Genius British comics artist Hunt Emerson provides a lovely new portrait of Ernst Haeckel, Zoologist and Painter, on the Steampunk and Phenomena profile of Haeckel.

Haeckel’s full set of Kunstformen der Natur plates are available on Wikimedia. These are likely to have visually influenced Lovecraft and Giger, and Haeckel is cited as one of Lovecraft’s “chief philosophical influences” via Haeckel’s The Riddle of the Universe (1899). He was also an influence on R.E. Howard (circa 9th August 1932, Howard told Lovecraft that he… “used to be a violent admirer of Haekal”). There’s also a 60 minute documentary on Haeckel, Proteus (2004).