This is an unnamed species of hopping creature, about the size and the shape of a football (soccer ball for the American readers) and equipped with a bunch of tentacles. It was discovered inhabiting a coastal area, over thirty millions of years in the future. It was the last creature encountered by the time traveling protagonist of Wells' The Time Machine, before he returned to the present.
Environment[]
The creature lives in an extremely distant future era, long after the demise of mankind, Eloi, Morlocks and even the Crab Creatures and Butterfly Creatures which the traveler had previously encountered. By the time the hopping thing evolved, the sun had grown larger, redder and duller; the Earth had become tidally-locked and only inhabitable in the twilight zone located between a perpetual dayside and a perpetual nightside. The sky and oceans look mostly red in color, the coast is dominated by green lichen and algae-like vegetation and the air is still breathable for humans, but much colder and more rarefied than it used to be.
Description[]
| “ | It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. |
” |
— The time traveler, The Time Machine, 1895
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Gallery[]
Appearances[]
- The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells (1895)