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Killackey Illustration

@kjkillackey.bsky.social

3.7K followers 1.3K following 530 posts

Natural science 🐡 & archaeological illustration 🏺 by Kathryn Killackey. NEH-Mellon Foundation Fellow ('23 - '24). Available for freelance #sciart. Lover of #books, #textiles, and absurdities. She/her www.killackeyillustration.com

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · Nov 12

Website and mailing list:
www.killackeyillustration.com/contact

Contact — Killackey Illustration

Killackey Illustration provides elegant and accurate scientific and archaeological illustrations for publications and interpretive displays.

www.killackeyillustration.com

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Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 5d

As it turns out, coyotes are good climbers. They loped up and down these limestone cliffs like they were mountain goats. #mammals 🌿

A coyote perches on a few, small moss-covered ledges sticking out from an otherwise pretty shear limestone cliff. Boreal trees grow on the edges and on top of the cliffs.

A coyote perches on a few, small moss-covered ledges sticking out from an otherwise pretty shear limestone cliff. It's looking down at other coyotes (out of frame) on the ground. Boreal trees grow on the edges and on top of the cliffs.

A large coyote with a decent-sized fish in its mouth pauses in its climb up a limestone cliff. It's partially obscured by the frees growing on the cliffs.

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Ezequiel Vera @ezequielvera.bsky.social · 6d

Any paleobotanist (or palaeobotanist) here that is not included in this starter pack? Let me know and I'll add you

go.bsky.app/B7Y3ja7

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Elizabeth Preston @inkfish.bsky.social · 7d

Scientists rappelled down cliffs to reach the nests of bearded vultures, which have a diet of bones and paint their feathers red with mud. Inside the nests were perfectly preserved human artifacts from the Middle Ages. By me, for Nat Geo: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti... 🧪

Found: 650-year-old shoe, in vulture nest

Many unexpected human artifacts have been preserved, for centuries, in vulture nests.

www.nationalgeographic.com

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Dr Izzy Wisher @izzywisher.bsky.social · 10d

Time to update your Palaeolithic palettes... 🔵

Very proud to share our new research on the OLDEST use of blue pigment! We identified traces of azurite - a vibrant blue mineral - on a stone object around 14-13,000 years old. Why is this so exciting? 👇🏺

doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

Close-up image of a sand coloured stone, with a diagonal crack. The sand rock has a textured surface, and small spots of blue can be seen towards the centre of the stone. The background is grey.

Microscopic photo of the blue spots, that are irregular in shape and size and positioned diagonally across the image. The rest of the photo shows the rough sand coloured texture of the stone.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social · 12d

Please please please everyone (pls reskeet) who is involved with a uni/college academic program (broadly speaking) conected to games Could you write a quick comment + links if any apply to what you and your institution are doing in that sphere? I need to show what's out there. 1/
#AncientBluesky 🗃️

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 14d

The First Asian Land War

Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 14d

Read the book decades ago and I still think of this scene every time I come across a British sweet.

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Dr Susan Greaney @suegreaney.bsky.social · 16d

Early bird registration and bursary applications are now open for Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference 2025 in lovely York: tag2025.hosted.york.ac.uk/en/registrat...

Registration - TAG 2025

tag2025.hosted.york.ac.uk

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 15d

Beautiful expressive lines!

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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 16d

Welp here we are again, fresh out of Archaeologists for Skype a Scientist matches.

This fall, we have matched 248 groups with Archaeologists for online Q&As. I have 38 more groups who need a match, but I'm out of Archaeologists!

Archaeologists! Please volunteer
www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

a woman is smiling and holding a cup that says help me .

Alt: a woman is smiling and holding a cup that says help me .

media.tenor.com

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 16d

Please

depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 16d

imagine if a family of beavers randomly showed up right now and finished whatever thing you've been putting off

In early 2025, beaver activity in the Brdy Protected Landscape Area, Czech Republic, contributed to the restoration of a wetland ecosystem. A family of beavers constructed a series of dams that coincidentally accomplished environmental goals of the Czech government, which had delayed its proposed project since 2018 for bureaucratic and financial reasons. The beaver-built dams saved the Czech government approximately US$1.2 million,

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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 16d

🏺 Can never get enough of this late prehistoric world where trees meant not just wood to people, but also bark/bast (and in other cases, roots) as a widely utilised material, likely with particular symbolic associations different to other fibres.

Photographs of both sides of an open armed bronze ornament, with wide cup-shaped finials. Around the central portion is a knotted piece of tree bast.

