Cryptids State-by-State

Official Unofficial Cryptid Mascots for every state. Plus whatever stuff I find interesting. They/them

[statecryptids]

I wrote another book! This is a collaboration with fellow artist Stanton Fink. I’ve always enjoyed his drawings of creatures inspired by mythology and paleontology and thought it would be fun to create backgrounds for some of them. So I wrote this little field guide to the Garden of Lost Ages, a botanical garden adjacent to the renowned Nautilus Hill Library. Inspired by my own love for field guides both real and fantastic.

Text by John Meszaros

Art by Stanton Fink (except for the map of the garden, which I did)

Amazon.com

[niqvassieart]

A little tiny microscopic dragon, rotifers passing by.

I've spent a lot of time peering down a microscope in the last few years, enjoying taking inspiration from the real tiny organisms to make one of my own.

[statecryptids]

Made some paper bag prehistoric creatures for Dinosaur weekends at my Trolley Museum. Featuring Cryolophosaurus, Yutyrranus, Lystrosaurus, and Triceratops.

[maetersart]

Nautilus Mechanicus

oc / Aida

[statecryptids]

Just found out they made a whole-ass animated special in the 1980s based on Brian Froud and Alan Lee’s “Faeries” book!

[birdandmoon]

Female birds with confusing names.

Sign up for my mailing list.

[statecryptids]

Hey look, another post from Saturn!

“Jess, you’re going to love the new creature we found.

So, we’ve been noticing these dark fissures or scars between the zooids of some cymatic colonies. At first we thought they were wounds from disease or predation, but Dr. Aiona studied them more closely and found out that they’re actually open burrows excavated by a tiny shrimp-like organism. She says their burrows look a lot like the fissures dug by Earthly petroglyph shrimp that she used to see all over the reefs around Maui when she was a kid, so she’s insisting on calling these critters Titanian petroglyph shrimp.

The “shrimp” are, of course, not crustaceans. They’re close relatives of deer-crabs. A single male and female excavate the fissures together and live at opposite ends except when mating. They spend most of their time at the edge of the fissure, feeding on the abundant aerial plankton attracted to the lights and vibrations of the cymatics.

The rims of the fissures are lined with two species of anemone-like euryales. ‘Oma’oma’o (Green) euryales are more aggressive in their feeding and seem to specialize in consuming swifter, stronger plankton. Hopohopo (Anxious) euryales, which are blue, are more “shy” and will quickly retract at the slightest touch. They feed on smaller and slower plankton.

Speaking of aerial plankton- it’s almost overwhelming seeing so many weird and diverse forms. The ones I’ve drawn here are only a tiny fraction of what we’ve found. We’ve only barely begun to catalog them, and most don’t have names yet, though Doctor Aiona suspects that the majority of Titan’s biodiversity may be in plankton form.

That’s all for now.

Hya.

[statecryptids]

In late April paleontologists announced the discovery of a massive octopus from the Cretaceous period, Nanaimoteuthis. Although only fossilized beaks were found, the discoverers extrapolated its size based on the proportions of extant relatives and suggested it may have been about the size of a mosasaur.

Other researchers have questioned this size estimate, but regardless it would still have ben a huge creature probably larger than any living cephalopod. Hence it’s been nicknamed the “Cretaceous Kraken”.

A lot of (admittedly really cool) paleoart has depicted Nanaimoteuthis attacking large marine predators like Mosasaurus and Ichthyosaurus, but even with its huge size these vertebrates could have easily torn it apart. I think it’s more likely that Nanaimoteuthis fed on giant bivalves like rudists and inoceramids, using its arms to pry their shells open or even crush them with its beak.

Nanaimoteuthis is believed to have been a cirrate octopus- the group that included dumbo octopods. This group is characterized by flap-like fins on their heads and fleshy, finger-like cirri along their arms on either side of each sucker. Citrates also usually have a web connecting their arms, but I left it off my version for aesthetic reasons.

I created this design for my t-shirt shop over at Teepublic ‘cause I wanted to expand my cephalopod offerings.

Cretaceous Kraken by nocturnalsea

The recently discovered giant octopus that hunted Cretaceous ocenas.

Source:

Shin Ikegami et al. ,Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans.Science392,406-410(2026).DOI:10.1126/science.aea6285

[statecryptids]

Looking at new insurance for my car, and immediately thought of this guy.

[meatsema]

yay ScarLex!! it will be a keychain ^^

[paleotanks]

Thescelosaurus, once displayed at Science Museum of Minnesota

[nasa]

Roman is Ready to Go!

After being assembled, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has passed final tests, and is being prepared to move to our Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where teams will work to prepare it for a launch in early September 2026.

With a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, Roman can potentially measure light from a billion galaxies in its lifetime. It will also be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

The observatory is named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer who made cosmic vistas readily accessible to all by paving the way for telescopes based in space.

