Comments on: butterfly wings and other things

butterfly wings and other things

iconomy — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 06:31:12 -0800

It took the Smithsonian author and naturalist Kjell B. Sandved 24 years to find all the letters that went into the butterfly alphabet. Along the way he found butterfly wings imprinted with salutations and smiling, happy faces, and threatening expressions on wings and flowers with menacing expressions that say "Do Not Eat Me". Explore the site yourself by going directly to the gallery without looking at all of the images I've linked to, or read the story of how Sandved discovered his magnificent obsession.

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 06:44:29 -0800

magnificent obsession indeed. Wow. Looks like he finished in 1975, wonder what his next project was?

By: MrBaliHai

MrBaliHai — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 06:54:59 -0800

I love this kind of stuff. My 9-year old daughter did a project for school that involved photographing tree branches that formed the letters of the alphabet. Thanks, iconomy.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:16:55 -0800

I think he cheated on the letter J.

By: tippiedog

tippiedog — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:17:35 -0800

FYI: for me at least, Mozilla isn't displaying the images in the direct image links in the post. I had to open them in M$IE to get them to display. Worth the extra effort, though.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:36:55 -0800

This is good, iconomy - though I've seen some of it elsewhere, it's great to find the mother lode. Still, I don't know if I'd call this a menacing expression so much as a "Duuuuude! I forgot to bring the reefer!!" expression.

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:42:33 -0800

Intelligent Design theorists would say, 'AHA! The chances of the alphabet being spelled out on butterfly's wings are so impossible, that's evidence of a creator!'

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:48:21 -0800

PigAlien, that would be a leap all right, but I gotta admit, this is just uncanny. Are we really to believe Sandved didn't do a little bit of the chewing himself???

By: y2karl

y2karl — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:07:40 -0800

Always I ? Iquirkomy postage. On a side note, I have always wondered about why orange and black are such common colors in nature for venomous or poisonous animals--Monarch butterflies, coral snakes, pitohui, reticulated dart poison frogs, gila monsters and so forth.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:08:51 -0800

Hey! that was a heart in preview! As in Always I love Iquirkomy postage.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:12:05 -0800

He realized that he would have to photograph butterflies live in nature and do so without killing them. The alphabet that must live and be free to be truly vibrant...a poem is in there somewhere...

By: mcsweetie

mcsweetie — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:47:04 -0800

holy crap, it's the predator!

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:55:29 -0800

Wow!

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 08:56:42 -0800

This is indeed very cool stuff. Anyone who frequents iconomy's blog knows that cool is daily fare. Mermaids and mermen, frozen charlottes, wet towel folding, the politics of animal crackers, great stuff. Go there now!

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 09:53:00 -0800

Let me join y2karl in saying [This is good] and I ♥ iconomy's posts!

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:26:49 -0800

Let me join madamjujujive in directing folks to iconomy's blog. Lotsa good stuff there (thanks, mjj!). I found the Google menu an eye-opener!

By: iconomy

iconomy — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:43:57 -0800

Aw shucks. Come on, let's talk about the cool butterfly wings and the scary flower faces! Thanks all ;) Soyjoy, I was torn between calling that image menacing and captioning it with "Epidendrum Orchid and Sideshow Bob - Separated At Birth?"

By: willnot

willnot — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 11:03:57 -0800

iconomy - I think it's pretty obvious that it's actually Edward Scissor Hands and/or Robert Smith of The Cure. This is a great find by the way.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 15:18:18 -0800

Geez this is a good post. It's no "history of oven glass", but it's a pretty damned good find, iconomy.

By: iconomy

iconomy — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:02:23 -0800

Thanks Hildago. I do aspire to finding some of the gems on that list, though! I've already covered worms (my post about the jeweled caddis worm larvae case) so I only have 32 to go.

By: hama7

hama7 — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 18:38:44 -0800

Great find. Thanks iconomy.

By: taz

taz — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 23:43:33 -0800

Love this, Ico. The ever-wonderful Cultural Entomology Digest has a great article on Lepidopteral Symbology with 31 references describing "butterfly and moth symbolism relating to lepidoptera wings and bodies found by Ron Gagliardi in his thesis on butterfly and moths in western art and design." Also, for more ABC fun, the very, very nice Alphabet Suite photo series from the Microsoft Art Collection's "Shadow Play" exhibit (keep clicking "next" to go through the series).

By: iconomy

iconomy — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 09:32:00 -0800

Thank you for those links, oh fellow lover of letters ;)

By: plep

plep — Thu, 01 May 2003 10:16:01 -0800

[this is great] I honestly believe that Iconomy's blog is among the best on the web. Certainly it makes me smile every time I visit.