A speck, something smaller than a grain of sand, wandered over my grocery list tablet on our kitchen counter. I looked twice to be sure of what I saw. An insect so small that if I hadn't been staring at the paper trying to remember what I needed to add to my grocery list, it would have gone unobserved. I asked myself, "What could be that small and still exist and not be a microbe? Did I really see it?" A couple of days later, the same-sized insect scooted across my paper tablet again. It made me think of all the living things we cannot see or haven't found yet. According to NPR, there are over 2.5 million species on Earth, and many more thousands still undiscovered.
Human beings have long elevated themselves about other creatures on our planet. We have thought we were the only species to use tools, speak in languages, and employ complex problem solving skills. Scientists are finding more and more species who do the same. Crows use tools, other birds weave intricate nests, monkeys give out different warning signals to their group depending on whether danger is coming from the air, a tree, or the ground, and puffer fish inscribe in the sand beautiful 3-dimensional patterns that will become nests for the eggs the female lays and the male tends.
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Perhaps one trait we have, our imagination, would be hard to verify in other species. Our imagination has helped us to tell stories and to invent new ways of living. Where else but our imagination would we find creatures such as the trolls in Norse fairy tales and the Lilliputians from Gulliver's Travels or Pokemon or a Kraken? I thought of those mythical creatures while I stood in line at the cafe at the Legion of Honor and looked up at a group of shiny figures above the coffee machines, display cabinets and stacks of china cups on the counters. Each assemblage, called Mimmos by Rosalia Baltazar Shoemaker, their creator, was made from small implements used in a kitchen. Scattered throughout the rest of the room were more of these fanciful creatures constructed from tart tins, colanders, utensils, and shiny stainless steel bowls. I thought of toddlers who love to play with all those kinds of tools, banging on pans, building structures, and cutting shapes from dough. I wondered if at night these figures come out to play. In a museum that showcases the talents and skills of great artists (right now, a comparison of Manet and Morisol), what a treat to find such whimsical beings created from someone's playful imagination of today.
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Wikipedia's List of legendary creatures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_by_type
Watch this video to see an amazing task done by a puffer fish:
A pufferfish makes a nest: https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/a-pufferfishs-masterpiece/a-pufferfishs-masterpiece/
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