The Last Pogonodon By graphiteforlunch Watch

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"The Last Pogonodon"

I'm still here! Been working on this digital painting off and on since late 2014...

Pogonodon is an an extinct genus of the family Nimravidae.

I like to remember the nimravids because they were, in so many ways, so very much like our modern cats, yet also different. Generations of them ruled the earth, existing and interacting in the great web of life, and then they were gone forever. I have a special place in my heart for extinct critters unknown to modern humankind. To me, they matter. They existed and that is enough.

Drawing from human experience, it is impossible to deeply know what it would be like to be the very last of one's species or, worse, entire genus, but we can imagine the loneliness of it. It would be a bleak prospect.

Fossils of these catlike creatures have been found in North America. While nobody knows what their fur looked like, I like to imagine that if these leopard-sized creatures occupied similar niches to big cats such as jaguars or tigers they would also have some kind of mottled coat to aid in camouflage. Or perhaps this is a tortoiseshell variant female.

Like maybe 80% of my personal artwork, this piece is a result of the outpouring of some non-happy emotion, in this case the sorrow of loss and loneliness. I'm known as a positive, optimistic person IRL, but you know what? I feel *everything* deeply, and the pain has to go somewhere. "Stuffing it" generally results in nothing good for anyone. Art is so good for my mental health because it lets sorrow just drain away and lets me breathe again. Part of why this took me so long to finish is because I really only worked on it when I was in a very "Last Pogonodon" sort of mood.

Someday I would love to visit the John Day Fossil Bed National Monument and see where the fossils of these lovely creatures have been found!

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Published : Jun 29, 2015