Life on Another World

April 16, 2009 8:50 AM

"Everything begins with complex cladograms I scribble down on large sheets of paper. Before any pictures, these family trees serve as the 'backbone' of the project; allowing me to develop the relationships among different animals and derive ideas from one another." Welcome to the beautiful nonexistent world of Snaiad. Inhabitants include Titanoformes, Cardiocetes, Sprogophidians, and Blumbomeniforms. There are also maps and a timeline. Fantastic speculative zoology from Nemo Ramjet.
posted by HumanComplex (22 comments total)

Hell yes. Thank you!
posted by brundlefly at 8:53 AM on April 16, 2009

Nice. See also.
posted by DU at 8:59 AM on April 16, 2009

Fantastic - in both senses of the word!
posted by vacapinta at 8:59 AM on April 16, 2009

That is eleven kinds of awesome.
posted by Ratio at 9:07 AM on April 16, 2009

Apparently, in the future, everything will look kind of like a dick.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:09 AM on April 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

I want to go to there!
posted by infinitywaltz at 9:09 AM on April 16, 2009

Wow! I am flabbergasted!
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:12 AM on April 16, 2009

[this is awesome]
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:12 AM on April 16, 2009

It's very disorienting how unclear the forms are to my eye. Is that because I'm just not used to looking at them or is it a neural adaptation to expect a more-or-less tetrapedal form with an identifiable "face"?

(Earth deep sea creatures look pretty crazy too, but that doesn't really prove or disprove the adaptation hypothesis, since evolving humans wouldn't have much contact with deep sea creatures.)
posted by DU at 9:14 AM on April 16, 2009

A precursor in style to some of this, Wayne Douglas Barlowe explored another world in the 1990 book Expedition
posted by asfuller at 9:22 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm satisfied just knowing that there's a guy named Nemo Ramjet.
posted by cmoj at 9:30 AM on April 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is so fucking cool. Thanks!
posted by Caduceus at 9:41 AM on April 16, 2009

Ratio: That is eleven kinds of awesome.

I disagree. This is at least thirteen kinds of awesome.
posted by Kattullus at 9:52 AM on April 16, 2009

I want a Tiny Blumbomen!

I promise to take good care of it!
posted by orme at 9:57 AM on April 16, 2009

"Competing males try to tear each other’s flags while trying to impress females at the same time. The females, on the other hand, prefer the males with the brightest and least tarnished genital flags." Ain't that the truth.

I can't wait to play the RPG set on Snaiad.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 10:01 AM on April 16, 2009

This is the best of the Web.
posted by killdevil at 10:19 AM on April 16, 2009

MetaFilter: lively genital displays and noisy mating contests.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:23 AM on April 16, 2009

I'm glad he acknowledges Barlowe on his links page.
posted by asfuller at 10:25 AM on April 16, 2009

A precursor in style to some of this, Wayne Douglas Barlowe explored another world in the 1990 book Expedition

Thanks, asfuller! I was just going to post about this book, of which I did not remember the title, in this thread. It has long been lost to me but I always loved it and thank you so much for linking to it! That is fantastic.
posted by m0nm0n at 5:07 PM on April 16, 2009

This is obviously nineteen kinds of awesome.
posted by painquale at 7:24 PM on April 16, 2009

Nineteen? Nineteen?! Nine?! Teen?! My mother wouldn't spit on a donkey for nineteen kinds of awesome. Twenty one kinds of awesome or nothing!
posted by Kattullus at 7:34 PM on April 16, 2009

I didn't say only nineteen. I meant at least nineteen kinds of awesome. And I hope you meant at least twenty-one, because it's pretty clearly exactly thirty-six kinds of awesome.
posted by painquale at 8:57 PM on April 16, 2009