Cetacea

A family group of pareisactus enjoy the river during the hottest hours of the day. The water is not only used for drinking, but also provides an opportunity for a refreshing swim that helps control parasites and serves as an activity to establish and reinforce the different roles within the group

Our paper on turtle origins is finally out in Current Biology, with two major implications for our understanding of reptile evolution 🐢 #Paleontology #Turtles #Evolution www.cell.com/current-biol...

Late to the party, but as usual... BREAKDOWN THREAD: #SurvivingEarth 2nd TRAILER! (Note: this thread will only feature shots not previously seen in Trailer 1) threadreaderapp.com/thread/20602...

It seems that we have a title for E01 of #SurvivingEarth ... 'WHEN THE EARTH BURNED'.

Beasts of the Cenozoic Kelenken art by Gabriel Ugueto. A tiny figure of the dead prey item (maybe all rubber or something) to accompany the Kelenken would be like a cherry on top.

Allosaurus enjoying the early morning air. #sciart #paleoart

Razorbills have the slickest design in the animal kingdom. They look like they were made by Yves Saint Laurent

Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep opens at @nhm-london.bsky.social on May 22nd: tickets can be booked now at www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibi...

Map of the now submerged ice age world of Doggerland. Shoreline extrapolated from bathymetry data to sealevels 15,000 years ago - glacial rebound taken into account. #gis #maps #sciart #geology

Howdy everyone! Join us this THURSDAY, MAY 21 at 830 PM EST as we stream Path of Titans to take their newest Tylosaurus model out for a spin! Be there or be square...!

It has arrived and it is gorgeous

#SurvivingEarth 🚨STILL FROM 'WHEN THE CONTINENTS COLLIDED' (E07): SMILODON POPULATOR! 'Protagonist': Cuvieronius Other creatures: Smilodon gracilis, Glyptotherium, Falcontoxodon, giant sloths, Phorusrhacos.

SAUROPODOMORPHA, from the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=08qF... dedicated to Sauropods 🦕 More derived families are included there, these are the more `basal' ones 🦕 #sauropodomorpha #dinosaurs #paleoart #turiasaurus #barapasaurus #shunosaurus

For #EndangeredSpeciesDay, a type of shark I had no idea existed until very recently: the daggernose shark (Carcharhinus oxyrhynchus). This is a super weird, poorly known requiem shark that is Critically Endangered. I'm not sure if it's ever been photographed alive/underwater

Top #paleoart tip: 3D prints help enormously with understanding the shape of fossils even if only printed at moderate size and roughly finished. If you recognise everything in this photo, award yourself an extra scoop of pudding this evening.

🚨NEW STUDY DROP🚨 Paper re-describes many of the specimens applied to the Pinacosaurus genus. New species, Pinacosaurus hilwitnorum, is named from specimens applied to P. grangeri. P. mephistocephalus is too distinct and put in a new genus, Eopinacosaurus. 🎨: @olorotitan.bsky.social

#SurvivingEarth 🚨E06 OFFICIAL STILL: GIANT ORTHOCONES ENGAGED IN A DAZZLING MATING DISPLAY! E06 Creatures: Sacabambaspis, crinoids, Carolinites, orthocones, giant sea scorpions, Kingnites worms, Nerepisacanthus, 'scorpions that moved onto land', Prototaxites...

WE ARE ONLY 30 DAYS AWAY FROM #SurvivingEarth ! ARE WE READY FOR ONE OF THE GREATEST PALEO DOCUS OF ALL TIME? Which episode are you currently looking forward to most?

New #paleoart of the Welsh theropod Dracoraptor hanigani, restored with appropriately neotheropodan features. UK marine sediments have a glut of small Jurassic theropods, with Dracoraptor one of the best-known. #sciart Like this image? You can own a copy! www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

HYPERODAPEDON, from the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ukb... on how our perception of prehistoric animals evolved over the decades Hyperodapedon were very common animals of the Triassic period #hyperodapedon #prehistorianimals #paleoart #paleontology #triassic

#SurvivingEarth 🚨E04 OFFICIAL STILL: CRETOXYRHINA GRABS PTERANODON STERNBERGI! E04 also features Spinosaurus, Brachauchenius, THE GIANT AMMONITE PARAPUZOSIA, the early mosasaur Portunatasaurus (as well as more advanced mosasaurs),Ichthyornis and Mangostone's nodosaur puppet!

