science, art, and science art

Jenn // Scientific illustrator + pro-rain propagandist // alithographica.com

[pixxeidust]

women's beauty standards:

- hourglass body shape

- tiny waist

- long legs

- large eyes

- no body hair

conclusion:

conventionally attractive woman

[beanytuesday]

Animal Crackers for Zoologists

[alithographica]

I've been even more inactive than usual lately, but with good reason! I took a bit of a break from posting my own work (it was starting to feel more like pressure than fun) but I was starting to feel like I'd really like to share work again...and then I became co-chair of the 2026 Visual SciComm Conference for the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and it has been eating up my brain for the last few months. Oops. :')

It has been an interesting journey! I really love the GNSI and the work we do, and we have a really cool slate of speakers lined up this year. I think a handful of you might be interested, so, open invite—come check us out this weekend! It's fully virtual this year. We'll have a networking mixer on Friday night + lots of talks on Saturday and Sunday with topics ranging from: freelancing as an artist; data visualization ethics; paleoart; creating work to promote biodiversity and activism; large-scale design considerations; and more. There are also workshops on the July/August weekends after the conference.

The conference will be fully recorded so if you're busy this weekend (or live in an incompatible time zone), you can register now and go back to the link to view recordings for up to 1 month. If you use captioning, the host platform can be run through autocaptions on Chrome and we'll upload real captions to the recordings afterwards.

It's $95 USD for GNSI members and $125 for nonmembers. GNSI is a 501c3 education nonprofit so the money isn't going to me or to any other volunteer—it helps the org run and continue to provide education and connections.

More info & registration here!

Once the conference is done, I have a trip planned and then I'm hoping to get back into the swing of more regularly sharing work again.

So, regardless of whether you attend this weekend or not, I'll see y'all soon! ✨

[alithographica]

fyi if you want to attend but cost is a barrier, I just got word that we still have a few more Accessibility Grants available. These grants lower the registration fee to $20 US. DM me for info!

[alithographica]

I've been even more inactive than usual lately, but with good reason! I took a bit of a break from posting my own work (it was starting to feel more like pressure than fun) but I was starting to feel like I'd really like to share work again...and then I became co-chair of the 2026 Visual SciComm Conference for the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and it has been eating up my brain for the last few months. Oops. :')

It has been an interesting journey! I really love the GNSI and the work we do, and we have a really cool slate of speakers lined up this year. I think a handful of you might be interested, so, open invite—come check us out this weekend! It's fully virtual this year. We'll have a networking mixer on Friday night + lots of talks on Saturday and Sunday with topics ranging from: freelancing as an artist; data visualization ethics; paleoart; creating work to promote biodiversity and activism; large-scale design considerations; and more. There are also workshops on the July/August weekends after the conference.

The conference will be fully recorded so if you're busy this weekend (or live in an incompatible time zone), you can register now and go back to the link to view recordings for up to 1 month. If you use captioning, the host platform can be run through autocaptions on Chrome and we'll upload real captions to the recordings afterwards.

It's $95 USD for GNSI members and $125 for nonmembers. GNSI is a 501c3 education nonprofit so the money isn't going to me or to any other volunteer—it helps the org run and continue to provide education and connections.

More info & registration here!

Once the conference is done, I have a trip planned and then I'm hoping to get back into the swing of more regularly sharing work again.

So, regardless of whether you attend this weekend or not, I'll see y'all soon! ✨

[alithographica]

I just reached 2000 species documented on iNaturalist and it's hitting my dopamine receptors like ten million tennis balls at a golden retriever party

[venndaai]

have you guys heard about the greenland shark. some crazy shit happening there.

[venndaai]

they are sexually mature at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OLD.

their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.

longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years

toxic flesh

has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.

lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion

largest genome of any shark

eats everything including moose and polar bears

ma'am you are delightfully strange and I'm privileged to share a planet with you

[fluorescentbrains]

this post prompted me to refresh my memory on Greenland Shark Facts and this detail about how they feed goes so hard

just vacuuming up their unsuspecting prey. whole !

