Uli Westphal is an artist from Germany. His works focus on how humans interact with the natural world. One of his projects, “Elephas Anthropogenus”, is described as this:

“After the fall of the Roman Empire, elephants virtually disappeared from Western Europe. Since there was no real knowledge of how this animal actually looked, illustrators had to rely on oral and written transmissions to morphologically reconstruct the elephant, thus reinventing an actual existing creature. This tree diagram traces the evolution of the elephant depiction throughout the middle ages up to the age of enlightenment.”

It can be seen here.

I like how some of these are pretty damn accurate…

…but then other ones are like…

Vaccuum Mammal.

W-what are you?

Ah yes, the regal Erect Tusk Nobleman species.

Don’t do drugs, kids.

Nice legs, daisy dukes…

Um…

Sweet heavenly Jesus.