Mesozoic Art: Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals in Art

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However, there are numerous other relevant groups as well, and I did my best to give them fair coverage too. Many of these were alive during the Triassic, including the long-tailed thalattosaurs, the very peculiar hupehsuchians, the (mostly) shellfish-eating placodonts, the fang-toothed helveticosaurs, the nothosaurs, the pistosaurs, and so on. Shared anatomical traits show that some of these groups are close cousins of plesiosaurs and belong with them in a large group termed Sauropterygia; hupehsuchians appear to be close kin of ichthyosaurs (Motani 1999, Motani et al. 2015). Entirely different groups whose affinities lie elsewhere evolved during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, including the marine pachyophiid snakes. Yes, today see the publication of my new book Ancient Sea Reptiles ( Natural History Museum in the UK; Smithsonian Books in the USA), and getting it published marks a major personal achievement. I’ve been trying for years to get such a book off the ground, but it’s the success of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved (Naish & Barrett 2016) that’s allowed things to go forward. I can’t express how pleased I am that things have finally worked out. Buffetaut, E. 2007. The spinosaurid dinosaur Baryonyx (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Early Cretaceous of Portugal. Geological Magazine 144. 1021-1025. Godfrey, S. J. 1984. Plesiosaur subaqueous locomotion, a reappraisal. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Monatshefte 1984, 661-672.

Finally, many people are fascinated by the inferred, imagined or reconstructed behaviour of fossil animals and want to hear more about it. The problem is that we never know anywhere near as much as we’d like. For ancient sea reptiles we know a fair bit about dietary preferences and inferred hunting behaviour, and we’ve also done a lot of work on locomotory behaviour (e.g., Godfrey 1984, Lingham-Soliar 2000, Motani 2002, 2005, Carpenter et al. 2010, Liu et al. 2015, Muscutt et al. 2017); this explains the unusual image at top right of the montage above: see this article on plesiosaur locomotion to have it explained. Grooves and other marks on preserved seafloor sediment suggests that some of these animals ploughed or dug in the mud (Geister 1998), and of course the idea that giant predatory species hunted along shores and grabbed terrestrial animals from the water’s edge is irresistible. The fact that this strategy is present in several groups of living aquatic predators make it likely – yes, likely – that this strategy was used by at least some species. Charig, A. J. & Milner, A. C. 1997. Baryonyx walkeri, a fish-eating dinosaur from the Wealden of Surrey. Bulletin of the Natural History Museum 53, 11-70.Mesozoic Artshowcases twenty of the best artists working in this field, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines, from traditional painting to cutting-edge digital technology. Some provide the artwork for new scientific papers that demand high-end paleoart as part of their presentation to the world at large; they also work for the likes of National Geographicand provide art to museums around the world to illustrate their displays. Other artists are the new rising stars of paleoart in an ever-growing, ever-diversifying field. What happened at the end of day 1, after the drinks reception? I have no idea but I remember waking up in a taxi at some point during the night. Mateus, O., Araújo, R., Natário, C. & Castanhinha, R. 2011. A new specimen of the theropod dinosaur Baryonyx from the early Cretaceous of Portugal and taxonomic validity of Suchosaurus. Zootaxa 2827, 54-68.

A consequence of this fact is that our views on these animals – I’m mostly talking here about Jurassic groups – tend to be highly Eurocentric. Today, we know that animals similar to those of Europe occurred around South America, in the Caribbean, on the western coast of North America, and elsewhere too, so the view that these animals originated in Europe or should be considered strongly associated with Europe could well be very wrong. Mesozoic Art presents twenty of the best artists working in this field, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines, from traditional painting to cutting-edge digital technology. Some provide the artwork for new scientific papers that demand high-end palaeoart as part of their presentation to the world at large; they also work for the likes of National Geographic and provide art to museums around the world to illustrate their displays. Other artists are the new rising stars of palaeoart in an ever-growing, ever-diversifying field. Motani, R., Jiang, D.-y., Chen, G.-B., Tintori, A., Rieppel, O., Ji, C. & Huang, J.-D. 2015. A basal ichthyosauriform with a short snout from the Lower Triassic of China. Nature 517, 485-488.Evers, S. W., Rauhut, O. W., Milner, A. C., McFeeters, B. & Allain, R. 2015. A reappraisal of the morphology and systematic position of the theropod dinosaur Sigilmassasaurus from the “middle” Cretaceous of Morocco. PeerJ 3, e1323. Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins during Late Cretaceous time. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are cold and warm ocean currents. The present-day coastlines and tectonic boundaries of the configured continents are shown in the inset at the lower right. Introducing ‘Unexpected Isle of Wight Air-Filled Hunter’, a New English Theropod Dinosaur, September 2020 Samathi, A., Sander, P. M. & Chanthasit, P. 2021. A spinosaurid from Thailand (Sao Khua Formation, Early Cretaceous) and a reassessment of Camarillasaurus cirugedae from the Early Cretaceous of Spain. Historical Biology doi: 10.1080/08912963.2021.1874372 Fleischle, C. V., Wintrich, T. & Sander, P. M. 2018. Quantitative histological models suggest endothermy in plesiosaurs. PeerJ 6: e4955.