Here is the other shirt design for the Turtle Survival Alliance, modeled from a Madagascan ploughshare tortoise (a species that's been dependent on intense conservation action for years due to the effects of smuggling). Shirts should be available from www.turtlesurvival.org by some time in August.
People tend to associate snakes with thoughts of hell for obvious reasons, but how many people have considered a hell for snakes? Thoughts of heaven and eternal life have been considered for conventional companion animal species, but people don't seem concerned with potential spirituality in species that terrify many humans.
Snakes are highly automated animals: they lack the behaviors of other species that convey charisma in settings where human interaction occurs, such as when many pets (from goldfish to dogs) learn to associate people with the giving of food and consequently act receptive towards humans. Snakes live to eat, and they do so without much, if any, charisma. They strike, some constrict or envenomate, then swallow slowly and retire to digest, defecate, and repeat.
Imagine then a world for snakes where prey items are abundant, but are balloons. The hard-wired feeding response of snakes would never result in a meal, just a loud pop. Long teeth aimed to puncture, but never to chew, even coupled with venom or constricting coils, would result in animals that were perpetually starved, startled, and if it's possible for the simple serpentine cerebellum, seething with frustration.
In keeping with the popularity that tribal tatts have with kids these days, I designed a couple of images for Turtle Survival Alliance shirts - here's one of them. The shirts should come around later this summer.
