Although the coiled shells of ammonites are a familiar fossil when it comes to reconstructing past environments through art, invertebrates like cephalopods (the group that includes octopuses, nautiluses, “squids” and their relatives, as well as fossil forms ammonites, belemnites and lesser known ancestral groups) normally only feature in the jaws of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs. Artist Franz Anthony has sought to address this disservice (#justiceforcephalopods) with a series of illustrations focusing on a diverse line up of extinct cephalopods to show these animals off in their own right and not just as background characters – or lunch – in palaeoart.

I caught up with Franz to chat about the series of works, palaeoart in general and the challenges of illustrating animals known only from their hard parts and not much else. Full disclosure: I’ve been following the progress of this project, been asked about some finer points of anatomical details and I’m just in love with the finished works, so consider me deeply impartial in presenting this work here.

The whole Fossil Cephalopods plate, showing sausage- shaped ancestors, through the weird and wonderful ammonites to fossil octopus and vampire squid species.

First up, why the focus on fossil cephalopods?

FA: My cephalopods series is a part of an even longer series in which I illustrate extinct creatures that don’t normally get enough attention. While we’re seeing a surge of younger palaeo artists (myself included) joining the playground, I feel like most of the efforts are concentrated in the “higher” animals – most especially dinosaurs.

I think it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as deep down I’m a bird nerd myself! However, I’ve always been more interested in creatures that are more “ornate,” as in having body segments, fins, armour, or display structures, rather than being a continuous blob of fur. This is why I’ve also covered the often forgotten Ediacaran biota and ostracoderms in the series. Cephalopods, the third plate in my series, happen to be well-known by many but the reconstructions we see on the internet are often outdated or flat out non-existent. This is often the case with obscure taxa that were described 200 hundred years ago!

Is this series a specific commission?

FA: This series is a part of my personal project that are hosted on Earth Archives (eartharchives.org), a site that I run with some friends. It’s a site where illustrators and writers get together to tell notable stories in natural history, to make the public aware of the latest developments in the science.

Are these in a ‘usual’ style or is there a unique style for this series? Are there other artists or works you’re particularly influenced by?



FA: As some people have pointed out on Twitter, I’m influenced by Ernst Haeckel. His plates from Kunstformen der Natur are clearly relevant to my personal interests: they’re ornate, very detailed, and display an array of creatures that are often overlooked. In a time when digital photography can immortalise countless creatures in high definition, I’m interested in illustrating creatures that photographs can’t capture (yet). I’m mostly concerned about things that are too small, too rare, or long gone. Extinct invertebrates just happen to fit the bill … or beak?

Heteromorph ammonite Nipponites, one of the most unusual ammonites, with a convoluted rounded shell. This kind of shell raises interesting questions around growth and ecology which remain speculative.

With tens of thousands of different species to choose from, how did you go about picking and researching the ‘cast’ you’ve illustrated?



FA: I must admit I jump head first into projects without knowing much about my subjects. I’m a generalist, so while I knew of some fossil cephalopods and had heard that some details about are often incorrectly depicted, I didn’t know the details.



I started my research from Wikipedia like every other millennial, but then I realised a lot of cephalopod literature is not as readily available as, say, dinosaurs or pterosaurs.

This is when I decided I wanted a comprehensive reading material to orient myself. Danna Staaf’s newly-released Squid Empire was exactly what I needed. Her book tells the story of cephalopod evolution from their appearance in the fossil record to today, and actually highlighted several important taxa that practically don’t show up in search engines.

When it was time to decide which taxa should make it into my final images, I had a few things in mind: I wanted to show as many body shapes as possible, give equal attention to various parts of the evolutionary tree, and make sure the taxa are historically or scientifically important (geologically oldest, first discovered, etc).

How do you go about making each image?

FA: I started sketching them in Photoshop. Since I knew the final ensemble image was going to be a Haeckel-esque plate, I had to figure out which shape goes where. It felt like playing a jigsaw puzzle on your computer, except with extinct cephalopods. Afterwards, I uploaded my plate sketch and summoned forth Twitter’s most dedicated cephalopod enthusiasts to ask for assistance from people who know better. It got me the attention of Thomas Clements (and yourself), who helped me in figuring out basic cephalopod classifications.

