Eva (33)

After the Turtle, cousin Crocodile arrived! (Via water or via air?!) Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

Katerina Nikoltsou (22)

Always a pleasure to receive Katerina Nikoltsou's original works of art and to add it to this 'real weird animals' mail art collectiom. The Snail Mail Snail I recognized immediately, but for my records I'm happy that she wrote the names of the unidentified animals: 'Strange Critters'.

On the back artistamps, among them the Fish dada artistamp by Keith S. Chambers, and Katerina's selfie by "E":



The postage stamp on the envelope is issued in honour of the 'Greece in Russia' year:



And on the back Katerina's (and Athena's) famous wise Owl on a stamp print:



Thank you very much, ευχαριστώ, Katerina!

Kathy Barnett

Wonderful Crocodile surrounded by barcode art. Created and sent by Kathy Barnett from the USA.

Thank you very much, Kathy!

Connie Jean (2)

Interesting collage created and sent by Connie Jean from the United States.
You can view from all sides, but I choose to emphasise the Canary Bird who was a great (and sadly) warner in miners' days).



She added a call for mail art: draw a Squirrel!
Something I of course like to do immediately, and fortunately I found some time to do so. My Squirrel meanwhile has landed in the Squirrel Museum :-)



Thsnk you very much, Connie!

Alison

Alison from South Africa created this beautiful envelope. See the Ladybird on the postage stamp! And a Caracal, and of course the Air Mail Bird.

Inside this envelope she sent a nice letter, accompanied by the postcard you see below. Speaking about South-African animals, usually the 'Big Five' come into mind. And the Giraffe, and Zebra.
However, there are of course many more animals. Among them these 'Ugly Five'.



I think these 'Ugly Five' at least as interesting as the more well-known African animals. They usually have a bad image, not only for their appearance, but also their behaviour is thought to be bad. Which is exaggerated by negative propaganda by movies like the Lion King (o.k. the Warthog has got a more sympathetic imago by this movie).

The 'Ugly Five' are very important animals in the whole circle of life. What would we do without them? How would the landscape look like, without these weird useful creatures? The Hyena and Crocodile allow herbivores to not starve from hunger, by eating some of them. And the Hyena, Marabou Stork and Vulture are the cleaners of the savannah.
And the Warthog, well, it's just a cute animal, holding the tail as an antenna when he/she runs around.

Connie Jean

The Aye-aye already has been considered a weird animal a few times here (and there), but I've never seen this extraordinary fellow this close!
And until now I never realized that this ant eating mammal is so small. Thanks to Connie Jean we can see that he/she even fits in one human hand!



The envelope shows great rubber stamp prints. Among the famous Bunny and a glimpse of a Fish, also Alligators and a cool Armadillo.



More mail art by Connie Jean you can find on Mullet Mail.



Thank you very much, Connie!

Kerosene & Flypaper

'La Malaisie est en parte couverte de jungle' - Malaysia is partly covered with jungle.
'... not so long ago', Kerosene adds...
I think deforestation is such a shame and pity (and we all contribute to that, as long as we aren't aware of what we buy, and keep on buying). As biodiversity and all of our 'lungs' suffer from that highly. All rain forests who have gone, are gone for all our lifetimes... Protection and common sense needed!

Thank you so much, Kerosene, for this aware mail art!

Lindenhof

Thanks to the two collage postcards sent by the German artist group Lindenhof a lot of weird animals are added to this project!



Alas some animals are in a real bad position, either stuck to a fly-paper or serving for food...



The great thing about Mail Art, to my opinion, is not only that artists from all over the world meet by sending art to each other, but also that Post itself adds peculiar interesting pieces to the art, for example on this front side of Lindenhof's card:



Vielen Dank, Lindenhof!