A watercolour showing a scene partially under water and partially above it. The water's surface breaks the frame about three quarters of the way up. Underwater, the scene is dominated by a Tiktaalik - a large grey lobe-finned fish with a broad, triangular head. Its body is diagonal to the viewer, but its face stares straight at us with its mouth open in threat. Its eyes are small and close together. It it slightly propper up on its front fins and its tailfin has a display structure featuring a light-coloured stripe and a blueish stripe. All around it is a dense patch of Chara algae, long stalks that branch into bunches of leaf-like structures several times (typically four times but some of the algae depicted differ). Several of the algal leafs around the Tiktaalik are speckled with small white eggs. Further in the background, the forest river's water and the algae prevent us from seeing very much. What is visible are another Tiktaalik and three smaller fish: two Bothriolepis, placoderms with a vaguely mandolin-shaped body and long frontal fins. One of them is kicking up a cloud of dust around it as it digs into the sediment. The other is farther away and near the second Tiktaalik - who is mostly hidden behind a sunken log and looking at the distant Bothriolepis. The final visible fish, a Coccosteus, is about the same size as the Bothriolepis and swimming towards the nearer one. The surface of the water is showing the impact of many raindrops. In the top quarter of the watercolour, we can see the forested shores of the river, obscured by a lot of rain. The right bank is closest and its nearest part is a muddy shore overgrown by Rhacophyton, a somewhat fern-like plant, and Archaeopteris trees can be seen on its far side. They grow straight from the ground without side branches until they suddenly branch out into a series of horizontal flat round canopies. A few small spiders can be spotted on the shores.
On a rainy Devonian day, a Tiktaalik father guards his eggs in a small forest river. Meanwhile, his hunting mate has her eye on a Bothriolepis. Another Bothriolepis is eating something buried in the river sediment, drawing the attention of a Coccosteus.
#Tiktaalik #Devonian #paleoart #MyArt
