5Ball

I like dinosaurs.

[magic5ball]

A Letter to Mom (40)

Dear Mom,

It's cold up here, with the heater gone, but I feel an unusual warmth within me. In the time since I last wrote, I have euthanized both the vending machine and the lights. It was for the best, Mother. They were suffering.

Are things really as they say down south? The aurora up here is off in a way I can't quite describe, and I've been hallucinating pink tarantulas on the walls. Their eyes follow me as I walk.

Starting tomorrow I walk south.

Love,

Kib Johnson

[earlypalaeoart]

"La trompette du jugement de la science a sonné. Ils sont ressuscités, et le naturaliste les classe." ["The trumpet of scientific judgment has sounded. They have been resurrected, and the naturalist classifies them."] by Georges Devy from Camille Flammarion's Le monde avant la création de l'homme (1886)

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6225955v/f29.item

[magic5ball]

Something I've always found fascinating about early paleoart is the abundance of Christian imagery, despite science supposedly being 'unbiased' and 'objective'. Even scientifically accurate (for the time) reconstructions had this almost mythological feel to them.

[preserving-tiktok]

[magic5ball]

I love this!

[magic5ball]

A Letter to Mom (39)

Dear Mom,

It is cold up here, but not cold enough to kill me.

But my difference machine still works, and news from the outside still flows to this fractured conduit.

I'll admit: our Glorious CEO's admission that the war against Altech and our colonial assets has gone poorly was a stabbing evisceration of my insides, yet simultaneously a feeling of relief in someone saying the obvious.

But then there was the solution.

Mother, I think engineering a great Godmoth to counter Altech is a genuinely terrible idea. True, the great spider's intellect was a liability, but grating the powers to transverse dimensions to a thing as brainless as a moth will only invite disaster!

Our Glorious CEO must have been betrayed by seditious counselors who have corrupted his brilliant mind! I must warn him before it's too late!

-Kib Johnson

P.S. Please respond! I need your encouraging words now more than ever!

[70sscifiart]

Dinosaur illustrations by Roy Andersen, for National Geographic's August 1978 issue

[earlypalaeoart]

Tableau des Animaux et des Végétaux Éxistans Avant le Déluge, Rédigé d'après Cuvier, Buckland, de Humboldt etc. par Perrot, Ingénr.-Geographe. Dessiné d'après les Végétaux et les Fossiles existants dans les divers Cabinets de l'Europe, a wall chart illustrating Antideluvian creatures by Aristide Michel Perrot (1844)

Key (spellings updated): 1. ‎Tree ferns 2. Reeds 3. Bamboo 4. Bladderwrack 5. Polyps 6. Crinoids 7. Trilobites 8. Productus 9. Spirifer 10. Turtles 11. Hemiptera 12. Coleoptera 13. Neuroptera 14. Scorpions 15. Squid 16. Palms 17. Lepidodendron 18. Latanier palms 19. Horsetails 20. Ammonites 21. Terebratula 22. Gryphaea 23. Amblypterus 24. Ophisurus 25. Platinx 26. Cestracion [now Heterodontus] 27. Dapedium 27. Megalosaurus 28. Plesiosaur 29. Ichthyosaur 30. Pterodactyl 31. Crocodiles 32. Iguanodon 33. Lobster 34. Sea Urchins 35. Heron 36. Stork 37. Ibis 38. Zamites and other genera of the Cycads family. 39. Turtles 40. Manatee 41. Whale 42. Dolphin 43. Cerites [?Cerithium] 44. Oysters 45. Belemnites 46. Nautilus 47. Limnaea 48. Planorbis 49. Sea urchins 50. Palaeotherium 51. Common Anoplotherium 52. Light Anoplotherium 53. Hippopotamus 54. [Missing?] 55. Tapir 56. Bear 57. Hyena 58. Tiger 59. Beaver 60. Squirrel 61. Hare 62. Water Rat 63. Owl 64. Thuyas 65. Araucaria Pines 66. Mastodon 67. Deinotherium 68. Mammoth 69. Megaloceros 70. Megatherium 71. Megalonyx 72. Wolf 73. Badger 74. Mole 75. Bat

Hi-res scan available here: https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/ancientcreatures-perrot-1844

[magic5ball]

A Leprechaun, 2026

[magic5ball]

Notes on the Venusian Unicorn

1.) Unlike it's lunarian counterpart, the Venusian Unicorn's horn is not a whole piece- rather, it corkscrews upward, like a wine bottle opener. It is not known what the purpose of this horn is, though it may serve purpose in sexual display.

