Mark Wittonさんのイラストまとめ

@Val_Fisch Yes. The spines get very long very quickly in this tail, so I assume most of the length was stiffened - the opposite of what we see in swimmers. It's looking increasingly likely to me that this was some sort of basilisk-like display feature, not a locomotive aid.

New #Patreon post: Pervushovisaurus and the demise of the ichthyosaurs.

See the full painting in glorious high-res along with a host of WIPs, and a short discussion of ichthyosaur extinction. All this for the low, low cost of $1 a month. https://t.co/ApPjeJ3SkC

8) "Exposed teeth in dinosaurs, sabre-tooths and everything else: thoughts for artists". My effort to make sense of the #paleoart 'lips debate'. Several other posts have relevance here as well. Spoiler: it's pro-lips.

https://t.co/TC4wGt7q9a

1) "Megafuzz under the microscope": does our understanding of thermal energetics tell us anything about the life appearance of giant, potentially fuzzy extinct animals such as large coelurosaurs and ground sloths? I concluded that yes, it probably does.

https://t.co/7HuhhBpbDW

@TetZoo Yes, it's almost unrecognisable from that now.

It's chucking it down here on this #FossilFriday, so here's some #paleoart of the plotopterid Copepteryx getting rained on. Plotopterids were a group of Eo-Miocene penguin-like birds that lived in the Northern Hemisphere. Some grew quite large - about the height of a human.

For #FossilFriday, here's #paleoart of two giant flying birds: Pelagornis and Teratornis. Pelagornis was the largest flying bird of all time, out-spanning even the largest teratorns (those early 8 m wingspan Argentavis estimates were over-enthusiastic).

Rooting through old files yesterday I found azhdarchid artwork from the first two years of my PhD (2005-2006). The wading scenes reflect what @TetZoo and I figured azhdarchids did before originating 'terrestrial stalking'. The skim-feeding image was not in support of the idea.

Spent the morning reading about maximum body size in marine tetrapods, and how baleen whales achieve their remarkable size because of awesome feeding efficiency. Sorry folks, blue whale-sized marine reptiles are very unlikely: Shonisaurus et al. are likely as big as they got.

I'm late for #FossilFriday, but better late than never, right? Here's some #paleoart of Cimoliopterus, one of the last of the toothed pterosaurs. The genus seems to have been widespread, occurring in both Britain and the United States.