"Overgrown"

"Overgrown"

2019

Gaur (Bos gaurus)

"Once Upon A Time In India"

2020

Asiatic Lion (Panthera leo persica) and Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris)

The meeting of our world's two supercats, the Tiger and the Lion, likely has not occurred in the wild for a couple of centuries, but it has stirred our collective imagination since antiquity, and continues to do so today. Though the historic range of Asiatic Lions did overlap with that of Caspian Tigers in parts Central Asia and the Middle East, and with Bengal Tigers in parts of India, I actually believe encounters and competition would have remained fairly limited by habitat preferences. The Tiger is essentially a forest predator, and the Lion prefers open, drier terrain. When they did meet, they would have done so in transitional zones, where grasslands and bushlands merged into dry forests.

A fight could go either way depending on each individual animal's size, fitness and temperament. But most historical and contemporary records, opinions of big cat experts, and my personal views, favor the larger, more powerful Tiger. In any case, I've always thought a bit silly to waste so much energy arguing over which animal would beat the other in a fight, as if they were dueling monsters in a movie or wrestling champions in an arena, and conservationists and experts tend to share in that view. There's a whole lot more that makes these animals amazing than just their fighting capabilities, and their coexisting in the wild is interesting beyond the question of who would win in a fight. 

Though still threatened on many fronts, Bengal Tigers and Asiatic Lions have grown in numbers and are beginning to outgrow their sanctuaries in India, with one Tiger recently wandering into the state of Gujarat, the only place in the world where Asiatic Lions reside. Only the future will tell if this scene will one day happen again, or if it will remain a picture of the past.

"Smaug"

2020

"Herald of Spring"

2019

Brown Bear (Ursus arctos)

"Elephantidae"

2020

Phylogenetic tree of the three extant elephant species

African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana)

African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis)

Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus)

In popular knowledge, elephants are commonly separated into two kinds, African and Asian (that is, when a distinction is made at all). In actuality, there are three very distinct, very different, very unique species of elephant alive today:

-The African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana)

-The African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis)

-The Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus)

The two species of African Elephants are as distinct from each other as Asian Elephants are from Woolly Mammoths. The African Forest Elephant is actually more closely related to the extinct, massive Straight-tusked Elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) than it is to its contemporary African cousin.

All three elephant species are endangered.

"The Fellowship of the Ring"

2021

"The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil."

-"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", by J.R.R. Tolkien

2021 marked 20 years since the first instalment of the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy, Fellowship of the Ring, was released. Consequently, it was also the 20th anniversary of me being introduced to Middle-earth.

Funny story, I was first introduced to LotR from a promotional magazine my mom brought home to show me, thinking it might be a movie I might like to see (me already being into fantasy and fairy tales and such). I'm sure I still have it somewhere. It had stills from the film, and a bit of info on Tolkien, Peter Jackson, and the overall story and characters. Well, I did find what I saw on that magazine appealing, but I was also kind of spooked by some of the characters and by the trailers they were running on tv. It looked to be like a horror film to me, and I was only 9. It took much convincing by my mom, including her seeing it before my brother and me and absolutely assuring us that it wasn't a scary film, before we actually went to see it. Needless to say, I fell madly in love with it on first sight. It has since become the highest, most precious of my special interests, the most beloved of all my fandoms.

Over the course of these last three years I have made drawings of some of my favorite scenes from the trilogy, both from first watching it as a wee lad and from now as an older, wiser, more knowledgeable LotR nerd, and I have accompanied them with some sort of written commentary. I will now be posting them here on Tumblr. So stay tuned 👁️