2.) Venusian Unicorns posses unique head crests that vary from individual to individual. These greatly amplify their calls, allowing them to communicate over vast distances, sometimes as frequencies imperceptible to the human ear.

3.) Above their eyes, Venusian Unicorns posses two great nostrils that are sometimes mistaken for eyebrows at a distance. Since they often travel between islands searching for food, this allows them to breathe while submerged during these long journeys.

4.) Venusian Unicorn tongues can stretch as much as half a meter, and can even be used as a rudimentary limb. Those that live near human settlements have been observed 'waving' at visitors, though it is not known if they are aware of the significance of this action. Others, such as Individual #36 pictured above, enjoy having it tugged on as a form of enrichment.

5.) Venusian Unicorn eyes are very large with bold eyelashes and pupils that make up the majority of the eye. These pupils come in a dazzling variety of colors, from lime green to galaxy purple. Normally, the iris and sclera are not visible, but unicorns that interact with humans have learned to dilate their pupils, exposing them so that they can better communicate with their caretakers. The eyes also contain the musk ducts, which make unicorns smell like anything from cinnamon to mint depending on the individual.

6.) Venusian Unicorns take great pride in their manes, which come in a variety of colors and usually match the pupil. During mating season, they will gladly meet with humans in return for snacks and getting their manes decorated. They love accessories- hair clips, flowers, piercings and the like- that only humans can provide them.

7.) Venusian Unicorn Legs are slender, but nonetheless strong, capable of both running and swimming long distances. For defense, each foot, besides a hoof, is equipped with a keratin spike. Fur also grows thicker at the base of the legs. As such, Venusian unicorns look as if they are wearing both legwarmers and high heels.

8.) Venusian Unicorn tails are long and flexible, though some observers have compared them to those of a rat. These end in great plumes of hair or fins, and as such, are sometimes used by their owners as makeshift umbrellas. As with their manes, Venusian Unicorns enjoy having them groomed and stylized by humans.

[magic5ball]

A Letter to Mom (38)

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry I haven't sent anything in awhile. I know you're probably curious as to my whereabouts. At least, I believe it's been awhile. The sun races across the sky so fast now. I've never seen it do that before!

Unfortunately, I have bad news today: I put the heater down. This was not an easy decision to make-it was so young!- but it was suffering and I hated to see it so.

You see, our Glorious CEO needs all the electricity he can acquire to fight Alltech, and so the power to the office was cut.

Have you ever seen a heater, Mother, a real live one? It's quite fascinating! It's a giant pond in a basement, and in that pond is a giant waterlily plant with pads large enough to support my weight! Surrounding it are all sorts of crimson beetles, lapis lazuli dragonflies, orange-and-alabaster coelacanths, clever raft spiders, and rainbow whales only a foot long. These make love inside the lily's flower's, which generate heat, which gets sent to the rest of the building.

Now, you might wonder why a plant would be so deep underground, but you must understand, Mother, that plants are tricky creatures. If it were on the surface, it would get sunlight for free, an act that would lay ruin to our great economy! And in his wisdom, our Glorious CEO devised a plan: put the heaters deep underground, so that only light created by Lucky Pong himself can be charged to them! You might find it harsh, Mother, but only in such a fashion can heaters truly know Lucky Pong's benevolence!

But now, the fungal floodlights have gone dim, the heater cannot photosynthesize, and the whole thing has fallen apart.

And it was fortunate that it was dark, so that I could not see the heater's suffering. Only hear its' panicked cacophony.

I sang those old lullabies you once sang to me, Mother, as I tossed in herbicide grenades until, at last, no sound emerged from the darkness.

I did the right thing,

Kib Johnson

[making-you-in-mtg]

[herpsandbirds]

New 'scimitar-crested' Spinosaurus species discovered in the central Sahara

by University of Chicago Medical Center

A paper published in Science describes the discovery of Spinosaurus mirabilis, a new spinosaurid species found in Niger. A 20-person team led by Paul Sereno, Ph.D., Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, unearthed the find at a remote locale in the central Sahara, adding important new fossil finds to the closing chapter of spinosaurid evolution...

