In early 2022, University of California, Davis, held a SciArt contest, which myself and a fellow UCD postdoc, Joanna Griffiths decided to enter.
I had just returned from a sampling trip on Catalina Island, where one of our hosts at the Wrigley Marine Center had described his career path, in which he began as a technician for a company which harvested horseshoe crab blood. Having this story as a recent memory, I suggested that we create a horseshoe crab piñata, and have it stuffed with blue pom poms/ribbons to represent the blue blood!
After many nights of cutting cardboard, tapping balloons, laying paper maché, and pasting tissue paper, Hershel the horseshoe crab piñata was born!
Below is the video entry for the SciArt contest. Sadly, Hershel did not win any prizes, but we were up against some amazing artists! See the winners of the contest here.
Hershel also got to make an appearance on the Chelicerata table of the Biology Departments ‘Tree of Life’ exhibit on the 2022 UC Davis Open Day. Below is a photo of Hershel doing what he does best-generating excitement about science and marine invertebrates!
