Maija Karala

Digital sketch study sketch of 2 polar bears swimming towards the screen, a symbolic way of saying the species is swimming towards an uncertain future. Their world is melting. We don't see the changes like they do.

It's International #polarbearday 🎉🐻‍❄️🧊

I couldn't in good faith draw them on land, their world is melting. These 2 polar bears are swimming towards an uncertain future.

#PolarBear #Internationalpolarbearday #WildlifeArt #AnimalArt #SciArt

Mawsonia (fish) - Wikipedia

It's likely Mawsonia. Quite a fish! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawsoni...

A digital painting of a small fluffy heterodontosaur dinosaur leaping across snow-covered ground. The dinosaur's colouration is based on the puna tinamou, an Andean bird.

Tianyulong confuciusi, a tiny heterodontosaur dinosaur, looking about as happy in the snow as I. Based on an undescribed specimen at the Beijing Museum of Natural History.

Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation is considered warm temperate to subtropical: mostly mild, but occasional snow days are possible.

That sexual selection is one of the primary drivers in evolution is well established. Studies of Mesozoic #dinosaurs and #pterosaurs, however, have been dominated by the view that the variation, extravagance and diversity seen in these animals is not due to the pressures of sexual selection, but...

A colored digital drawing of Haolong, a stocky ornithopod dinosaur, standing on all fours with his head raised and beak opened, apparently calling out. The dinosaur is covered in a mosaic of small scales, sharp spines and large plate-like scales.

Spiny little friend.

A quick doodle of Haolong dongi, a newly described ornithopod from China with... spikes. Numerous sharp spines grew from the animal's neck and back, seemingly different from all other known dinosaur integuments. Definitely wasn't on my bingo card for 2026 dinosaur finds!

That's a shame! Is It because of traffic accidents or them munching on people's garden plants? Understandable, though not really the reindeer's fault.

Black and white ink drawing of two male reindeer, showing their heads, necks, handsome antlers and a bit of their back. They look relaxed, as male reindeer tend to be in the summer with nothing more important to do than snacking on the abundant vegetation. They are, however, surrounded by biting insects.

Reindeer Days

Back in the Pleistocene, reindeer were found as far south as Spain. While many populations today are endangered, there are also semi-domestic reindeer.

I met this pair in the Finnish far north, just jogging along the road. It's such a unique animal and always a joy to see.

Great! All followed. Glad to find myself in there too.

Thank you! I'm confident it will work out fine. I'm fine living under Rufus' roof, as long as he's a nice landlord. 😄

Close-up photo of Rufus's back, showing a tiny shaved patch and in it, a tiny glued wound through which the implant (which is the size of a grain of rice) was installed under his skin.

So, today Rufus got a Suprelorin implant, which in a couple of weeks will block his testosterone production and act as chemical castration.

I’ve had a few rats implanted or castrated before, and every one of them has become a gentle little angel for the rest of his days. I can’t wait!

Photo of Rufus laying down on top of a wooden nest box. He's in a seemingly relaxed position, but his facial muscles and ears are tense. He rarely truly relaxes, except when asleep.

Of course, it’s not Rufus’s fault – he’s also suffering from being constantly tense and angry.

Punishment would be worse than useless: he has such a fiery temper that if he feels he’s being restrained or attacked, he just gets angrier and angrier. It’s quite impressive to see!

Two rats sitting on the edge of a bathroom sink. Rufus, an orange rat, is giving the camera an appraising look as he decides whether to attack me or not, his ears held back in a tense position. On his right side Vohveli, a smaller blonde rat, is looking at him nervously.

Lately, Rufus has made an innovation. Not only does he defend his valuables (such as my kitchen) from his rat mates, he also counts people as competition. It’s fascinating – but not particularly fun – to see a 600-gram rodent just straight up attacking a grown human being with no provocation.

Hönö, a brown rat, laying on top of Rufus, and orange rat, and holding him in place to keep him from attacking others. At this point, Rufus has calmed down and the scene looks pretty cozy.

Rufus... did not calm down. Since he turned six months, he’s had some strict ideas on what the other rats are allowed to do. If they break his ever-changing rules, they get beaten up. Luckily Hönö, our pack leader, has mostly kept him in check, but it has taken a toll and he's getting tired of it.

Basil, a teenage rat (on the right) challenging Hönö, a dominant adult rat (on the left) while Rufus is approaching to intervene. This is normal teenager behaviour.

Rats can be aggressive for many reasons, fear and pain being among the most common.

Some individuals also exhibit hormonal aggression: high testosterone levels putting their territorial and resource guarding behaviours into overdrive. It's common in teenagers, but they should calm down with age.

Photo of Rufus, a tense-looking orange-furred (cinnamon) rat being held around his chest and looking at the camera.

The reign of the orange tyrant is soon to be over!

Sadly, I don’t mean the one you’re probably thinking about (though one can hope). I mean Rufus, who has the questionable honor of being my meanest rat ever. He finally had a hormone-blocking implant installed today.

A small thread!