Read more: https://phys.org/news/2026-02-scimitar-crested-spinosaurus-species-central.html

illustrations by Dani Navarro

[magic5ball]

Squat Grey Beetle

My Uncle's car was a 2013 Chevy Spark. I always thought it looked like a squat grey beetle, the prey animal of the car world, a creature that through centuries of natural selection, had evolved to be as unassuming as possible. But to my Uncle, it might as well have been a Ferrari.

One day when I was staying at his place, it started snowing something fierce, and not the good kind, either. No, this was slush snow, formed at 35 degrees, too damp and goopy to make snowmen with but just solid enough to be slippery.

And when he saw that slush raining down, my Uncle jumped right out of the sofa and told me to get my coat. We were going on a trip.

My Uncle, the same man who always wore a sweater the moment the weather dropped below 75 degrees, said we were going on a trip. And he was smiling.

Trip, in this case, was a twenty minute drive to the parking lot of the local park, now totally empty of cars. A drive that would have taken two minutes if not for the slush clogging the roads like too much cholesterol. The moment we arrived, my Uncle shooed me out of the car, assuring me this wouldn't take too long.

I expected to spend the next half hour sheltering under a snow laden jungle gym. Instead, my seat was glued to a park bench, hypnotized by that squat grey beetle as it moved across the slush.

I'm still not sure how to describe it. I'd compare it to a race car doing donuts, but there's a rugged, acrid, aggression to that I just didn't see in the beetle. No, these movements, were graceful, poised, and deliberate as a ballet dancer's. I have never seen a car move like that, and I probably never will again.

On the way back, he apologized for making me sit out there, telling me how he didn't get many chances to 'car skate', as he called it, anymore. But for being a good sport, he stopped by Pepperoni's and ordered a barbecue bacon ranch pizza, my favorite.

He still made me eat peas with it, though.

[supermalmoart]

I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was a kid. I was obsessed with dinosaurs and the outdoors, even though I was told I would probably spend most of my time alone, hunched over a dissecting scope sorting mammal teeth. That didn’t sound too bad, either. 

When my family moved from Cold Lake to Provo, I wasn’t thrilled. If you had asked me why, I would have said all of Utah’s parks looked the same. I got bored of them quickly.

With one notable exception.

I stayed longer than expected, because it was hard to pass up a full ride scholarship at BYU and they had a good engineering program. It felt more like a “real job” than paleontology. Little did I know I was trading one kind of safety for another. 

Ilion International let me work from home, and that meant I could choose where home was, so it was a no-brainer. I moved back to Canada and worked as an analytical engineer, running their interstellar spacecraft through simulated tests to make sure it wouldn’t crumple under up to two and a half g’s of thrust gravity. Bold of them to get this done while it was being assembled in orbit, but there was a timeline to keep and funding on the line. It stressed me out. Every time Odyssey passed one of my tests, I breathed a sigh of relief that nothing had to be rebuilt.

It was a bittersweet day when they announced they were taking crew applications. My time with Odyssey was about to end and I had no plans for my future. Maybe it was time to go back to school and learn how to identify multituberculate molars. Or maybe there was a way I could keep working on my ship, even if it wasn’t a “real job.”

[figmentjedi]

Jim Gary’s 20th Century Dinosaurs at the Tallahassee Museum

8/22/18

[magic5ball]

Absolutely beautiful artwork. Rest in peace, Mr. Gary, and happy Black History Month.

[magic5ball]

That time of year again. 

[magic5ball]

And now a photo of the legend himself.

[magic5ball]

A Letter to Mom (37)

Listen Mom,

I can't sleep. Every night for the past few weeks or months I've slept-walked to the entrance of the building. On the frigid threshold I can still see the Drinky-Bird's footprints trenched deep in the snow.

And the wind sounds like its cries.

Can you hear it?.

Kib Johnson

P.S. I did not know what went on at the reeducation camps.

I did not know what went on at the reeducation camps.

I did not know what went on at the reeducation camps.

I swear on the undying soul of our Glorious CEO Lucky Pong.

[earlypalaeoart]

Invitation by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins for New Year's Eve 1853 party to be held within his Iguanodon sculpture

[earlypalaeoart]

"The Compliments of the Season. A rink in the Glacial Period."

Christmas card by the de la Rue company for the Natural History Museum of London, 1880