kogaionids
relict mammals from the edge of time
Kogaionids are an extraordinary lineage of multituberculate mammals that evolved on the famed Hateg Island during the Late Cretaceous. In the real world, they are known as small, insectivorous mammals with primitive features in their teeth and skulls, resembling archaic plagiaulacidans. Their iron-coated tooth enamel and adaptations for grasping and slicing prey suggest a lifestyle similar to that of modern shrews.
Thanks to this specialized insectivorous diet, kogaionids managed to survive the K–Pg extinction and spread across Paleocene Europe once Hateg ceased to be isolated. In our timeline, they eventually declined with the arrival of North American multituberculates. But in this alternate evolutionary timeline, things took a different turn.
Some kogaionid lineages not only survived but diversified further, spreading to Afro-Arabia, India, and Madagascar. Whether they arrived via land bridges or had always been there remains uncertain—but one thing is clear: their evolutionary story didn't end in the Paleocene. It just began to diverge dramatically.
Dagontheriidae
Whales with a Kogaionid Heritage
The commission came from Portugal. Illustration I created represents one of the most radical outcomes of that alternate evolutionary history: a speculative whale from the group Dagontheriidae—a hypothetical clade descended from aquatic-adapted kogaionids that, in this timeline, fully conquered marine environments.
I decided to render this creature in a scientific, reference-board style—complete with a tiled size grid and a diver silhouette for scale. The artwork was created on Procreate using an iPad, mostly during a long layover at an airport.
The experience felt oddly symbolic: drifting between destinations while imagining creatures drifting between epochs.
The creature in the illustration is a massive, streamlined animal roughly 9 meters in length. Its skin is thick and scarred, with a pale gray coloration reminiscent of sharks or pilot whales—perfect camouflage in murky coastal waters.
Its head is large and blunt, ending in a broad mouth lined with conical, predatory teeth, clearly suited for catching slippery prey such as cephalopods and fish. The small, laterally placed eyes suggest limited reliance on vision, possibly compensated by well-developed hearing or echolocation—though likely less advanced than in modern toothed whales.
Most fascinating is the subtle retention of ancestral kogaionid features—particularly in the molar shape and limb proportions. It’s an evolutionary echo of mammals that once scurried through Cretaceous underbrush, now transformed into marine predators.
This hypothetical whale likely inhabited the coastal waters of southern Balkanatolia and early Oligocene Afro-Arabia. Its behavior might have resembled a blend of modern dolphins and primitive whales—an active predator hunting in coordinated pods, perhaps using rudimentary echolocation and social signals.
The diver silhouette in the background is meant not only to provide scale but to evoke a sense of contemporary exploration. If such animals had survived into the present, they would likely be as enigmatic and awe-inspiring as sperm whales or beaked whales are today.
Designing this organism was a unique opportunity to blend rigorous paleontological knowledge with bold speculative fiction. Kogaionids serve as a striking reminder that seemingly marginal or obscure creatures can, under the right circumstances, give rise to complex and unexpected evolutionary stories.
Through projects like this—where science, art, and imagination intersect—we not only explore what life once was, but also what it could have been. The speculative Dagontheriid whale is not just an exercise in fantasy, but a mirror that reflects our curiosity, creativity, and enduring fascination with the story of life on Earth.