Archive for July, 2006
Philip Henry Gosse was a talented 19th century English naturalist who carried-out detailed marine biology studies and wonderfully described his observations of the natural world. He was also a talented artist and many of his books contain his own drawings. The photograph above was taken in a rock pool in Cornwall 120 years after Philip Gosse had painted from life the very same subject!
The prawns are almost transparent and dart in and out of the recesses of the rock pools and are almost impossible to photograph. I plunged my hand into a rock pool and as by magic not one prawn, but many prawns, swam towards my hand. Were they attracted by the paleness of my skin or the warmth on my hand?
Notice how the limbs of the common prawn (Palaemon serratus) are elegantly ringed in blue and orange! Just below the common prawn in Gosse’s drawing is the sand shrimp (Crangon crangon).
Watch a short film about the common prawn “Histoires de crevettes” by ‘avant-garde’ independent film-maker Jean Painlevé (1963) :
