Summary

This glass model was made by Leopold Blaschka (1822-1895), a highly skilled glass artist based in Dresden, Germany. Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolf (1857-1939) are best known for their glass models of plants and marine invertebrates. They were passionate naturalists and based their models on observations and drawings made in the field and in their own purpose-built seawater aquariums. Their painstaking work produced incredibly detailed and scientifically accurate models that still astonish scientists and artists today.

The is a model of the Finger-shaped Sea Pen, Veretillum cynomorium, a marine cnidarian related to sea anemones and corals. Sea Pens are colonial animals with multiple polyps (which look somewhat like miniature sea anemones), each with eight tentacles. In life, this animal has its base anchored in the marine sediment with the polyps positioned in the path of currents and the flow of plankton on which it feeds. This species of Sea Pen can be found in the Eastern Atlantic and Indo-West Pacific Oceans. It is known to produce a brilliant green bioluminescence, presumably for warding off predators.

Specimen Details

Taxonomy