Dance of the Whirling Seabirds
Dance of the Whirling Seabirds
To end the year 2014, I present an underwater dance performed by beautiful marine creatures smaller than 100 thousandths of a millimeter in reality. In this gouache painting, these single-celled organisms—named Ornithocercus from the Greek word ornis, or bird—are larger than the fish who swim around them. Both Ornithocercus and the fish swim freely; the former swim with a forward spiraling or whirling motion propelled by their ribbed wings and flagella; the latter swim with their ribbed fins. Our delicate "seabirds" thrive in the tropical and subtropical waters of all oceans. Many are photosynthetic, creating the initial transfer of light energy to chemical energy, and thus are primary producers of food in the aquatic food webs. Ornithocercus belong to a larger group of organisms called dinoflagellates. Almost all other organisms are dependent upon these dinoflagellates for their subsequent existence. Let this painting remind us that in nature, it is often the smallest of the creatures, the ones we cannot see with our naked eye (like the beneficial bacteria living in our own human bodies) who hold the key to our existence.
Wishing you all the very best in 2015, I offer you a triple haiku poem by Karei-gu:
or-ni-tho-cer-cus
oceanic, single-cell,
millions per liter
why so much color?
who even sees them? tiny
they swim in spirals
bumping other cells,
gardens of unseen delights
make edible light