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Bookmark and ShareJune is National Oceans Month!
Join me for the opening reception of Ka 'Ike o ka Moana: The Knowledge of the Ocean, an educational and artistic exhibit to raise ocean awareness, on Thursday, May 31, 4:30-6pm at the Honolulu Hale Courtyard.
My contribution to the show is an illustration of the endemic lanternsharks of Hawai’i.
Etmopterus villosus, the Hawaiian Lanternshark, was discovered in 1905 and is endemic to Molokai at depths of 1300-3000 feet. Only a few specimens have been found of this little-known shark.
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| Etmopterus villosus, 1905, from The deep-sea fishes of the Hawaiian Islands Gilbert, Charles Henry, 1859-1928; Jordan, David Starr, 1851-1931. |
Etmopterus lailae, with its distinctive, large snout, is known from three specimens in the Bishop Museum’s fish collection. For years it was misidentified as Etmopterus lucifer, a species found in Japanese waters. Last year there was excitement in the scientific community when the specimens were reexamined and recognized as a newly discovered Hawaiian species.
It was a challenge and a joy to research images of desiccated specimens and imagine what these rare sharks look like in their natural environment, and to extrapolate from the anatomy of related species. And the beauty of illustrating them digitally allows me to revise as I receive input from biologists. I'll post my illustration after the close of the show.
More about the discovery of Etmopterus lailae: http://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/new-shark-species.php
And an article in the journal Zootaxa describing the new species: http://www.science.fau.edu/sharklab/pdfs/epkw17.pdf
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