16 February 2006

"Simple" for Illustration Friday


This is my first image after a bit of a break -- I've been a bit bogged down with other stuff to do. I have ideas for the subjects that have been, but I'm not sure that I'll get round to doing them This was the first thing that popped into my mind when I pondered the subject "Simple". It is one of my favorite organisms since it is so simple yet so amazingly complex to be single-celled, and cute too. It is a single-celled organism called Paramecium (commonly found in freshwater eg. ponds) that swims about using it's tiny cilia. It swims pretty fast -- four times it's own length in one second -- wow! It can also reproduce in two ways -- either split into two; "simple division" (binary fission) or join temporarily with another Paramecium and exchange nuclear material; "conjugation". After which they swim away and continue to reproduce by simple division. Anyhow, enough with the Biology lesson. Toodleloo!

2 comments:

Mike Thompson said...

Well, yoou can't get much simpler than that! Nice job!

Susan Harper said...

That's an idea I wish I'd had. And I liked the biology lesson too. Thanks.