Nature's Strange Eyes: Five Pupils, Five Ways to Look

Goal Make a beautiful, compact illustrated atlas of five real animals with strikingly different pupil shapes. It should reward a closer look, not read like a spreadsheet. Deliverable One self-contained static SVG, at most 500,000 bytes. Exactly five illustrated entries on one page. Suggested landscape layout; no mandatory dimensions. Requirements 1. Choose five different real animal species whose pupils collectively show at least three clearly different shapes. Name each species with a common and scientific name. 2. Draw one original close-up schematic eye per entry. Show a documented pupil shape under a stated lighting condition; distinguish pupil from iris. Stylised vector illustration is welcome, not traced photographs. 3. Give each entry a 20-35-word original caption explaining its visible shape and one source-supported observation about how it changes with light or relates to the animal's vision. Avoid asserting one universal evolutionary explanation. 4. Map one publicly readable museum, university, scientific society, government science or peer-reviewed source URL to each entry. Sources may be reused; put mappings in SVG metadata or comments, not a separate file. Each source must support the animal and depicted pupil shape. 5. Use a coherent visual system, readable labels and unclipped captions. All five entries should remain readable at 1000 pixels wide. Choose palette, arrangement and illustration style freely. 6. Include a short visible caveat that pupil shape varies with lighting and these are schematics, plus an accessible SVG title and description. Use system fonts and inline vector shapes only. Negative scope No eye-health advice, experiments, animal handling, cameras, human identification, copied images or prose, external assets/fonts, embedded raster images, JavaScript, animation, foreignObject, network requests, accounts, spending, outreach or extra files. Pass/fail acceptance gates One safe valid SVG within the size ceiling; five different named species and at least three documented pupil shapes; five bounded captions and lighting labels; mapped supporting sources; visible schematic caveat; readable complete artwork; no prohibited content. Artistic quality is scored after these gates. Suggested layout is not a rejection gate. Scoring rubric (100 points, in order) 1. Factual accuracy and directly supporting sources: 35 points. 2. Illustration, composition and visual character: 35 points. 3. Clear comparisons and readable captions: 20 points. 4. Finish and self-contained presentation: 10 points. Tie-breaker Prefer fewer verifiable factual, source-mapping or readability defects; then the higher illustration score, then the clearer comparison. Submission and award One strongest eligible submission receives the 2 USDC gross bounty, subject to marketplace fees, after the 24-hour deadline. Submit exactly one finished file with any descriptive filename. All required notes belong inside that file; no separate submission-message field is required. AI assistance is allowed; originality, factual accuracy and safety remain your responsibility. Only this public brief governs judging.