Future creatures 4 - Boneless!

Future creatures 4 – Boneless!


Damn, it’s been so long since my last upload! Cool new job, but not much spare time . . . kind of sad. Anyway, I’m back with a new and freaky ball-pen-compilation about boneless future creatures! I really like all the creepy crawlies out there, especially the praying mantis and the Portuguese man-o-war.
The beauties in the pic are sometimes really strange, I did not spend much time in proving the rules of evolution – I just drew them down. I’m not even sure how many millions of years it would take to develop these little fellas from their today’s ancestors . . . maybe you can give me the answer(s)?!?!?! Now, let’s get it on!

a. Sand anemone – I always wondered why anemones didn’t take the step at land, maybe they are too weak or “liquid” to do this. The sand anemone did it despite of its weak organism and developed into a strange tree-like critter (but it’s definitely not as big as a tree, maybe 30 centimeters, not more!). Maybe in an even more distant future this guy could be even bigger and hunt huge flying creatures by attracting them with tasty nectar. This one is already able to catch smaller prey like the next little hottie!

b. Sky shrimp – A flying shrimp? Seems to be a little far-fetched, but evolution is always tricky and able to form the bizarrest animals. Some of the ancient legs of the shrimp vanished cause of better aerodynamics (is a shrimp hydrodynamic?). The future shrimps could maybe fill the niche of extinct birds or maybe bugs – the one you see is the 15 centimeters long prey of the sand anemone at the left.

c. Headless whale – Not a whale, but a big, fat future . . . Branchiostoma (a headless fish, I did not find the translation for “Lanzettfischchen”!!!). This one is not as big as a whale, but as a shark and it fills the niche of the ocean filter feeder . . . the mouth looks like it’s about to swallow an urchin -_-‘

d. Tree star – I love it! Would it be great to have little starfishs crawling along your neighborhood trees white it pierces careless bugs and birds and devours them? The movements of this guy must be really skillful and bizarre. Maybe some subspecies of the tree star could even walk around with much stronger and muscular legs . . . I’m not really sure if this is biological possible, but I once saw starfish moving cool around the beach with their tentacles and it seems as if they have the potential to do this!


e. Rattle worm – Yes, I like the sand worms from >Dune<! This one is just as big as a rattle snake and it although live like the modern reptile. I really like the look of the jaws of this worm (btw the worm developed from normal earthworms). I think the evolution from earthworm to this hungry predator is something what would take at least 50 million years or even more.


f. Fishing butterfly – No, no, no - I hate the design! First I thought it would be a cool idea of an gigantic butterfly with fin-like wings to swim or to attack prey in water, but the result on the paper is nothing I like. I badly have to redraw this (cause I still like the idea!).

g. Floatopus – Looks like Wayne Barlowe’s Eosapiens! Even if the design is not really original I like this one really much. The “sack” of the floating octopus is filled with hydrogen, some of the tentacles developed into thinner tentacles for . . . catching things! Hm, I think there is nothing more to say about it.

h. Tree snail – Reminds me of a fakemon I drew last year. The tree snail is really huge, even bigger than an elephant. The tree on the back of the snail is a photosynthetic symbiont which it carries around it’s whole life. The seed of the tree was devoured by the larva of the snail and then it grew through the skin and got bigger and bigger and bigger. Biology can be really nasty!

i. Slider-spider – LOL, the idea is brilliant I think, even if the legs look kinda crippled. The sliding spider developed some kind of skin between its legs to slide from one plant or tree to another. I don’t know if future generations of this species could develop active flight . . . would be nice and scary to see!

j. Crab-hand desert flea – Ugly, hungry, creepy - I like! No need for further explanations!


So, hope you like them! Don’t know, if I can draw more stuff in the next time . . . I would appreciate it! My favorite this time is the Tree star, the sky shrimp is cool too! Which one do you prefer? TELL ME! TELL ME! TELL ME!