In this post I will reveal the answer to the riddle of the Mystery Of The Sunfish. If you haven’t read that post yet, spoiler alert, I suggest you stop reading now and go read it first.

The mistake I made in the drawing of the fish, in Sunfish 2, would have clearly caused the fish to be eaten by a predator. Perhaps, the mutation did occur at some point in time, and the end result was an ancient predator did eat this fish. Thus, it never reproduced causing it to be lost over the millennia. Alas, I will never know if my picture of the sunfish was accurate long ago and that my mistake wasn’t really a mistake at all, but a brilliant scientific finding.

I know, you are asking me to just get to the point already. Look closely at Sunfish 2. Look at the scales. The scales are backwards. Yes I know, what dopey artist would screw that up right. I’m raising my hand right now. Having scales backwards on a fish is like a parachute behind a drag racer. Try to swim fast and they’ll flair out slowing the fish down so even the laziest predator can have a snack. This was not a genetic adaptation that would provide an enhancement of fish evolution. So until an ichthyologist out there sends me a note saying that I have postulated a brilliant theorem, I’m just your dopey Forester Artist.

On a happy note, I have to throw kudos out to Z at zebra designs, www.playamart.wordpress.com. You should go visit her website it’s pretty awesome. She has created a lot of beautiful artwork to see. She did figure out the answer to the riddle. Not wanting to give it away to the other readers, she sent me some cryptic replies. It took her a couple of attempts to get through to me, but she finally did. She solved it and made me laugh out loud. You should go back and read her replies.

When my oldest son saw the post he also figured it out. He instant messaged me within five minutes of it being published. I asked him if I had ever shown him the picture before. He claimed he had never seen it. He is pretty observant, but he also knows that if I showed the picture to him, I would have forgotten about it by now. Just saying.

I bet if I were to dig into my pile of old stuff there is bound to be more bad art or dumb mistakes I made along the way. Sometime, I may post more for your viewing pleasure or pain, as it may be.