Tattoo Monday XXI

There are a number of tattoo designs that incorporate the concept of a Tree of Life with the concept of DNA. A selection of these was included in the previous post, Tattoo Monday XX. Here are a few more.

Tattoo Monday XX

There are a number of tattoo designs that take the concept of a Tree of Life and incorporate the concept of DNA. Here is a selection of some of them. For an earlier example, see Tattoo Monday IV.

Tattoo Monday XIX

Here are two more (large) Charles Darwin tree tattoos, based on his best-known sketch from his Notebooks (the "I think" tree). For other examples, see Tattoo Monday III, Tattoo Monday V, Tattoo Monday VI, Tattoo Monday IX, Tattoo Monday XII, and Tattoo Monday XVIII.

Tattoo Monday XVIII

We haven't had any Charles Darwin tree tattoos on this blog for quite a while, so here is a new collection of Darwin's best-known sketch from his Notebooks (the "I think" tree) — for other examples, see Tattoo Monday III, Tattoo Monday V, Tattoo Monday VI, Tattoo Monday IX, and Tattoo Monday XII.

Tattoo Monday XVII

Here are seven more tattoos in our compilation of evolutionary tree tattoos from around the internet. For more examples of the circular design for a phylogenetic tree, in a variety of body locations, see Tattoo Monday V, Tattoo Monday VII, Tattoo Monday X and Tattoo Monday XI.

At the bottom of this post is an unusual linearized version of this same type of tree.

Tattoo Monday XVI — ambitious Darwin trees

Perhaps the most popular tattoo for phylogeneticists has been a small one based on Charles Darwin's best-known sketch from his Notebooks (the "I think" tree) — see Tattoo Monday III, Tattoo Monday VI, Tattoo Monday IX, and Tattoo Monday XII.

However, some people are more ambitious artists than this. Below is a collection of tattoos that incorporate the tree as one element in a much larger Darwin-related picture. You can click on any image to see it at the original size.

Tattoo Monday XV

In the previous post of this series I considered tattoos among modern women. To balance this, here are some circular phylogenetic trees of various sizes on the torsos of men.

Tattoo Monday XIV

Tattoos are quite common among modern women. So, for today's collection, here are some circular phylogenetic trees of various sizes and in various locations.

For anyone who wants to pursue the matter, there is a rredit thread on the topic:

Ladies with tattoos - What are some negative (or positive) comments you've gotten from strangers because of your tattoos? Where are your tattoos and what are they of?

Tattoo Monday XIII — Bird trees

It's been nearly 3 years since we last had a tattoo blog post (see the list on the Tattoos page), and a few things have happened in the tattooing world since then. For today's post, here are some quite innovative ideas about a "Tree of Life" involving birds.

For those of you who are interested, Pinterest also has a page entitled "Tree of life tattoo", with quite a selection of images.

Tattoo Monday XII

Here is a new collection of tattoos based on Charles Darwin's best-known sketch from his Notebooks (the "I think" tree). For other examples, see Tattoo Monday III, Tattoo Monday VI, and Tattoo Monday IX.

Tattoo Monday XI

Here is a new collection of interesting tattoos.

For other examples of circular trees see Tattoo Monday, Tattoo Monday V and Tattoo Monday VII. For circular trees with pictures see Tattoo Monday II, and for DNA trees see Tattoo Monday IV. For other March of Progress tattoos see Tattoo Monday VIII.

Tattoo Monday X

Here are five more tattoos in our compilation of evolutionary tree tattoos from around the internet. For more examples of this circular design for a phylogenetic tree, in a variety of body locations, see Tattoo Monday, Tattoo Monday V, and Tattoo Monday VII.

Tattoo Monday IX

We haven't had any phylogenetic tree tattoos on this blog for a while, so here is a new collection of Charles Darwin's best-known sketch from his Notebooks (the "I think" tree) (for other examples, see Tattoo Monday III, Tattoo Monday V, and Tattoo Monday VI).

