Social Invertebrates

2016 April 1

I was in Phoenix, Arizona the week of February 21, 2016 for a technical conference, and found these interesting arthropods just outside the convention center

The first one I saw was this stick insect, that has interesting shoes. Very stylish.

Bronze.stick.insect.side

Bronze.stick.insect.facing

I’m not sure whether this next one is a centipede or a millipede. It is shaped like a millipede, but it only has one pair of legs per body segment, like a centipede.

Bronze.millipede.side

Bronze.millipede.facing

And there were some mites cleaning up its droppings.

Bronze.millipede.frass.mites

The scorpion a bit further on looked like it was actually having some issues with the mites.

Bronze.scorpion.side

It wasn’t clear whether it thought the mites were pesky, or delicious.

Bronze.scorpion.head

The mites were pretty varied, with lots of different kinds of hats.

Bronze.scorpion.mite

So, it turns out that this collection of sculptures is titled “Social Invertebrates”, and the sculptor is Tom Otterness. I like his sculptures. They are nicely peculiar, without being completely abstract and incomprehensible.

3 Responses
  1. April 1, 2016

    I love it! Clever art that’s playful. Thanks for sharing.

  2. April 1, 2016

    By the way, your blog feed is updating on my sidebar again. Yay!

  3. Carole permalink
    April 1, 2016

    Charming

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