Hubert Duprat is a French artist known for his unusual work, an artistic intersection between caddisfly larvae and gold, opal, turquoise and other precious stones.
Caddisfly larvae live in fresh water and naturally construct elaborate protective tubes for themselves from materials found in their environment. Under natural conditions they use the objects found in their stream bed homes such as pieces of wood, fragments of fish bone or crustacean shell, grains of sand, plant debris and small stones. The tubes serve various purposes; the stones are used to increase traction in fast-moving streams, they serve as disguise for the soft-bodied insect and the spiky bits make the tube and thus, the fly larva, more difficult for predators to swallow.
Duprat, born in 1957, began his work with caddisfly larvae in the early 1980s. He collects the larvae from their normal environments and he takes them to his studio. There he gently removes their own natural cases and puts the larvae in tanks filled with his own materials, from which they begin to build their new protective sheaths. When he began the project, he only provided the caddis larvae with gold flakes. Since then, they have enjoyed various semi-precious and precious stones, including turquoise, coral and lapis lazuli, as well as sapphires, pearls, rubies, and diamonds.
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A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals are also used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. Rarity is another characteristic that lends value to a gemstone.
Jewellery or jewelry consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a western perspective, the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example. For many centuries metal such as gold used in different carats from 21, 18, 12, 9 or even lower, often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as shells and other plant materials may be used. It is one of the oldest type of archaeological artefact – with 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells thought to be the oldest known jewellery. The basic forms of jewellery vary between cultures but are often extremely long-lived; in European cultures the most common forms of jewellery listed above have persisted since ancient times, while other forms such as adornments for the nose or ankle, important in other cultures, are much less common. Jewellery may be made from a wide range of materials. Gemstones and similar materials such as amber and coral, precious metals, beads, and shells have been widely used, and enamel has often been important. In most cultures jewellery can be understood as a status symbol, for its material properties, its patterns, or for meaningful symbols. Jewellery has been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings, and even genital jewellery. In modern European culture the amount worn by adult males is relatively low compared with other cultures and other periods in European culture.
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. Like most other opaque gems, turquoise has been devalued by the introduction onto the market of treatments, imitations and synthetics.
A necklace is an article of jewellery that is worn around the neck. Necklaces may have been one of the earliest types of adornment worn by humans. They often serve ceremonial, religious, magical, or funerary purposes and are also used as symbols of wealth and status, given that they are commonly made of precious metals and stones.
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, with four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and imago. The processes of entering and completing the pupal stage are controlled by the insect's hormones, especially juvenile hormone, prothoracicotropic hormone, and ecdysone. The act of becoming a pupa is called pupation, and the act of emerging from the pupal case is called eclosion or emergence.
The caddisflies, or order Trichoptera, are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the basis of the adult mouthparts. Integripalpian larvae construct a portable casing to protect themselves as they move around looking for food, while Annulipalpian larvae make themselves a fixed retreat in which they remain, waiting for food to come to them. The affinities of the small third suborder Spicipalpia are unclear, and molecular analysis suggests it may not be monophyletic. Also called sedge-flies or rail-flies, the adults are small moth-like insects with two pairs of hairy membranous wings. They are closely related to the Lepidoptera which have scales on their wings; the two orders together form the superorder Amphiesmenoptera.
Holometabolism, also called complete metamorphosis, is a form of insect development which includes four life stages: egg, larva, pupa and imago or adult. Holometabolism is a synapomorphic trait of all insects in the superorder Endopterygota. Immature stages of holometabolous insects are very different from the mature stage. In some species the holometabolous life cycle prevents larvae from competing with adults because they inhabit different ecological niches. The morphology and behavior of each stage are adapted for different activities. For example, larval traits maximize feeding, growth, and development, while adult traits enable dispersal, mating, and egg laying. Some species of holometabolous insects protect and feed their offspring. Other insect developmental strategies include ametabolism and hemimetabolism.
Robert McLachlan FRS was an English entomologist specializing in the study of lacewings (Neuroptera) and caddisflies (Trichoptera).
