Andi Pasti's Animal Art

You might have seen that one on an episode of "One Planet". A bird searching for spiders and receiving an unpleasant turn. This scene was genuinely one of the most surprising outcomes in a natural story on television, even for a long-time-nature-documentary-watcher like me. The spider-tailed horned viper is a quite recent, but extraordinary discovery. It evolved modified scales on the tail that form a tail tip resembling a spider. Camouflaged against the rocks of Iran, it imitates spider movements to attract birds which want to feed on spiders. In a split-second the snake attacks with its venomous fangs to kill the bird. The viper was actually first known to the Western world in 1968, where it was captured and investigated in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA. Back then, the weird and unhealthy looking tail end was written off as a spider attached to the snake, and later regarded as a deformation or tumour. Only later in 2003, when another specimen was found...

Earlier this year I set myself the goal to print my comic Woolly Wonderful . Even though I finished a digital version almost 2 years ago, for a long time I did not think about getting it printed. It was only through my contribution to the WIP Comics Anthology in 2025 , and meeting with other comic creators who brought along their work in person, where in contrast I did not have anything to show physically. These experiences finally convinced me to give it a go. Especially the learnings and guidance through the comics group and my participation in the anthology last year helped me to better understand the printing process. My comic was drawn entirely in Procreate on the iPad. Here are some tips for getting your comic ready for print: St art with the correct format and DPI Procreate has a template named "Comic", but what is odd about it, is the preconfigured DPI (dots per inch) of 400. Dots per inch means how many ink dots per inch (2,56 cm) the printer will use when printing o...

When  you watch some funny video compilations on the internet with Pandas falling down trees and rolling down hills endlessly, you might think they are not quite equipped for living in this world. Humans on the internet in the last decade certainly have formed an opinion that Giant Pandas are just meant to go extinct, that they are not build for survival and it’s a miracle they are still around. See some proofs here , here and  here . And indeed, their survival was threatened in the past. In this post I want to explore how it came to be why giant Pandas suffer from human misunderstanding and what effect this still has on us and them. Giant Panda - a picture book teddy bear The Giant Panda's magical allure So what is it with Giant Pandas  ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca )?  Why do we cherish them so much? These animals seem to be the unicorn of the animal world, a super model for highlighting conservation programs and marketing, in contrast to other animals. They have tota...

I’ve recently finished this book and need to tell you that it will light up your curiosity about the natural world. In this post I will give a quick review why “ Animal Kingdom - A Natural History in 100 objects ” by Jack Ashby ( link ) might be one of the best books about natural history. Why Animal Kingdom is so enjoyable First off, despite being very informative, Ashby's writing style is super accessible . You won't need to fear that he will throw around terms that make your head scratch, it is written as a popular science book.  And I chuckled a lot, even laughed out loud.   Would you think that many people are interesting in worms? Not so much. Would  you think that a specimen of the penis worm in the Grant Museum of Zoology London would regularly cause interesting looks and comments by the visitors? Sure you would. Did you know that the Echidna displayed in the Grant Museum has its feet mounted in the wrong direction? Echidna back feet point backwards, so that these...