The science and art of paleontology
A blog on dinosaur anatomy and reconstructing the appearance of prehistoric animals.
Today I have something I’m excited to share with you: my skeletal reconstruction of Dimetrodon grandis. It looks quite a bit different from existing skeletal reconstructions, so I’m also going to take a more in-depth look at the underlying data. But first, let’s take a look...
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I wanted to make sure you are know about Dave Hone’s excellent new book, The Tyrannosaur Chronicles. I’d hoped to blog about it several weeks ago, but I had a slew of end-of-semester grading and sundry other deadlines. The upshot of that decision is I’ve now had a chance to read the entire book, and can say without hesitation that you are in for a treat...
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When the skull and body of Deinocheirus were revealed there was a lot of talk about how much it looked like a hadrosaur. I did not really agree with this analogy, as the upright posture and large, clawed hands seemed to indicate that it was an ornithomimid trying its best to be a therizinosaur rather than a hadrosaur. Now I'm not so sure...
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Mosasaurs have become all the rage lately with the release (and immense popularity) of Jurassic World. Purely by coincidence I had a commission for a mosasaur, Tylosaurus pembinensis. I hadn't done a mosasaur before (or any lizards), but I'm reasonably familiar with squamate osteology so I figured it wouldn't be nearly as far "out there" as say doing a skeletal of an actinopterygian fish. But it turns out that when it comes to their tail fins, science is still in the middle of telling the mosasaurs' tale...
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It's been a very busy year, and as a result it's awhile since I updated the blog, There are several smaller items I want to cover before I get to meatier topics, including a book I contributed to, an adorable Velociraptor plushie, and the #SciArt Twitter Storm.
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As most of you reading this will know, I've written two posts on Spinosaurus - the first one questioned the proportions of the composite skeleton that recently gained fame through a paper in Science, the second one discussing a photo that has been used for and against those proportions. In the comments section on the second post Nizar Ibrahim wrote a length response, which (with his kind permission) I would like to elevate to a full post. As is often true in these debates there are parts I agree with and others I disagree with, but I will address those at a future date. For now I think it's only fair to give their comments the floor...
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In my previous post on the proportions of the new Spinosaurus material I argued that the pelvis and legs are not nearly as reduced in size as the composite skeletal in Ibrahim, et al., (2014) implies. Theropod-worker-extraordinaire and all-around swell guy Thomas Holtz mentioned a photo (seen at left) that could serve as a sort of independent visual line of evidence that the pelvis and legs of the new Spinosaurus specimen are shorter than other theropods, and potentially shorter than I calculated from the supplementary data. I think it's worth taking a closer look...
Read MorePaleontologist and paleoartist Scott Hartman provides a wealth of anatomical data and skeletal drawings of dinosaurs, and information on how prehistoric animals looked in life.
