Kunstformen der Natur

If you're into this sort of thing, the complete text and plates of Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms in Nature) are available here.

Here's some weirdness for you. My German sucks, but I attempted a translation anyway.


Plate 56. Multifarious horrors. At the top, the Cosmic Worm, Necrolator Incarnadon, who slakes his unholy thirst with the tears of the mighty. Below, his consort, Sarcolestes Mephistoma, a medusaform pyrokraken, who wafts the smoke of Armageddon with her gladiolinguan fronds. Around them, their guards (clockwise from upper left):
Erythrotep, the comet-rider, whose path is slick with blood;
Basatu Mordax, who vomits forth pestilence;
The Xoaculan megagorgon, whose leprous polyps drip poison into men's souls;
The Tharkkadian phobopod, who corrodes the fabric of sanity;
Octoreme Dolog, continent-swallower, bringer of sorrow;
and Nur-Omnoth, the all-rotting, whose carapaceal grottoes reverberate with the screams of the damned.