My disappointment is unmeasurable and my day is ruined

TAXONOMIC REASSESSMENT OF JUVENILE TYRANNOSAURINE SPECIMENS FROM ASIA REVEAL LARGE BIOGEOGRAPHIC RANGES IN TYRANNOSAURIDS The recently named tyrannosaurid, Asiatyrannus xui, from the Nanxiong Formation of southeastern China bears a striking resemblance to juvenile specime…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New large pterosaur tracks from Korea and their implications on terrestrial behavior - Scientific Reports Pterosaurs were important components of Mesozoic ecosystems, occupying diverse ecological niches from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous. Among them, neoazhdarchians have been hypothesized...

Possible track of a hunting pterosaur

Jung, J., Kim, K.S., Xing, L. et al. New large pterosaur tracks from Korea and their implications on terrestrial behavior. Sci Rep 16, 12363 (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Two painted life restorations of Cretaceous birds posed diagramatically, walking. Top is Pengornis, an enantiornithine with teeth. Bottom is Vegavis, a long-necked and -legged bird. There are vector insets of their snout/beak, wing, sternum, and tail bones. Text: Top - Losers: Pengornis and other archaic birds whose lineages were wiped out by the asteroid had teeth in their jaws, large claws on their hands, a long, bony tail and a small breastbone. Bottom - Winners: Vegavis, an early member of the duck and chicken family, had several traits that scientists suspect were key to the success of modern bird lineages: small body size, a beak instead of teeth, large wings, powerful chest muscles, and a shorter tail that served as an aerodynamic rudder.

Here's the art I did for the new SciAm article on why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the K-Pg event! Read it here www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-a... 🪶🎨🐡

I absolutely adore vintage dioramas

PhP almost showed us tyrannosaurs hunting down giant sauropods, and I'm grateful for that, even though they were severely constrained by projected target demographics and relative "tv rules", so it was rather indirect as a hunt

Damn, that sucks. I learned this the hard way when in 3rd year uni (natural sciences) a colleague asked me "what's paleontology?" after asking her if she took the course...

Like, sure, we're not "fish" (common language) but we are *fish* (phylogenetically).

For sure if you consider sperm whales as whales, you can't go around saying orcas aren't, because both common language and phylogeny put them in the same group.

Basically what I'm trying to say: you either stick to the paraphyletic reasoning for semantic reasons, or you accept the monophyletic definition without mixing the two. People outside of the field seem to have a hard time making this distinction.

What's bad is when people who don't understand phylogeny nor nomenclature try to counterargue the monophyletic approach, like in your anteater example. Which reminds me of people saying that dinosaurs are lizards because it's in their name, therefore birds aren't dinosaurs.

Common names are to a degree arbitrary so I tend to avoid discourse about their usage, it's really about semantics (in this examples, there are good arguments for "whale" being strictly paraphyletic, or a synonym with cetaceans, or mysticetes or even balaenidae)

(Cont...)

Muttaburrasaurus being weirder and bigger sounds like a hint towards what we should expect from dinosaurs at large.

Smaller weapons are both more cost-effective and less risky for intraspecific combat, they make a lot of sense. Conversely they're worse for signaling. Anti-predatory efficacy is better correlated with shape and positioning instead.

They also took scans of the skull and show a possible location for a salt gland in the nose, suggesting it had a need to remove excess salt. The olfactory bulbs are also insanely large: the largest of any dinosaur, suggesting it had a powerful sense of smell acuity exceeding even tyrannosaurs.

Re-description of the skull of Muttaburasaurus. And, uh, it's a lot weirder. Very thescelosaur/early ornithischian-like on a large animal. And I mean large: the authors estimate the biggest specimen is around 8.8 tons, making it among the largest terrestrial bipeds known.

peerj.com/articles/207...

Result from the Pleistocene Sicily #paleostream!
This piece was a fascinating up and down to construct and to research. While certainly iconic our understanding of these faunas is not complete and misinformation and memes plaster ones way. Center of this piece...

