Lovely Bones: The Art of Evolution

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Design is a funny, marvelous, sometimes unsettling thing — especially when evolution itself is the designer.

Take these six-decade-old pictures of skulls and bones. Seen in a certain light, and photographed for LIFE by the great Andreas Feininger, the bones of creatures as varied in size and temperament as fish, bats, elephants, hummingbirds and humans are eloquent totems, raising questions about life, death and what we ultimately leave behind.

In the end, though, perhaps the way that humans and our fellow creatures appear when seen at the most elemental level — in other words, how we look when literally stripped to the bone — says more about us than we’d like to admit. Even as these pictures summon thoughts that swing between the morbid and the exalted, one thing remains strikingly clear: in the right hands, bones are beautiful.

Many of these Feininger photographs appeared in the Oct. 6, 1952, issue of LIFE.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

An owl's skull, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Skeletal structure of a mole, with shovel-shaped hands and wedge-shaped skull, giving the mole perfect tunneling tools, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The skeletal structure of a bat, 1951Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Fish skeleton, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Vertebrae of a catfish, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Pygmy armadillo, 1951. The armored tail plate attached to its hip bones protects the pygmy armadillo's rear when he pokes his head down a hole to dig. Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Jumping mouse, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Human and horse skeletons, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The skeletal structure of an elephant's skull, showing teeth, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Hummingbird and elephant's femur, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Skeletal rib cage of a gorilla, 1951. The cage protects its vital organs and provides girders for its huge chest muscles, on display at the Museum of Natural History, New York.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
African shrew, 1951. Interlocking prongs of the shrew's bones give it a stronger backbone design than most mammals.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Skeletal structure of a bird, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Ostrich femur, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Bear femur, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Sloth, 1951.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

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