Flying Wolf-Squirrels and other terrifying, badass animal hybrids

Flying squirrels are pretty cool. Wolves are pretty cool. Put them together and you get animals that hunt with coordinated air assaults. Really cool.

Wired recently asked a bunch of people to come up with ideas for animal hybrids that they wanted to see and the resulting list includes "a horde of monstrosities ranging from strangely adorable to intensely scary."

But why sit around and argue about whether the spider shark would have eight fins or eight additional leggy appendages or eight eyes or all of the above? We needed artists to bring these hybrids to life, and we knew just where to find them.

The Science Illustration Program at CSU Monterey Bay is a training ground for artists who love science and nature. We enticed 11 alums and current students to take on our fictional creatures and make them look real. Their awesome talent and creativity resulted in the beautiful, awe-inspiring, and sometimes terrifying visual creations in this collection.

Check out the gallery at Wired Science.