Guest Post: Illustrating Zhuchengtyrannus:

Yes another guest post and yes we’re back on the tyrannosaurines again. While I’ve already talked somewhat about the impact of the artwork (that by now everyone is familiar with) I’ve not talked process. Here is a chance to make that up as Bob Nicholls returns to the Musings again (see here, here and here for starters!) to talk about how he created this piece. My thanks once again to him for his superb work:

Being the first artist to illustrate a new species of extinct animal is a great honour.  The series of events that are required to successfully fossilise a dinosaur and for that individual to be revealed to the world millions of years after death is an epic story.  In brief, the dinosaur first died in a location where its remains were covered by sediment rapidly.  The animal’s remains then hid within the Earth and lay undisturbed for a length of time we cannot imagine.  During this vast period the dead creature’s species will evolve out of existence and new life forms will survive catastrophes to colonize our planet.  Eventually a species of energy hungry ape developed an interest in investigating planet Earth’s history and against the odds our fossilised dinosaur was discovered. One of the apes, let’s call him Dave Hone, then decided to reveal the dinosaur to his entire ape species and asked a friend, let’s call him Bob Nicholls, to illustrate the wonderful discovery.  It may sound like a simple tale, but if you really think about it, it is astonishing.  To be a small part of it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  There is no greater honour for a palaeontologist than to be the first to show the world what a long extinct animal looked like.  Especially a tyrannosaur!

Sketch for the life reconstruction of Zhuchengtyrannus. Courtesy of Bob Nicholls.

The illustration of Zhuchengtyrannus took me about eight hours in total, from the first preliminary drawing to e-mail delivery.  The first sketch was a satisfactory pose but four re-draws were required to make small adjustments to the teeth, snout, nostril and eye.  When Dave was happy for me to render the colour artwork I painted it with acrylic paint on illustration card.  I chose to paint the colour scheme of a show-off male with an eye stripe and blood red patches for impressing the tyrannosaur ladies.  I wish Dave and I could have worked on the piece a little longer but it was an excellent and most enjoyable day’s work.  Zhuchengtyrannus is dead, long live Zhuchengtyrannus!

Zhuchengtyrannus life reconstruction by Bob Nicholls

AAB art – first poster

Some time ago I alerted people to the need for Ask A Biologist advertising material and that the Art Evolved guys had kindly asked their contributors to pitch in. In all the tyrannosaur kerfuffle I hadn’t overlooked the fact that the first one has been submitted. David Maas (to whom I now owe much alcohol) has sent in this superb effort that combined everything I was hoping for, it’s simple, clean, bright and fun and get’s the point across wonderfully. My thanks to him and I’m hoping for many more.

The art of Zhuchengtyrannus

Zhuchengtyrannus life reconstruction by Bob Nicholls

I have my longtime Musings friend Bob Nicholls to thank (well, we did pay him too) for the superb art of Zhuchengtyrannus that has accompanied the release of this work into the media. The original and Bob’s pencil sketch will soon hang proudly on the wall of my office (they’re being framed right now).

What Bob has produced is, I think, quite beautiful, but there are a couple of features in there which the sharp-eyed (or overly nit-picky) may have spotted that are worth discussing as they illustrate some of the issues of producing such a work and how things can be done to highlight certain issues or produce an effect for the reader. While much can, and has, been written and discussed about the various aspects of palaeoart (or palaeontography if you prefer) this is a nice opportunity to go a little further.

First off there is one too few teeth in the dentary. This is basically my fault (or if you want to be more generous to me, that of the authors collectively). We originally misinterpreted the broken small tooth socket at the front of the dentary, that many tyrannosaurs have, as being part of a very large first tooth. That is, the first and second sockets were smushed together and we thought they were just a single large one till a referee correctly spotted this error and we corrected it in the paper. By this point Bob had already turned in his work and it was too late to do anything about it. To be more accurate, we never told him! So if you’re reading this now Bob, feel absolved of any blame, but I didn’t tell you because I felt guilty and didn’t want you to have to go to any trouble to correct it and assumed that no-one would know or care (though I’m rather destroying the first notion by writing this).

