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Catastrophe Chernobyl
Field studies in the nuclear fallout areas from Chernobyl
As a scientific illustrator I had worked for Prof. Hans Burla, a geneticist at the Zoological Institute of the University of Zurich. In 1967 he gave me the assignment to draw Drosophila subobscura flies that had been mutated in the laboratory by adding a poison to their food. For my own interest I also painted these mutated flies, which were called quasimodo.
In 1985 I painted another fly — this time a housefly,
Musca domestica, with a mutation called aristapedia — which
had been mutated by x-rays in the laboratory of the University
of Zurich. The dean of the Zoological Institute gave the
mutant flies to me when I asked him for permission to |
Picture:
Housefly mutant ‘aristapedia’
Parts of legs are growing out of the feelers and the eyes
are yellow
Watercolor, Zürich 1985-1986 |
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