Caddisfly larvae construct silk cases decorated with pieces of gravel, sand, twigs, snail shells, and other natural debris. This most often happens during winter months, so the theory behind this behaviour is that they do it to protect themselves from the cold, harsh weather.

However if you’re a Caddisfly larvae in the care of French artist Hubert Duprat, you’ll have an entirely different supply of materials with this to create your protective case:

Duprat “introduced beads, pearls, turquoise, and 18-karat gold pieces into their environment and let them construct tiny gilded sculptures. Duprat has been collaborating with the larvae since the 1980s. Learn more about his work at Cabinet Magazine.”

Photos by Jean-Luc Fournier via Cabinet

[via Laughing Squid]

Here’s an awesome little piece of history:

Archaeologists in the Burnt City have discovered what appears to be an ancient prosthetic eye. What makes this discovery exceptionally awesome is the striking description of how the owner and her false eye would have appeared while she was still alive and blinking:

[The eye] has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gold lines patterned like sun rays. The female remains found with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than ordinary women of her time. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place. Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman’s skeleton has been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BCE. 

So she was an extraordinarily tall woman walking around wearing an engraved golden eye patterned with rays like a tiny sun. What an awesome sight that must have been.

[via TYWKIWDBI]

This Geyser of Awesome’s 12th most popular post of 2012.  Lots of people said they were going to draw what she looked like. If you have, let us know!

(via archiemcphee)

“Four mutant frogs with gold skin and red eyes, found by children in a grassy field in the town of Shimanto in Kochi prefecture, have gone on display at the nearby Shimanto River Gakuyukan science center. According to a center spokesperson who says the golden specimens are highly unusual, the 2.4-centimeter (almost 1-inch) amphibians appear to be black-spotted pond frogs (Pelophylax nigromaculata, a.k.a. Rana nigromaculata) whose skin turned gold because of an albino mutation that prevents the formation of pigment cells. With a run of bad luck that has brought shrinking visitor numbers and a recent theft of 1.25 million yen (about $10,000), the center hopes the golden frogs are a sign of good fortune to come. Oddly, they look sort of like feng shui money frogs (Chan Chu), except that money frogs have three legs.”

[via Pink Tentacle]