An illustration project that comes from my love of nature and desire to know more about evolution and taxonomy.
I chose the cat family to start with. First, I built a family tree (file can be opened through this site). Obviously, I'm not a biologist so there's probably mistakes there (if you notice any, please let me know!), but I did my best. Then, I decided the illustrations would be 100x100px pixel art icons and that I'd make 2 for each species - a headshot, and a full-body in profile. The exact number depends on whether you count some of them as subspecies or separate species. My version includes 45 species. I'd like to thank the Pampas Cat Working Group for helping me with the "colocola complex" cats, and also mr Dean Wyman, for advice about Leopardus garleppi and Leopardus colocola. If you have expert knowledge in this area and you notice some mistakes in the illustrations, or have some suggestions for making them more accurate, don't hesitate to contact me. |
The Bay Cat Evolutionary Lineage: Catopuma badia, Catopuma temminckii & Pardofelis marmorata
The Caracal Evolutionary Lineage: Caracal aurata, Caracal caracal & Leptailurus serval
The Domestic Cat Evolutionary Lineage: Felis bieti, Felis catus, Felis chaus, Felis lybica, Felis margarita, Felis nigripes & Felis silvestris
The Leopard Cat Evolutionary Lineage: Otocolobus manul, Prionailurus bengalensis, Prionailurus javanensis, Prionailurus planiceps, Prionailurus rubiginosus & Prionailurus viverrinus
The Lynx Evolutionary Lineage: Lynx canadensis, Lynx lynx, Lynx pardinus & Lynx rufus
The Ocelot Evolutionary Lineage: Leopardus braccatus, Leopardus colocola, Leopardus garleppi, Leopardus munoai, Leopardus pajeros, Leopardus geoffroyi, Leopardus guigna, Leopardus guttulus, Leopardus tigrinus, Leopardus pardalis & Leopardus wiedii
The Panthera Evolutionary Lineage: Panthera leo, Panthera onca, Panthera pardus, Panthera tigris, Panthera uncia, Neofelis diardi & Neofelis nebulosa
The Puma Evolutionary Lineage: Acinonyx jubatus, Herpailurus yagouaroundi & Puma concolor
I would love to continue this project, but I haven't decided yet in which direction to take it - expand the cat family with extinct cats, add more subspecies of the species I've already drawn, move onto the next closest relatives, pick a different animal group altogether... I don't know yet, there are many fun options. I want to think about some merchandise as well, proceeds of which could be directed towards conservation. Oh, and I'd love to build an interactive family tree for the species I've already drawn and put it here, or on a separate website maybe...