Well, actually, we need a JPG file of your tattoo.

So, if you want to have a picture of your tat on our webpage, here’s the deal.

1) The image must be of a real sea creature. No dolphins with top hats, no octopi with a big smile carrying a cane in each arm, no dueling swordfishes. Just real sea creatures. And it can be any sea creature – diatoms, fishes, crabs, whales, you name it, as long as it lives in the sea it’s okay. Salmon and sturgeon, which live in the sea part time, are okay too.

2) The image has to look pretty good. If you are an 85 year old ex-sailor and you got a shark tattoo in Singapore in 1939 and the tattoo has turned greeny-black and gotten all fuzzy so that it looks like some sort of strange birth mark, we don’t want to see it. Along the same lines, we reserve the right to decline your offered tat, politely of course. Remember, it’s all art and everyone has different likes and dislikes.

3) Don’t send us photographs of tattoos on naughty body parts. This is a PG web site and while we respect your right, and in fact would defend your right even unto discomfort, to have a tattoo of a narwhal on one of your naughty body parts, well we just won’t include it.

4) Do you want your name attached to the image or do you want this to be anonymous? You have to tell us which one before your image goes on the page.

5) If you like, you can tell us why you got your tattoo and we will include that with your picture. Keep the explanation reasonably brief – we have short attention spans and don’t want to develop any close, personal relationships.

Attach a JPG file of your tattoo to an e-mail to love@lifesci.ucsb.edu and include the answer to items 4 & 5 above.