somnetbati's photostream

When 390 000 000 years you reach, look as good, you will not.

A man or woman prepares, thinks and then, slightly hesitating, starts to carve. Perhaps, after a few subtle lines the artist stops and thinks things over. It is not the first time.

This needs to be done properly. It is not a game.

The artist's mind feels the movement and power. It focusses on the attachment of muscles to bone, how they contract and how this tension snaps and breaks into motion. The animal zigzags in a desperate attempt to escape.

Soon the artist tastes the dust, the sweat. The cracking sound -almost tonal- of stones and sand particles being launched by the gazelle's hoofs. Now carving vigorously, the artist captures this motion.
One frame.
The final jump of a gazelle.

Schematic drawing of the preparation progress. Micro photography serves as an aid during difficult stages of the preparation.

Technicals:
The fossil material is hand-picked from Moroccan strata
Micro photography done with reverted 50 mm on Sigma 150/2.8
Preparation work done using Ken Mannion ST air pen
Drawing in Inkscape

Gradually, slowly, an animal emerges from its rock coffin. Some 400 million years ago, this creature crawled, ate and likely reproduced before meeting its demise. The creature enrolled itself to protect its softer belly and died. We can tell it was buried rather quickly. The burial itself might have been, in some catastrophic event, the very cause of death. All body parts were saved from scavengers due to this rapid sedimentological entombement.

As years passed on an astronimcal scale, and pressure increased altering the chemical characteristics of the creatures' remains, life above ground was bussiness as usual. The most wondrous creatures evolved and disappreared, few of them leaving traces of their own in succesive geological strata.

Millions of years passed before primates arose, and something truly remarkable happend when one of these primates learned to investigate the surroundings, passing on and cumulating the most precious good available: knowledge.

This knowledge allows for an ever continuing exploration of our natural history, presented today by the case of this individual Reedops, being freed from its stone mausoleum as we speak.

Although some of you will definitely think Fibonnacci right know, contrary to the growth patterns on flower petals the pattern we see here is less complex. A simple hexagonal arrangement on a curved surface, it still is the most efficient way to densly pack a lot of elements on a surface.

Is it designed? No. Not by a higher intelligence anyway. However, it does tell us that an efficient coverage of this eye with lenses was a highly desirable trait, having a beneficial impact on the relative survival rates of the gene complex involved.

Is it sophisticated? Absolutely. The owner of this optical system must have had a pretty good eyesight. Cross-sections of the lenses in some cases show complex higher-order curvatures to correct for optical aberrations.

Is it old? Hell yes! Light falling through the cornea of this compound eye was interpreted by a central nervous system about 395 million years ago.
Indeed: one eye, multiple lenses, but only one cornea.

Is it fascinating?

Obviously.