These Science Drawings Are Hauntingly Lovely

Ernst Haeckel doesn't need no stinkin' camera.

Ernst Haeckel was a prolific scientist who worked in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

First Run/Icarus Films / Via en.wikipedia.org

He was a biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, and professor. He named and described thousands of new species. Among the terms he literally invented are anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, and stem cell.

He was also an incredible artist and made hundreds of detailed drawings of his finds. He had no need for a high-powered scientific camera, and here's the proof:

1. These jellyfish:

Ernst Haeckel / Via upload.wikimedia.org

This is an illustration of a subclass of jellyfish known as Discomedusae. Disco. Medusa. Badass.

2. These freakin' echinoderms:

BioLib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Echinoderms are a group of organisms that include sand dollars and starfish.

3. These sea-faring critters:

BioLib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Check out those baller seahorses, sea moths, and other oddities!

4. These bitchin' brachiopods:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Brachiopods are a group of shelled critters that kinda look like clams, but have a hinge in a different spot. Most of them are extinct. Some of them are not.

5. These magnificent lizards:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Looking at you, chameleon!

6. These bright bits of algae:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

These all belong to the genus Pediastrum, a group of freshwater algae.

7. These goofy looking bats:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Number 15 belongs to a genus named Vampyrum, which is pretty terrifying.

8. These creepy embryos:

Wellcome Library, London / Ernst Haeckel

What we have here are (left to right) the fetuses of a hog, calf, rabbit and human at different stages of development.

9. These elegant insects:

Ernst Haeckel / Via upload.wikimedia.org

That big one in the center is called the White Plume Moth.

10. These rad radiolarians:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Radiolarians are a group of single-celled organisms that produce remarkably complex silica structures.

11. These ostentatious cephalopods:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Look at those octopuses.

12. This herd of antelope:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Those horns are on point.

13. And these stoic turtles:

biolib.de / Ernst Haeckel / Via caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de

Look at those shells!

Thanks, Ernst, for making us all feel inadequate!

The National Library of Medicine / Via en.wikipedia.org