[muffinlance]

Good news good news good news! Recent research suggests the eye parasites do NOT blind them!

Eye-opening research: Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries through DNA repair mechanism

Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk sits in her office, eyes fixed on the computer monitor in front of her. "You see it move its eye," says the UC Ir

I <3 you a normal amount Greenland sharks

[government-cy-op]

Just found 2 copies of a 19th century naturalism magazine and LOOK AT THEIR LITTLE ICON

[yorgen-sh]

[alithographica]

‘Sound always muted’ community member here urging you to unmute

[alithographica]

i asked my bird understander friend about the kansas avoiders and she thinks they may just dislike prairie; they're not the only birds that tend to avoid that area so it seems like it must be just not that romantic a destination for em (sorry if you did not actually want to know a possible answer)

no I very much did want to know the answer, many thanks to you and the bird understander 🫶

[great-and-small]

Don’t mind me just thinking about the hole in the middle of the United States where Chipping sparrows refuse to fuck

[great-and-small]

[alithographica]

I’ve been drawing this statue for an hour and all I have is one rendered ass

[alithographica]

Thank you Rome, you were so dramatic about everything and it makes for a great statue

[alithographica]

Being an artist is funny because it leads you to weird fixations. I picked this statue out of the whole museum because it was caked up, I won't deny that. And I started shading with the ass because I like to start with the darkest, least ambiguous values, but also because butts are funny and I was entertaining myself.

People who walked by me, especially in the early stages where I was 100% focused on the ass, might conclude I was really into the ass. False. The figure was simply the table I needed to set for the main course. The sexiest part is the little chips in the marble. That little scratch on the torso? Delicious, I was way less normal about drawing the two lines there than anything around the butt.

[alithographica]

I’ve been drawing this statue for an hour and all I have is one rendered ass

[alithographica]

Thank you Rome, you were so dramatic about everything and it makes for a great statue

[alithographica]

I’ve been drawing this statue for an hour and all I have is one rendered ass

[alithographica]

Smh leave the overhead lights on 5 minutes after the tank light goes dark and you get the biggest stink eye for it

[alithographica]

ouuuugh darkness time

[alithographica]

Smh leave the overhead lights on 5 minutes after the tank light goes dark and you get the biggest stink eye for it

[alithographica]

Drawing everyone’s favorite staple remover tonight

[alithographica]

Awkward teenage phase

[alithographica]

Hit it with a hammer to get that nice antique effect

[alithographica]

Fin 🐟

I might go mess with the shading again in the future—it still feels a little incomplete. I was trying to figure it all out while in combat with a display case that was designed to mess with me specifically (best viewing angle has the display’s corner seam running through it, and both faces of the display somehow manage to have a ton of glare and reflection)

[alithographica]

For some reason a few people have found this post recently, but they keep reblogging the first image. And that's nice, I'm glad people like it, but it was just the sketch. I did finish it, and the finished one looks cooler. 🥺

[alithographica]

Just clicked the "share" link on a job posting thinking that it would give me a tidy little link to share and instead I received the endgame boss of internet "share this with your network!" options. I am having the same visceral reaction to this that I think a medium predator has to a frilled lizard, I want to jump back and retreat

At least one of these companies doesn't exist anymore. A quarter are basically only used abroad (this job is US-specific). Clicking BLM just leads you to a now-closed ActBlue fundraiser. Why would one EVER want to post it on Nextdoor. What is happening

[alithographica]

okay now I’m curious

How many of these options have you heard of before? (Copy and email are what you expect, so with tumblr you get 3 for free. BLM is ActBlue. The rest are what they say on the tin.)

Fewer than 10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

I’ve heard of all 61

What is email (show results)

Voting ended onApr 13

(I forgot to mention Print but Print is also just print, so 4 for free.)