The Oatmeal

Photo

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:21:43 -0400

tee-hee

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:48:16 -0400

tee-hee

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:28:52 -0400

Yesterday my Facebook page reached its millionth like, and so to...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:08:49 -0400

Yesterday my Facebook page reached its millionth like, and so to celebrate I asked people to post photos on my wall and I would illustrate them.
You can view the rest of the illustrations here.

Here’s another card. View the rest here.

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:08:00 -0400

Here’s another card. View the rest here.

I made some new greeting cards today. You can view the rest by...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:58:59 -0400

I made some new greeting cards today. You can view the rest by clicking here.

montereybayaquarium: Peacock Mantis Shrimp — He’s...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:12:10 -0400

montereybayaquarium:

Peacock Mantis Shrimp — He’s Baaaaack!

Tiny, deadly and gorgeous. That’s the peacock mantis shrimp, and we just placed one on exhibit in our Splash Zone galleries.

You’ll have to work a bit to see it. It’s housed — alone — in a small aquarium inside the Coral Crawl tunnel in Splash Zone. But it’s well worth the effort!

This is the first time we’ve hosted a mantis shrimp since 2001 when one of them stowed away inside some coral rock and earned us international headlines and live CNN coverage. (There’s something compelling about a “killer shrimp” terrorizing other animals in the children’s area of an internationally known aquarium.)

They pack quite a punch

Since then, we’ve been wary of deliberately introducing a mantis shrimp — and for good reason. Aquarists and scuba divers refer to them as “thumb-splitters” because their claws pack a punch as powerful as a .22-caliber bullet.

Those same claws can shatter a clam shell, and crack open a crab or shatter glass. They can bring down a blue-ringed octopus or a fish. The claws are made of a material so hard it can deliver 50,000 blows between molts - without breaking. It’s being studied by scientists as a model for crafting super-strong body armor for soldiers.

And it moves its claws so fast that they turn water into plasma and sound into light.

Amazing!

“A thermonuclear bomb of light and beauty”

But that’s not the end of the story, as celebrated cartoonist Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal explains in his online love-letter, “Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal.”

He starts by examining the eyes that make them unbelievably effective hunters. Their vision is so sensitive that a mantis shrimp can see in both infrared and ultraviolet spectra, and uses 16 color receptor cones (compared to just three for humans).

Inman observes: “Where we see a rainbow, the mantis shrimp sees a thermonuclear bomb of light and beauty.”

It’s that combination of experiencing a world of transcendent beauty — and then turning around and pounding its prey to smithereens — that fascinates Matthew Inman.

We hope you’ll be fascinated, too, at the chance to see a peacock mantis shrimp face to face — on the other side of shatterproof acrylic.

Food for thought.

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:31:40 -0400

Food for thought.

Photo

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 19:33:00 -0400

Manbat

Tue, 28 May 2013 16:19:57 -0400

Manbat

I got to pet some sleepy bears and also feed one of them peanut...

Tue, 28 May 2013 13:16:33 -0400

I got to pet some sleepy bears and also feed one of them peanut butter from a spoon. http://theoatmeal.com/blog/bears

How I see my dog VS how my dog sees me. You can view the rest...

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:08:24 -0400

How I see my dog VS how my dog sees me. You can view the rest of the comic here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/dog_how_see

Made a comic for my girlfriend’s coffee website.

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:38:46 -0400

Made a comic for my girlfriend’s coffee website.

Truth in air mattress’ing.

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:07:12 -0400

Truth in air mattress’ing.

ALL HAIL THE MANTIS SHRIMP shirts added, along with other mantis...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:25:24 -0400

ALL HAIL THE MANTIS SHRIMP shirts added, along with other mantis shrimp goodies.

The MantWarrior 9000.

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:32:49 -0400

The MantWarrior 9000.

I made a comic about my new favorite animal. Read it here.

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:00:29 -0400

I made a comic about my new favorite animal. Read it here.

My face at the moment

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:31:18 -0400

My face at the moment

An oldie but a goodie.

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:07:59 -0400

An oldie but a goodie.

Happy Easter

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:35:04 -0400

Happy Easter