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...
Read MoreIn 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 MoreThis entry was inspired by a post at the always-excellent SV-POW. They compared the size (and neck length) of Supersaurus, Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus. In a stroke of serendipity I read their post as I was reworking my skeletal of the largest specimen of Diplodocus, NMMNH 3690 formerly known as Seismosaurus. Let's see if that changes anything...
Read MoreLate last year Europe got a brand-spankin' new ankylosaur, Europelta carbonensis. It's the most complete ankylosaur yet known from Europe (unless you consider Scelidosaurus to be a basal ankylosaur rather than a basal armored dinosaur). Let's take a look at the anatomy of Europelta, with an emphasis on what we know (and aren't so sure of) when it comes to reconstructing its armor.
Read MoreLet's start out 2014 right, with a bunch of new and overhauled sauropod skeletal reconstructions. All of the reconstructions of your favorite four-legged dinosaur behemoths (and some of their smallish ancestors) have been brought up to date. For more on this and a look at some of the anatomical changes that have been incorporated into this overhaul click beyond the fold to check it out.
Read MoreFor those of you wondering why the pace of content has slowed down, it's because I entered a PhD program in paleontology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall, and I lost what was left of my free time. But that's not to say that there hasn't been substantial work going on behind the scenes of SkeletalDrawing.com!
First and foremost, there is a new skeletal gallery featuring some of my non-dinosaur reconstructions. "Non-dinosaurs" is admittedly a pretty broad category, and indeed it features everything from the proto-dinosaur Silesaurus to crocodylomorphs, turtles, mammals, and even the basal tetrapod Ichthyostega.
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Paleontologist and paleoartist Scott Hartman provides a wealth of anatomical data and skeletal drawings of dinosaurs, and information on how prehistoric animals looked in life.
