© Charley Harper...Science Art-Birds

Title: Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia)
Artist: Charley Harper (for further information, click on the artist's name)
Image size: 18 1/2 x 13"
Media: Published in the Ford Times


Fellow Cincinnatian, Laura James, wrote* about a conversation she had had with Charley Harper last year. They had talked about his work and his way of simplifying the narrative and the forms. Harper said, “I don’t think there was much resistance to the way I simplified things. … Some people liked it, and others didn’t care for it."

In this example of “simplified things", Charley Harper shows us a Burrowing Owl at the entrance to its burrow.  While these birds do include moths in their diet, by selecting a male Io moth (Automeris io), with it’s prominent eyespots, Harper is also showing us a classic example of Batesian mimicry.  In this form of mimicry, which named after English naturalist, Henry Walter Bates who pioneered the field, the mimic improves its chances of escaping predators by fooling them into mistaking it for another organism.  In the case of Io moths, when they are disturbed they reveal the large eyespots on their hind wings that may startle the predator long enough to allow escape.

*(blog, June 13, 2007)