Draculas Son

heere is my vision

Here the result from the Pleistocene Flores #paleostream! This land, stuck between Sundaland and Australia revealed a fascinating fossil assemblage over the last few decades.

Dwarfed Stegodon, giant rats. huge marabou storks and komodo dragons are the most prominent members of the late Pleistocene fauna. Of these only the giant rats are still to be found on Flores.

Flores wasn't much of a household name in paleontology until 2004 - I remember it well - when a astonishing discovery was announced from the cave Liang Bua. Among the many animal remains were stone tools and surprisingly small hominin remains. After a lot of debate this would eventually be known as Homo floresiensis, a human species standing not much taller than 1 m. Little is known about this species. Especially it's cultural expressions and technological advances are the topic of many discussions and speculation.

One aspect that is rarely brought up in discussions around Flores are the birds, yes storks and vultures are popular but there is a huge number of living and fossil species found in these sites. As you can see in this size chart by Discord member JW there are still many interesting compositions to put together here. One thing that was important to me with this image was: 1. not to make it a dense jungle piece, and 2. not that make it a Stegodon hunting scene; that has been done too many times. The cave deposits at Liang Bua suggest that...