ichthyologist usually referred to as J. L.B. Smith, was born Sep. 26, 1897.

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well that's not terrifying at all

the best trick to play as a dm is when you keep hold of a small, seemingly insignificant detail in your player's backstory to throw in when they least expect it in the most horrifying way

counting each piercing individually so for example both ears pierced once = 2 piercings. reblog for sample size <3

My code is taking too long to run someone ask me something im bored

Oh fuck i meant to colour him lol

Was meant to be a quick warmup study but ended up taking way longer than it should and im tired now so here it is

A lil study based on this Leyendecker painting [ x ]