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祖思薪 Eugenia Zuroski @zugenia.bsky.social · 17d

Hey so I’m reading some poems in Toronto this afternoon

Poster for event:

We Read Together
Sept 21, 2pm

MacGregor Playground
(Lansdowne & College)

Feat.
Shannon Quinn
Jiaqing Wilson-Yang
Lindsay K. Miles
Eugenia Zuroski

The background image is a shot of the blue sky with the tops of buildings at the bottom and a beam on which someone has written EAT THE RICH $$$ spanning the middle

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 18d

#birdsky

Jen Golbeck @jengolbeck.bsky.social · 18d

I found this birding book along the side of the road on the Tamiami trail in the Everglades on 8/25/25. It is so well loved with sightings going back decades. If you're a birder (I am not) please spread the word and hep me find the owner so they can be reunited

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Jen Golbeck @jengolbeck.bsky.social · 18d

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 18d

Your vote yesterday says different.

Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 20d

Ok, for those doing lots of work on an iPad, what’s your desk setup? How are you not destroying your neck?
#illustration #SciArt

Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · Sep 8

Reassure me I’ll be ok if I quit all Adobe products, please! Right now I’m using procreate in place of PS and am looking at Affinity to replace AI and Id. Any other suggestions? (I’m a Mac user).
#SciArt #Illustration

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 20d

Thanks, I’ll give it a try!

Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 20d

A relevant post on the broader visual artist field.

bsky.app/profile/bcme...

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 21d

Freelance illustration gigs drying up. Ad agencies using Midjourney instead of hiring human artists. Costume design turned over to AI wholesale. Good work vanishing.

These are the stories of working visual artists, who describe losing jobs, wages, and hope as their clients and bosses embrace AI.

Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI

Visual artists, illustrators and graphic designers share their stories about how AI is being used to lower wages, degrade work and even replace it altogether, in this installment of AI Killed My Job.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 20d

The research has just been published in @science.org #ScienceAdvances. Thanks to all the authors for the opportunity, especially Dr.Hendrik Poinar and Dr. Emil Karpinski, whom I worked closely with to produce the image over a very tight deadline.
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Science Magazine @science.org · 26d

Ancient DNA analyzed in #ScienceAdvances adds new details to the mastodon family tree—potentially expanding it. https://scim.ag/4pdAasl

An adult mastodon (Mammut sp.) consuming a spruce branch set against a backdrop illustrating their cyclical continental migrations linked to climate fluctuations.

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 20d

A major perk of being a science illustrator is constantly learning new things. I recently got to delve into the world of North American mastodons while creating this editorial illo to accompany new research from @mcmasteruniversity.bsky.social Ancient DNA Centre.
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#SciArt #paleoart #illustration

An editorial illustration, in portrait layout, summarizing new DNA research into the North American mastodon’s family tree and migration. In the foreground, a mastodon rears up on their hind legs and reaches up with their trunk to grab a branch on a nearby black spruce tree. Some of the surrounding forested wetland landscape, like ones found in Nova Scotia, is loosely painted in. The background darkens to a dark purple grey, with faint silhouettes of black spruce trees. The silhouette of North America in a light desaturated transparent purple is superimposed on this dark background. Ghostly sketches of mastodons roam across the map, some moving towards Canada’s Maritime provinces, and others sweeping up from Alberta to Alaska. A lone mastodon stands in central Mexico.

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John Singer Sargent @johnsargent.bsky.social · 20d

Orestes Pursued by the Furies https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-singer-sargent/orestes-pursued-by-the-furies-1921

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Trevor Wiley @mearcsteppende.bsky.social · 21d

Reading deeply about animals for the chapter I hope to finish this semester, thinking about how they created early medieval landscapes with their communities.

What are folks favorite articles/chapters/books on horses, pigs, cows, sheep or goats? Any period or field!

#medievalsky 🏺 #academicsky

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 23d

The goldenrod and one of the pollinators in question. I think it’s a brown belted bumblebee?

A beautiful and large patch of goldenrod growing along a fence in a parking lot.

A bumblebee hanging upside down and collecting nectar from a group of goldenrod flowers. You can see the black dot on it yellow thorax and a brownish stripe on its black abdomen. It is probably a brown belted bumblebee.

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 23d

Me reading another headline saying “Spending as little as 5 minutes outside with nature improves quality of life”: “yeah, yeah, yeah”

Me tearing myself away from my computer to walk the dog around the neighborhood and spotting a large clump of goldenrod with pollinators buzzing:

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