Cambrian Mermaid - feeding the inner paleontological nerd within me me, I had a lot of fun with this one. The Cambrian period (about 500 million years ago, give or take a few days) was one of the most exciting times in pre-history, and one of my favourites. I wrote a paper once about the Burgess Shale discovery (a rock formation that captured a lot of Cambrian-era invertebrate fossils) and have been fascinated with the bizarre creatures of the Cambrian period ever since. The animals found from them are very alien-looking - in many ways very unlike anything before or since. Opabinia has got to be one of the weirdest things that ever lived - five eyes and a clawed trunk nose? Along with Opabinia I've also painted various trilobites and other invertebrates from the time period. And once again, throwing geological science out the window for once (hey, it's FANTASY right?) I've included a rather curious little mermaid in there. And taken a bit of artistic liberty with the colours. Thank you for indulging my fancies! My own original acrylic painting. ©Jasmine Becket-Griffith - prints are available at http://www.strangeling.com and http://zazzle.com/strangeling*