Want to learn more about Roman? Check out our #Roman Space Telescope tag and visit our mission page.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Shrooms

HP Lovecraft: what if a mushroom came from space Caitlin Kiernan: what if a mushroom came from space and made zombies William Hope Hodgeson: what if you hated the sea and everything in it and also there was a mushroom

Junji Ito: what if there were mushrooms in your house Jeff VanderMeer: what if you stole a mushroom's house Andrew F. Sullivan: what if the real mushroom was capitalism this whole time

Ursula Vernon: what if mushroom but gothic Silvia Moreno-Garcia: what if mushroom but gothic and also mexican Saskia Nislow: what if a mushroom ate your kids

Molly Tanzer: what if you put mushroom in hooch Bitter Karella: what if you put mushroom in titty milk

Yi Shi Si Zhou: what if you killed a mushroom Aliya Whiteley: what if you fucked a mushroom Laura Cranehill: what if you married a mushroom

[obliviasart]

Mech that is a knight and its pilot who's full of worms and held together by duct tape and drug abuse

[statecryptids]

Absolute peak character design and description. No notes.

[statecryptids]

Last set of drawings of creatures from the early solar system. Here are some rat-slugs of Theia, the protoplanet that crashed into Earth to form our moon.

Hairy Trumpet Rat-Slug

Though this creature is covered in bristly hair, it is nothing like an Earth mammal. It “swims” through the fine, silty regolith of Theia’s surface, pulling itself along by its armored, muscular tail. The end opposite the tail, which is said to vaguely resemble the profile of a long-nosed rat, has a row of simple eyes that can detect a wide range of electromagnetic wavelengths. Though this row of eyes looks and functions similar to the eyes in monk shells (see previous post), both groups are unrelated and have evolved these features independently.

Trumpet Rat-Slugs are deposit feeders that consume small particles of organic matter mixed in with Theia’s dust.

Kandinsky Rat-Slug

Named after abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, whose work it is said to resemble. This close relative of the Hairy Trumpet Rat-Slug lives in the silt that builds up on the floor of openings leading into Theia’s lava tube network. The combination of direct sunlight and volcanic minerals creates a highly productive ecosystem in the tube entrance.  The Kandinsky Rat-Slug feeds primarily on the barnacle-like creatures that encrust the rocks under the silt. Its feeding activities regularly scour the rock, providing new surface for barnacle larvae to settle on. Without this organism, every surface of the lava tunnel opening would become overcrowded, preventing any new generations from settling.

[statecryptids]

Two more paper bag creature I drew while sick. These creatures once inhabited Theia, the protoplanet responsible for the creation of our moon

The main theory for how Earth’s moon formed is that about 4.5 billion years ago a Mars-sized protoplanet dubbed Theia collided with the newly-formed Earth. The impact shattered Theia and broke off a considerable chunk of our planet. The pieces fell into orbit around Earth and over millions of years slowly clumped together to form the moon.

Moon Maize. 

The adults of these organisms always carry a cluster of eggs held in a silk cocoon. Adults and their egg-bound larvae have very different metabolism and work together in mutualistic symbiosis. Though the eggs protect the young from dehydration and temperature extremes, their shells are soft and semi-permeable, allowing them to absorb minerals from the abundant space dust in Theia’s atmosphere which the larvae can metabolize for energy. While the adult is unable to feed on dust itself, it absorbs the digested products from its eggs. The adult, in turn, absorbs radiation from the solar wind- which would kill the eggs if they weren’t shielded- and converts it into chemical energy that is shared with its young.

Every few days a larva will hatch from an eg and quickly burrow into the thick dust covering Theia’s surface where it pupates for several months. As it develop into an adult, the larvae uses stored fat and nutrients to develop a small egg clutch of its own. Upon emerging from its underground chrysalis, the adult struggles to the surface to begin absorbing solar wind while its growing egg clutch metabolizes the surrounding dust.

The name “Moon Maize” comes from the alleged resemblance of the egg cluster to a “ floppy ear of corn” as one researcher put it.

Monk Shell.

This organism gets its name due to the alleged resemblance of its front appendage and bulbous compound eye to a praying monk. These creatures inhabit the extensive network of cooled lava tubes that wind through Theia’s crust. The single large compound eye on its dorsal surface can form complex images, while the simple eyes along its bottom can see in different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio to ultraviolet. The thick antennae extending from its body are covered with a variety of sensory structures that can detect movement, chemical signals, sound, and other environmental stimuli. The Monk Shell is an active predator and one of the keystone species in Theian lava tube ecosystems.

Last image is an artist’s impression of Theia impacting Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.

[jacobtheloofah]

never change, tumblr. never fucking change.

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