Of course, if anything the teeth are too correct in that (first dentary tooth apart!) they are all there. Theropods shed their teeth quite regularly and it would be normal for one or two to be broken or only half exposed in the jaw rather than a nice neat row as seen here. This of course introduces the main point I wanted to make in this post: this artwork (like many others) is supposed to be illustrative. It’s created to communicate something about the animal as a living organism to people based on the fossil bones. Many people seeing this would likely be hindered, not helped, by such details and would be wondering why the teeth were uneven and oddly positioned. This artwork, (with the Musings being the only likely exception) will not be accompanied by expert commentary on theropod anatomy and physiology and was destined for consumption by the general public so keeping things simple was the order of the day. (Though for the record, Bob and I never discussed this, his draft had the teeth like this and I thought it fine to keep them like that).

Zhuchengtyrannus maxillary sculpting. From Hone et al. in press

Similar to this, the sculpting on the maxilla (seen here) is particularly prominent, and while this is a common feature of adult tyrannosaurines, to my eye at least, it’s a little bit more pronounced than I’ve seen in other tyrannosaur specimens. As such I asked Bob to emphasise this in the artwork. In reality, the muscle and fat layers and even the skin itself were probably thick enough that looking at the living animal this would be invisible, or at least rather more subtle than seen here. But again, the point here was to emphasise a characteristic of the bones in the art – to provide an obvious point of reference for someone who knows nothing of dinosaurs to make the connection between the bones and the life reconstruction.

I can see that not everyone might be happy with this. But my take would be that you have to tailor the picture to the audience and the level of information that can go with it. In emphasising the sculpting and keeping the teeth regular there is nothing especially odd or outlandish about this. It is accurate and reasonable (plausible if not probable if you like) and deviates only a little from what you might consider a perfectly accurate or perfectly probably reconstruction (this after all, is not what a human looks like – it’s informative, but not necessarily realistic as such). If I were to get this done for a dinosaur book where I could wax lyrical over several pages or include key notes and labels then I’d probably actively want to add missing teeth and reduce the sculpting to emphasise these very points, but in the circumstances this was the best way to convey the maximum information with the minimum amount of confusion.

Eustreptospondylus returns

So yesterday I muttered about how I mysteriously had a new found interest in the British Middle Jurassic theropod Eustreptospondylus. And here is the reason for that, a Luis Rey original of that self-same taxon. When I last visited him he was kind enough to give me one of his old ‘sketches’ (he considered this little more than a draft I think) for a book he’d been working on. As I understand it, this never got redone or published so this is, sort of, a first. Obviously I’m delighted with it and it’s now part of my ever growing collection of wildlife and palaeoart.

What is this?

I was never *that* into dinosaurs as a kid – sure I had a few books and toys but I was generally more interested in mammals than anything else. My brother was generally nonplussed by the natural world and as a result I inherited some hand-me-downs which were among the better dinosaur things I had when young. One of these was a series of small, but rather well made, dinosaur models that sat on a bookcase shelf for many years. I recall quite clearly a black Pteranodon with a yellow front and a bight blue ankylosaur with evil, red eyes and a nice Dimetrodon. One of them had utterly slipped my mind till my nephews turned it up in a toy box this weekend.

I remembered the toy quite clearly and it’s not really in any worse condition that I remember it from some 15 years ago (or more).  The obvious question though is what is it? It looks like a rather gone wrong troodontid, with something of a hadrosaur-like appearance. Frankly, I had no idea and the odd blue and yellow colour scheme, coupled with the striations on the back that could be anything really. Turning it over it’s actually dated to 1972(!) and it declares itself to be a Saltoposuchus.

