Happy birthday, Daily Mammal!
Birthday Cake by Will Clayton, licensed under Creative Commons
Today, June 3, is the Daily Mammal’s first birthday! A few weeks ago, I posted a couple of goals I wanted to meet by today. And guess what! I met them! You wouldn’t know, though, because I have six drawings of mammals in six orders that have never previously been seen on this site, but I haven’t scanned and posted them yet. I hope I can start posting them this week.
So to recap, in the first year of the Daily Mammal, while I did not draw 366 mammals as would have been ideal, I did draw half a year’s worth, coming in at about 185 species (plus a few repeated species due to mammalthon requests). And I managed to draw at least one species in every order of mammal, and since there are a few orders that contain only one species, they’re officially retired—cross ’em off the list!
Speaking of lists, I’m going to start periodically making available an updated spreadsheet of all the mammal species that shows which I’ve already drawn. You can download the spreadsheet, which is in Excel format, by clicking here.
Thanks for supporting the Daily Mammal for the past year, and let’s have another great year starting now! Only thirteen years to go…
What an amazing and thoroughly worthy accomplishment, Jennifer!
You averaged a mammal every other day? Astounding, when you think of all that we did in the past year:
* We moved, twice — once by car in a week-long trip across the country.
* We bought a house.
* You recovered from graduate school and began a demanding design job an hour’s commute away.
These and hundreds of other activities, hobbies, distractions and exploits, and you still managed a mammal every other day. Unbelievable.
Hopefully you won’t have so many distractions in the years to come, but even if you just maintain this rate, you can get this project done in 28 years. Yes, that’s a very, very long time — but it’s reachable! It’s attainable! You’ve given us a years’ worth of proof that you can do this!
One day many years from now some biologist, some vet, some Disney animator will be asked where her love of animals came from, or what his inspirations were growing up, and they’ll mention this site. They will.
Wow. What a beautiful legacy.
Here’s to many more years, Jennifer.
Youse a bad ass, Jennifer! The world is a richer place for it.
A year of mammals is a great accomplishment! I can’t even remember all the wonderful drawings I have enjoyed this past year – including the beautiful human. Not only have you given a lot of pleasure in viewing the mammals, but the informative commentary has been well worth the daily visits. And not least of all, Jennifer has given her time and talent to raise several thousand dollars for worthy animal causes! I could not be prouder to call you my niece!
Love from your tia!
Aw, thanks, everybody! Y’all are too nice. I appreciate your support so much! Thank you for visiting and leaving comments and taking an interest in the mammals.
Jenny Rae
Are you even counting all the special drawings like my Zoey?
Love you
Congratulations. What a wonderful accomplishment.
L&J, no, the figure does not count commissions or repeated species, which occur during mammalthons! So I’ve completed more drawings than I have drawn species, if that makes sense!
Phenomenal!
I agree with Joseph. You are a bad ass. That’s tremendous artistic commitment.