Pandaroos, Taranturaptors and Cuttlephants, Oh My!

A while back, on Twitter, a group of very creative and moderately deranged biology fans spent the day conjuring up sometimes adorable and often terrifying animal hybrids that they wish existed. While they may never exist in the flesh, they can now exist in our imaginations thanks to some talented science illustrators.

When creating head-scratchers like the pterodactwhale, there’s not a lot of biology to fall back on as a reference. But the panda/kangaroo hybrid is informed by good anatomy, posture and habitat. That artist didn’t jump to too many bambloosions (see what I did there?)

Check out the full gallery at Wired Science, you and everyone you share it with will be glad you did.

Oh, and that one up top? It’s a stomatopetrel: equal parts mantis shrimp and seabird. Yep.

(images above by JL Hirten, Meghan Rock, Alex Babakitis, and Maayan Harel)