Ultimately, due to the lack of space or information, I had to drop multiple interesting animals from my final image like the oddball Nostoceras, the octopus Keuppia, and the dubious “giant vampire squid” Tusoteuthis.

As we’ve mentioned here at Lost Worlds Revisited before, soft tissue cephalopod fossils are extremely rare. With so few soft tissue detail available, how did you decide on colour, number or limbs, skin patterns etc?

FA: Of course, it’s hard to figure out what they actually looked like in life when we haven’t even found traces of their soft tissues. I had to rely on phylogenetic bracketing [assuming the least number of evolutionary leaps and conservation of shared characters in extant species]. When it came to ammonites, I thought it was safer to depict them with ten arms instead of dozens of tentacles.



I also learned by consulting Danna Staaf that there’s a recent study involving nautilus embryo which suggests that nautilus’s iconic hood is fused tentacles. This means it’s likely that ten-limbed, tentacleless cephalopods wouldn’t have it, unlike in most outdated palaeoart! This is why I love finding new information, as it challenges misconceptions that I might have held for my entire life.

As for the colours, I had to rely a lot on other shelled marine creatures. In general, I avoid blue or green since the pigments very rarely exist in nature, while the patterns are decided on their general lifestyle. Bottom-dwelling creatures might have been more drab, while free-swimming ones would benefit from having a disruptive pattern. That being said, two of my reconstructions are based on studies on their actual colours! Sphooceras is thought to have had nautilus-like stripes, while Phragmoceras seems to have existed in various morphs, one of them having zig-zag patterns near the bottom side. It amazed me how both taxa, over 400m years old, could’ve preserved such tiny details. It was so difficult to track down the literature, but I’m glad I spent the extra time to do so because it felt like I got even closer to their real life appearance.

Passaloteuthis, a genus of belemnite. Fossils show the presence of two huge hooks called mega-onychites. Their function and how they were attached to the body remains unknown.

I’m also happy about the belemnite Passaloteuthis, since its oversized hooks have been known to science for 200 years but nobody that I’m aware of had attempted to reconstruct what they would’ve looked like in life.

There’s a strong campaign amongst palaeo artists to advocate commissioning palaeoart rather than using the usual (but cheap or free) art out there and involving palaeo artists as the research stage rather than commissioning art the day before a press release is due out. How important do you think this is?

FA: Deep down, I’m a still graphic designer and commercial illustrator. I’ve noticed that this is a problem that’s plaguing other fields of visual communications too, not just palaeontology. As the media landscape turns into story-churning factories, they are left with very little to no budget to “embellish” the thousands of stories they publish each month with original art — so they subscribe to affordable stock image providers. No matter how much we artists complain about this less than ideal situation, this is our reality now and we too have to readjust our business model [this is also the case here at Lost Worlds Revisited...]

Though we may think of “bad palaeontology stock photos” as grinning, naked theropods with odd proportions, less-loved creatures like cephalopods are hit even harder. This is where Studio 252MYA comes in. I founded the studio in 2016 after realising there are lots of young artists out there who have built considerable portfolios on their own, but are too awkward/time-strapped to network. By gathering everyone’s portfolio in one spot, we offer media companies and content creators the vast selection of a stock image site, but with up-to-date and more carefully crafted artwork. While the big bulk of our creations can be seen on Earth Archives, we’ve also provided images for Youtubers, museums and National Geographic

We’re a small collective and still growing, so whether this model is the right way to go, nobody is sure yet. All I know is that I’m trying to help young artists while keeping up with (and cussing about) the demands of today’s reality.

What’s next? When are you going to do all the fossil cephalopods? Asking for a friend of course ...



FA: There will always be cephalopods! Though I’m a generalist, I’ve always loved cephalopods to some degree. I can’t promise I’ll do anything elaborate in the near future, though, since I have at least two other Haeckel-esque plates lined up: trilobites and echinoderms. I also have other ideas that focus less on the animals and more about the environments, and a few others that are more “edgy” and graphic to (hopefully) turn the attention of the wider audience to palaeontology. I’m trying to stay diverse!

You can find Franz’s cephalopod work and the fossils that inspired them here: 500 million years of cephalopod fossils.