An artificial fly or fly lure is a type of fishing lure, usually used in the sport of fly fishing. In general, artificial flies are an imitation of natural food sources that fly fishers present to their target species of fish while fly fishing. Artificial flies are constructed by fly tying, in which furs, feathers, thread or any of very many other materials are tied onto a fish hook. Artificial flies may be constructed to represent all manner of potential freshwater and saltwater fish prey to include aquatic and terrestrial insects, crustaceans, worms, baitfish, vegetation, flesh, spawn, small reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds, etc. Effective artificial fly patterns are said to be killing flies because of their ability to put fish in the creel for the fly fisher. There are thousands of artificial fly patterns, many of them with descriptive and often idiosyncratic names.
Worms are many different distantly related animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length for marine polychaete worms, 6.7 metres (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm, Microchaetus rappi, and 58 metres (190 ft) for the marine nemertean worm, Lineus longissimus. Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land, but instead, live in marine or freshwater environments, or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, vermes, used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word wyrm. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slowworm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard. Invertebrate animals commonly called "worms" include annelids, nematodes (roundworms), platyhelminthes (flatworms), marine nemertean worms, marine Chaetognatha, priapulid worms, and insect larvae such as grubs and maggots.
Robert Goossens was a French jeweller who became known as Monsieur Bijou. The son of a metal foundry worker, he was born in Paris, France. In his younger years, he served an apprenticeship in jewelry making, perfecting the techniques of casting, engraving, and embossing semi-precious and simulated stones into gold and silver metals. In his decades of creating fine jewelry, Goossens mixed the genuine stones with the fakes, a blend of the artificial gems with the semi-precious for clients including Coco Chanel, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Madame Grès, Christian Dior and others.
Native American jewelry refers to items of personal adornment, whether for personal use, sale or as art; examples of which include necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings and pins, as well as ketohs, wampum, and labrets, made by one of the Indigenous peoples of the United States. Native American jewelry normally reflects the cultural diversity and history of its makers, but tribal groups have often borrowed and copied designs and methods from other, neighboring tribes or nations with which they had trade, and this practice continues today. Native American tribes continue to develop distinct aesthetics rooted in their personal artistic visions and cultural traditions. Artists may create jewelry for adornment, ceremonies, and display, or for sale or trade. Lois Sherr Dubin writes, "[i]n the absence of written languages, adornment became an important element of Indian communication, conveying many levels of information." Later, jewelry and personal adornment "...signaled resistance to assimilation. It remains a major statement of tribal and individual identity."
Ancient Egyptian clothes refers to clothing worn in ancient Egypt from the end of the Neolithic period to the collapse of the Ptolemaic Kingdom with the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. Egyptian clothing was filled with a variety of colors. Adorned with precious gems and jewels, the fashions of the ancient Egyptians were made for not only beauty but also comfort. Egyptian fashion was created to keep cool while in the hot desert.
The Colours of Animals is a zoology book written in 1890 by Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton (1856–1943). It was the first substantial textbook to argue the case for Darwinian selection applying to all aspects of animal coloration. The book also pioneered the concept of frequency-dependent selection and introduced the term "aposematism".
George W. Headley was a noted twentieth-century jewelry designer, collector, socialite and founder of the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington, Kentucky. As a designer, he was known for collaborations with Salvador Dalí, Paul Flato, David Webb and Cartier, between the 1920s and 1960s, with clients including Douglas Fairbanks, Gary Cooper, the Marx Brothers, Judy Garland and Joan Crawford, as well as for his extravagant bibelots - small, intricate and precious decorative objects.
Georg Ulmer was a German entomologist who specialized in research of Trichoptera (caddisflies) and Ephemeroptera (mayflies).
Self-decoration camouflage is a method of camouflage in which animals or soldiers select materials, sometimes living, from the environment and attach these to themselves for concealment.
Dicosmoecus gilvipes is a species of northern caddisfly in the family Limnephilidae. This particular caddisfly is found in and near streams of North America, from northern California and Colorado to British Columbia and as eastern to Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Alberta. D. gilvipes is commonly known as the October Caddis, Autumn Caddis or Giant Orange Sedge, due to their flying presence acknowledged in the Autumn. Caddisflies are known to build cases when they are in larvae stages, to protect themselves from predators, such as dragonflies, salmon and trout. The October Caddisfly is no different and builds their cases out of different organic materials during their five larvae stages.
Martin Ephraim Mosely was an English entomologist who specialized in the systematics of caddisflies (Trichoptera). His interest in freshwater insects was first triggered by his interest in fishing. He was also a well-known angler and fly-fisherman and contributed to the works of Frederic M. Halford, a friend and distant relative.