Results from the Flocking #paleostream!
Xiphodracon, Ectoconus, Morganucodon and Atlascystis.

Here the result of the Escuminac Formation #paleostream!
These deposits from the Devonian of Canada offer a glimpse into a coastal fish community with some absolute bangers and historical favorites. But it doesn't come without it challenges.

Results from the #paleostream!
Monilipsolus (a wish), Calyptapis, Pachyrukhos and Gongshuilong.

I've just added nine new/revised #paleoart print options at my store: Spinosaurus with fireflies! Omeisaurus! Psittacosaurus! Tylosaurus! Smilodon! And More!

Check them out at www.markwitton.co.uk/category/all... (and remember that my Patrons can get 20% off all orders!)

#art #dinosaurs #fossils

Opening today at the Hollytrees Museum, Colchester, is an exhibition centred around "Juliasaurus": an Allosaurus-like theropod #dinosaur from the Morrison Formation. I was hired to produce a #paleoart reconstruction to accompany the skeleton. Tickets available now! @colmuseums.bsky.social

Three fish-like reptiles with large forefins and long, pointed snouts swim through a Triassic/Jurassic reefscape. The backs of their jaws are downturned, such that they look to be perpetually frowning. I assume they're on the way to the pub to forget about a long, expensive week.

For #FossilFriday, here's the grumpy-faced Triassic/Jurassic ichthyosaur Leptonectes tenuirostris. I guess they've had a week of changing their tax system and non-stop IT issues too? They also had very large flippers, possibly for smashing computer keyboards.

#fossil #paleoart #paleontology #art

Jumping spiders are usually the ones

My brain remembers 10 tons, but I've no idea where it got it from. Not that a ruminant above 2-3 tons is likely at all.

A black and white, turkey-like dinosaur stands on an icy lake in Cretaceous China. It braces against the slow splay of its legs. As its body incrementally lowers, inching closer to the ice, it hears a voice. The ghosts of the icy forest, perhaps? The spirits of its ancestors? Perhaps nothing else can hear it, but it's getting louder, sharper. Now it can make out a sequence of sounds. They are... words? The same phrase, repeated over and over? First a whisper, then a chant. Yes, it's very clear now. Louder again - a roar! A chorus! They cry: "GET BACK TO WORK, MARK, YOU HAVE ONE WEEK LEFT TO FINISH YOUR BOOK. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCTIVE USE OF YOUR TIME." Man, even my alt-text won't give me a break.

Another "I'm not dead post" while slugging away on Book 7. Here're revisions made to my recent Caudipteryx #paleoart piece after revisiting the distribution of melanised feathers in referred specimens. I also closed the split tail, following feedback from @albertonykus.bsky.social - thanks, Albert!

What's frustrating is that I've seen this bs spouted from some conservation-adjacent people as well

Spinosaurus mirabilis, the newly-described tall-crested Spinosaur variant, wanders past a rivebank covered with tiny, dark-green glowing insects. She's seen this show before, so pays no attention. The Moon, conversely, is watching intensely. REAL intensely. Like, back off a bit, guy, give the bugs some space.

New at #Patreon: #paleoart of Cretaceous fireflies and #Spinosaurus mirabilis. Fireflies have existed for 100 million years and, thanks to some cool science, we know what colours they illuminated themselves with. Details (+ more new art) at www.patreon.com/markwitton. #dinosaur #fossil #art

My intuition is that a single player focused action-adventure open world would be the best base for something popular, but it's also a space with tight competition and a lot of generic takes, so you need systems in that game that work and make it uniquely good at displaying dinosaurs.

I don't think it's as simple as dinosaurs + genre, it needs an idea behind. I would personally play a variety of ideal dinosaur games, but I'm too into the subject to come up with something more universal. For sure it wouldn't be any of the main genres you see today for dinosaur games.

As a kid I would've wanted that for the scorpion only, and I would've completely ignored the rest lol