Even in days when synapsids and pterosaurs were considered dinosaurs (OK, that’s true today as well, if less so, a bit…) that’s a bit of a left field entry to say the least. Even now it’s hard to get hold of prehistoric models of non-dinosaurs or obvious classics and I can’t help be pleasantly surprised that nearly 40 years ago someone thought to model this basal and little crocodylomoprh, regardless of what they thought it actually was. I’d be very surprised to learn if anyone else has ever produced a model of this little guy over the years and I’d be keen to learn more about this if anyone happens to know anything of them.

Reasonably unusual reconstructions

I’ve written before about the probability and plausibility of various artistic reconstructions but this can extend beyond simple soft tissues and to the heart of behaviour and lifestyles. Dinosaurs were, in general, highly diverse and lived in many varied environments and different ecosystems over a long period of time. We are still digging into the diversity of dinosaurs and while ‘oddities’ like Pelicanimimus, Limusaurus and the alvarezsaurs as a whole have turned up, there are very likely more interesting and unusual things to come. Even taxa that are already described might turn out to be rather more odd than realised with further discoveries.

Now this is all a bit ephemeral and no you can’t really put numbers on these kinds of assessments but as an example, I think it far more likely than not that *one* of the known big theropods was a dedicated scavenger (or rather perhaps, much more of a scavenger than any other large theropod). I does make ecological sense that the odd carnivore was rather more jackal or hyena-like than its relatives and exploited a different nice. We might not ever get any good evidence for this from the fossil record. The putative anatomical specialisations might be confounded by preservation or evolutionary history. But I think it’ll be there.

From a scientific perspective therefore, I don’t think you can say much more than “based on what we know of living ecosystems, diversity and evolution, it’s likely that something out of the allosauroids, tyrannosaurs and abelisaurs was a behaviourally specialised scavenger”. You certainly can’t name one species over another as a likely candidate, and it’s extremely unlikely that all of a group had gone down this route. However, if you want to draw this kind of thing then I’d have no problem with that and I don’t think many people necessarily would, or should.

No, based on the available you can’t say “this is Carnotaurus the scavenger” but what’s wrong with “Carnotaurus may have been a scavenger”? In terms of producing interesting and thought provoking artwork, I think this should be encouraged. After all, if you stick to what is absolutely known or is very likely true for most dinosaurs there’s quite a limited set of things. The only real trick is to stick to probabilities – nothing wrong with say a largely featherless ornithomimid say, but if you only ever draw bald ones then you’ve probably gone too far. Exceptions to the rule occur, but exceptions shouldn’t be the rule.

Gorgosaurus reconstruction

Although the final roundup of the great Gorgosaurus preparation series went up last week, there is a late entry. Darren was sent this rather natty reconstruction of Gorgosaurus by Eric Warren and he passed it onto me and of course me onto you all.

AAB Art

My thanks to Matt van Roojin for pointing me in this direction and my apologies for not spotting or mentioning it sooner. The folks over at Art Evolved have been running one of their speed-painting competitions based on questions and answers from Ask A Biologist. There’s some fun stuff on there, not least this effort on that most pressing of zoological problems – who would win in a fight between a shark, a bear and an eagle?

Oh, and since I set up this post (but obviously before I posted it) they’ve now done a Musings challenge. Check out things based on this very blog such as ‘What colour was Anchiornis?” and a very dapper looking Darren Tanke Gorogosaurus preparation.