A pensive megaraptoran. This is a fully 3D piece (thank you BlenderKit for the photoscanned-trees and HDRI) - keen to do an animated version soon! #paleoart #sciart

🚨PTEROSAUR NEWS🚨 in today's headlines, we have the first evidence of possible iridescence in pterosaurian integument, courtesy of a pre-print by wu et al. focusing on the melanosomes of the herbivorous pterosaur sinopterus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... (art by zhao chuang)

🚨NEW STUDY DROP🚨 A new nearly complete specimen of the Ichthyosaur, Stenopterygius quadrissicus from the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) Whitby Mudstone Formation at Ravenscar near Whitby, Yorkshire, England is described... 🎨: Somniosus insomnus

Just a little Rhamphorhyncus enjoy a fishy snack for fun.

Spotted a couple of goofs when revisiting this after lunch, so here's a slightly revised version 2.

Parachoerodon rhynchus, a new genus and species of choerolophodontids from the Miocene of northern China. The skull is based on the holotype IVPP V23457 and paratype IVPP V23213.

Prep work for #paleoart of Dracoraptor, a Jurassic neotheropod(?) from Wales. The original "cute" skull reconstruction is strange, bearing little resemblance to any close relatives. I see no reason it shouldn't have a much more conventional L. Trassic/E. Jurassic theropod cranium. #dinosaurs

I've just finished the first of three #Patreon posts coming before the end of the month, detailing the 13-year development of this Pelorosaurus #paleoart piece. Get the skinny (and, as a bonus, support what I do) at www.patreon.com/posts/156735... #fossil #paleontology #sciart #art

Sometimes I get asked to draw fantastical or monsterised dinosaurs, and I'm usually happy to oblige! Thanks to @gggcast.bsky.social for reaching out about this project, it was a lot of fun to work on!

🚨FIRST LOOK AT BABY SPINOSAURUS FROM #SurvivingEarth !!! Tim Haines worked his magic...This is a photograph, convince me otherwise...

Otodus megalodon #paleoart commission!! (definitely not a generalized ginormous lamniform) i love how silly sharks look

strange lizard

negotiation

A juvenile Diplodocus is slipping out post-bedtime for a late #FossilFriday post. Like other Mesozoic dinosaurs, young diplodocids were proportioned differently than adults, bearing shorter necks, faces and tails. The mottled skin pattern is based on (very tentative) palaeocolour data. #paleoart

The Impossible Pictures Instagram page has reported that Benjamin Bartlett has passed away. May he rest in peace and I wish the best for those closest to him.

New digital illustration ! Just a group of Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis, a little and bizarre dinosaur of Yixian formation #dinosaur #paleoart #SciArt #china #cretaceous

Updated some old #paleoart of Pelorosaurus for an upcoming project. The first versions of this image scarily date to 2013 and 2015. Pelorosaurus is an Early Cretaceous British titanosauriform, but we don't know much about its proportions or appearance. Silhouettes FTW! #sciart #fossil #paleontology

Really excited to see this paper, which is basically the long-form explanation of everything we put into the animated mural in the Chicago Archaeopteryx display.

Been thinking marine-reptiley thoughts today. Here's one of my latest #paleoart efforts along that line: Tylosaurus proriger. The colour is based on fossil colour data, although it's far from certain that this animal was black and countershaded. Print link: www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

It's that time of the week again, folks: TGIO: Thank God it's Omeisaurus. (Prints of this and my other artworks are available: www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...) #FossilFriday #dinosaur #fossil #paleoart #sciart

When the asteroid hit, why did birds survive when all other dinosaurs died? It's a question I ponder in my upcoming book The Story of Birds. But first, I explore it here for @sciam.bsky.social ! www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-a...

Scene from the Late Cretaceous Allen Formation in Argentina. Two male Kelumapusaura machi are giving a group of azhdarchid pterosaurs (Aerotitan sudamericanus) and a poor little Bonapartenykus ultimus a fright. #dinosaur #pterosaur #paleoart #sciart

I get a lot of licensing requests for my 2012 #paleoart of (what might be) the oldest known dinosaur, Nyasasaurus. 2012 was a professional lifetime ago, so I've prepared a nicer version for new clients. Nyasasaurus is so poorly known that you could take a recon. in several directions. #sciart

EREMOTHERIUM #eremotherium

If you like this image, you can buy a print of it at my store: www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page... Alternatively, choose from hundreds of others: www.markwitton.co.uk/category/all...

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

Visiting these guys again? What am I, some sort of consultant on their restoration? Oh, right.

Big Blue Whorl