Tattoo Monday VIII – the March of Progress

Transformational evolution is easier to grasp than variational evolution, and so it is hardly surprising that evolution tattoos should include the Descent of Man (or March of Progress) image. We have six examples here.

The image originated as shown in the bottom-right tattoo, which is based on the frontispiece to Thomas Henry Huxley's book about primate anatomy (1863. Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. Williams & Norgate, London), as reproduced in the next picture.

A century later, this image was expanded and updated in a book by the anthropologist Francis C. Howell (1965. Early Man. Time-Life International, New York), as shown in the next picture. (The full-size picture, with labels, can be viewed here.)

In spite of it's disconnection with modern phylogenetic ideas (see my blog post on Linear versus branching evolution), it is probably the single most famous image in evolutionary biology. However, as a tattoo image it cannot compete in popularity with Charles Darwin's "I think" tree (as shown in the blog posts Tattoo Monday III, Tattoo Monday V and Tattoo Monday VI).

Tattoo Monday VII

Here are three more tattoos in our never-ending compilation of evolutionary tree tattoos from around the internet. This circular design for a phylogenetic tree is quite popular (see Tattoo Monday, Tattoo Monday V and Tattoo Monday X), and it appears in more diverse body locations than any other design.

Tattoo Monday VI

The spate of phylogenetic tree tattoos continues. As before, this is dominated by Charles Darwin's best-known sketch from his Notebooks (the "I think" tree) (see also Tattoo Monday III, V and IX). However, the "molecular tree" re-appears here (see Tattoo Monday IV); and finally there is a real cladogram tattoo for the purists.

Tattoo Monday V

This week we have a few of the recently available phylogenetic tree tattoos for you, following on from the previous posts: Tattoo Monday, Tattoo Monday II, Tattoo Monday III, and Tattoo Monday IV. We even have the first tattooed feet. The tree on the middle right is somewhat of a worry, if you care about phylogenetic accuracy. The circular designs re-appear in Tattoo Monday VII.

While it seems true that the probability of observing a new phylogenetic-tree tattoo decreases with time, this is apparently an exponential decay, so that the probability approaches zero rather slowly. It might, of course, be a pareto (power law) distribution instead, which never reaches zero, thus keeping Carl Zimmer employed producing endless supplements to his book (Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed).

Tattoo Monday IV

This week we have some phylogenetic tree tattoos for the biologist rather than the graph theoreticist. Here, we have designs inspired by the works of Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin, plus a literal interpretation of the term "molecular tree". (Another version of this tree appears in Tattoo Monday VI.)

These are the last of the tattoos that I have for you — there are only so many exhibitionists in the world of phylogenetics. That is, as N approaches infinity the probability of N+1 approaches zero, where N is the size of the set of known phylogenetic-tree tattoos.

I have been unable to locate any phylogenetic networks imprinted on the bodies of young persons, at least among those bodies publicly displayed on the internet. Perhaps networkers prefer to put their designs on t-shirts?

If you feel the need to see more science tattoos, then you will enjoy this book:

Carl Zimmer (2011) Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. Sterling, New York.

See also the previous posts: Tattoo Monday, Tattoo Monday II, Tattoo Monday III.

Tattoo Monday III

This week we return to tattoos, with the most popular set of designs. These are designs for the traditionalist: Charles Darwin's best-known sketch from his Notebooks, showing his first attempt at a phylogenetic tree — with and without signature.

Further examples of this design are illustrated in Tattoo Monday V, Tattoo Monday VI and Tattoo Monday IX.

Tattoo Monday II

This week, we have some more ambitious designs for your phylogenetic tree tattoo: The Five Kingdoms, with some real biology attached to the matchstick diagram. You will note that both of the young persons are female, in this case. I am, sadly, yet to see a tattoo with bootstrap values or posterior probabilities, possibly indicating a lack of confidence.