A lovely example of rat empathy from last night: Lumo (black and white) notices little Reino is in pain, consoles him with a bit of grooming and quickly checks his hurt foot before giving him space.

No worries, it was just a strained muscle. He was fine after pain medication and 12 hours of rest.

"Selfish humans, always keeping all the best treats to themselves, thinking we don't notice."

But seriously, it is fascinating to try and imagine how pet rats think of us. Clearly not as big rats, but perhaps as gigantic strangely shaped friends?

A digital drawing of seven rats enthusiastically sniffing an outstretched arm of a person.

Curious noses.

This is the sort of welcome you get arriving home to your boy rats after visiting some girl rats. Or vice versa.

Like dogs, rats can learn much from each other’s smell - health, diet, relatedness, immune system compability. Imagine being able to do that with humans!

Indeed! It feels much needed these days.

A drawing of a robustly built unicorn with large swan-like wings, cloven hooves and a donkey-like tail. The drawing is made in rosy, purplish and bluish pastel shades. There's a hint of rolling grasslands in the simple background.

A drawing of an arch-shaped gateway through a crumbling stone wall, with a red dragon peeking its head through. On the inside, there is an overgrown pathway with vegetation and fallen stones littering the ground.

Christmas break fantasy doodles, before work resumes tomorrow. A wild winged unicorn and a dragon peeking into an abandoned garden.

It seems the loudest recent outcry comes from wolves killing hunting dogs. Which I understand, since dogs can be loved family members. It's very rare compared to other deadly hunting accidents, but I suppose it feels worse.

The government compensates for all wolf damages, be it dogs or cattle.

A digital portait of a gentle-looking grey wolf, based on an individual who formerly lived in Ähtäri Zoo. #SciArt

Sad news: As of this year, Finland allows the killing of about a fifth of our grey wolf population annually, regardless of whether the particular wolves cause any harm. This on top of harm-based permits and poaching puts our endangered wolf population at risk.

More info: www.sll.fi/ajankohtaist...

Looking through a group of dinosaurs lets me appreciate their incredible diversity: this was only a small sampling of the known basal ceratopsians.

Though giant dinosaurs like Triceratops are cool, I have a soft spot for this sort of thing - the small ones, the precursors, the oddballs.

Digital illustration of Udanoceratops, a horse-size ceratopsian dinosaur with no neck frill or horns, but instead an extremely large and robust head with a strong beak.

And finally, the giant one. Udanoceratops was the size of a horse with an absolutely massive head and a strong beak capable of cleaving through bone - though as with other ceratopsians, it was at least mostly herbivorous.

Digital illustration of Leptoceratops, a pig-size ceratopsian with a robust, tank-like build and a large head with a very small neck frill. It has a reddish brown colouring with white spots to blend into forest litter and dappled sunlight.

Leptoceratops was a bulky little guy that I imagine walking through vegetation with the determination of a very small tank. This one coexisted with Tyrannosaurus rex and was a potential meal for juvenile tyrants - and perhaps an occasional snack for adults too.

Digital illustration of Protoceratops, a small basal ceratopsian dinosaur with a strong, parrotlike bill and a neck frill. It's sand-coloured to blend into its desert environment.

Protoceratops was a robust little desert dweller.

It is another very well known dinosaur with hundreds of fossils. These include the famous "Fighting dinosaurs" fossil in which a Protoceratops and a Velociraptor died mid-battle, with jaws and claws locked into each other for eternity.

Digital illustration of Auroraceratops, a small basal ceratopsian dinosaur, standing upright on two legs to look around. It has a sandy-colored body and a colourful head, mostly black with white and red patterns.

Auroraceratops ("dawn horned face") is also from the Gansu Provice and only slightly larger than Archaeoceratops.

It has a shorter, wider snout than its close relatives, possibly meaning it has a somehow different diet.

Digital illustration of Archaeoceratops, a tiny bipedal ceratopsian dinosaur opening its beak and looking up threateningly.

Archaeoceratops was a particularly tiny one, less than one meter long and weighing about 10 kg. Being so small in the time of the dinosaurs, they might have had quite an attitude to make up for it.

This one is known from the early Cretaceous of the Gansu province of China.

A digital illustration of a Psittacosaurus, a dog-size ceratopsian dinosaur with a dark head, reddish brown body and a row of quills on its back. It has a parrot-like beak and brow ridges giving it a judgemental look.

Psittacosaurus is one of the best known dinosaurs overall. This little guy is known from numerous fossils from China, Mongolia, Russia and Thailand.

Both the colouration and the tail quills are known from fossils. It seems these little guys had a fairly complex social life, including nest helpers.

A panorama-shaped collage of digital drawings of six species of basal ceratopsian dinosaurs, with a 170 cm tall human for scale. They are smallish dinosaurs (ranging from 10 to 600 kilos) with strong, parrotlike bills and ornamental quill-like protofeathers on their backs and/or tails.

Last art of the year! #SciArt

As a fun pastime on my Christmas break, I looked into basal ceratopsians a bit and doodled them. Turns out they vary from cuddly little guys to beasts that would have made a mighty (and very bitey) steed.

Close-ups of each one in thread 🧵: