Academic Animals

So yeah, I got a membership to the California Academy of Sciences, which is about half a mile from my home. That's definitely going to be the subject of a lot of future sketching!

 First off, we have Claude, the Academy's beloved albino alligator. It seems the two most common questions about him are "Is he real?" and "Does he eat the fish in his exhibit?" The answer to the second one is essentially "no," but when it comes to the alligator snapping turtles who share his space, I can now testify that the answer is "sometimes they do."

 

I really wanted to get back to the Academy while their whale exhibit was still in progress. So many cool skeletons!

The Steinhardt Aquarium in the basement is pretty awesome, even though the low light conditions make color work challenging. Their giant pacific octopus is rather shy, but the day octopus in the new "Color of Life" exhibit is considerably more extroverted.