Interview with Mick Ellison

Today I’m delighted to be able to interview Mick Ellison. While some of the work here might be familiar, I suspect Mick as an artist is below many people’s radar. He himself might claim that his palaeo work is more in the realm of photography than art, but I know Mick as a mean artist. His long running association with Mark Norell’s research group means Mick has traveled the world shooting and illustrating dinosaurs and both his photographs and artwork appear in the wonderful ‘Unearthing The Dragon‘ (and here’s my review of it). Anyway, my thanks to Mick for his time and his work:

The most German pterosaur ever

So I’m back from a little research trip to southern Germany, returning to my old haunt at the BSPG in Munich to look over some pterosaurs and see some old friends, taking in the Jura Museum in Eichstaett and the Solnhofen Museum with Helmut Tischlinger, and then (leaving my research student behind) onto Karlsruhe to see Ross Elgin. As might be imagined this contained many pterosaurs and specimens both old and new and was great fun. One especially nice bit is shown above. Courtesy of Michael Krings, (palaeobotanist and editor of Zitteliana) this was something he put together to advertise a palaeo meeting in Munich. It combines the Munich Pterodactylus with some traditional Bavarian and palaeontological themes. I love it and will be making one for my wall soon.

Lots more to come from everything I have seen in the last few days and of course, more Gorgosaurus is on the way.

Probable vs Plausible

There are inevitably few certainties about reconstructing some parts of extinct animals. In the case of feathers on dinosaurs for example, this does seem to generate some rather odd and to my eye, unnecessary commentary or controversy. There are some things that are known but others that can only be inferred based on the available evidence. More importantly, especially when it comes to things like palaeoart in all its forms, I think you have to permit what is plausible even if it is not necessarily the most likely of outcomes.

The reconstruction of Compsoganthus on here drew criticism for a lack of feathers. However, while there are certainly feathered compsoganthids like Sinocalliopteryx and Sinosauropteryx, Juravenator certainly preserves scales and only questionable feathers. Given that the clade as a whole likely represent the first appearance of feather-like structures, it is entirely plausible that some were ‘bald’. Even if there were quite a few more taxa known with feathers, it would still not be utterly outlandish to suggest that there were feather-less taxa out there in the compsoganthid family given what we know of Juravenator and the patchy nature of the feathers in Sinosauropteryx. It’s plausible, certainly.

Looking at something like Linheraptor though, and a lack of feathers seems much less likely, and extensive coverage looks probable. There are loads of dromaeosaurs with feathers, in fact pretty much every specimen preserved where feathers might be there (because the preservational conditions are right), they are there. We know that their near relatives like the troodontids and birds are feathered too, as are things like the oviraptorosaurs too. So a truly featherless dromaeosaur is not really plausible, but at best highly improbable, and a partly feathered one is on the borders of plausibility. It may not be the most likely, but can’t be eliminated and I would not be critical of a piece of art or model that reconstructed Linheraptor without a full coat of feathers.

On a similar note, I’ve written before about unusual behaviours and the giant eyes of bush-babys which stretch the limits of what might be expected for how certain animals act or the extremes their anatomy can reach. But these are outliers – they are possible and that means the idea that other extinct animals might be similar is plausible, but it does not make it likely. You could hypothesise that an apparently un-arboreal ornithopod might do OK in the trees at least on occasion because goats can, but this is merely a possibility, not a likelihood. Admittedly these things are somewhat ephemeral and judging the odds or differences between possible / plausible / probable can be tricky, but in general the differences, especially towards the extremes are quite clear and these are worth considering when trying to reconstruct missing anatomy and especially behaviour and ecology. You be aware of what is possible or the statement “goats don’t / cannot climb trees” can quickly be shown to be wrong, but then so too is “goats are adapted /prefer to live in trees” and getting the difference right is important.

Interview with Mark Witton

The one and only Mark Witton takes to the stand today. Mark is of course a researcher in his own right and regular blogger on Pterosaur.net and indeed has a Flickr page full of his artwork and ramblings. In just a couple of years he has accelerated into the palaeoart scene with his works cropping up in all manner of papers and press releases and of course his model-making skills were put to the test with the creation of the great pterosaur exhibit of old London town. Here Mark divulges on his art and provides two brand new images as well! While best known for his computer generated / coloured images he’s a mean model-maker and pencil-sketcher too as you can see below (all images are Mark’s property etc.).