Friday, March 25, 2011

Mesozoic Miscellany #24

Two dozen digests in, and this is going to be a big one. Before we begin, a few notes:
  • A new edition of the Boneyard is approaching! Submit a blog post to the world's only paleontology blog carnival, this month hosted by Sam Wise on April 5 at Sorting Out Science. All pertinent info, as always, at the Boneyard Blog.
  • I'm ditching the Tumblin' section. Not worth the extra effort, especially since most of what I find are google image searches hastily crapped into tumblogs without citation. I can find my own wacky dinosaur pix.
  • With being on the road and getting sick, I haven't been terribly active on Twitter lately, so I won't be sharing those links this week, either.
  • I might just have a spiffy header graphic by next week.
Anyway, onward with a cram-packed edition of Mesozoic Miscellany!

New Research
The big news is the Proceedings of the Third Gondwanan Dinosaur Symposium, which has yielded a mountain of new research to pore over. I'm eagerly picking through the 20 papers included - all open access - to find good blog fodder. Ichnology, Paleoclimatology, new taxa, and more. Read about Brazil's new giant spinosaur Oxalaia at Dinosaur Tracking.

Wedel, Yates, and Bonnan have a new paper a pneumaticity in early sauropodomorphs, online though not officially published yet. Read about how the paper came to be at SV-POW.

Around the Dinoblogosphere
Pseudoplocephalus: Victoria Arbour writes about a significant find in the tar sands of northern Alberta: An ankylosaur.

Project Dryptosaurus: Gary provides an update on his comings-and-goings with the project.

Whales, Camps, and Trails: Sternberg and Brown are discussed in a post on early dinosaur hunting.

Saurian: Saurian writes about the ongoing debate over Nanotyrannus, spurred by his viewing of a dentary excavated in 2006.

Dracovenator: Adam Yates tells a story of spotting an impressive pneumatic chamber in a vertebra of Antetonitrus.

RMDRC Paleo Lab: Anthony Maltese writes about Cap'n Chuck, a very large specimen of one of my favorite mosasaurs, Platecarpus. Includes a great before-and-after-prep photo.

SV-POW: Ever wanted to see what a baby giraffe's neck looks like on the inside?

Chinleana: Bill Parker shares Jaff Martz's restoration of phytosaur Smilisuchus, now in color.

Dinosaur Tracking: Brian Switek discusses the history of the iconic AMNH Allosaurus mount.

The Bite Stuff: Jaime Headden shares one of his own skeletal drawings of Jeholopterus, critiquing his muscle restoration and talking about how it's done.

Archosaur Musings: Dave Hone ponders the likelyhood that, despite predator chauvinists hopes, some big theropods were more than likely scavengers. As a note to artists, he writes, "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."

Paleo Illustrata: Stu notes the remarkable, though admittedly speculative, resemblance of hornbill chicks to non-avian maniraptorans. Almost has a Solonevich look to it.

Skeletal Drawing: Scott Hartman brings his history of skeletal diagrams up to the mid-century era in part two of his wonderful series. Can't wait for round three!

The Flying Trilobite: Learn about the making of Glendon's recent Tylosaurus Reef. I see a hint of Trilobite Boy in one of his early sketches!

ART Evolved: Evan Boucher introduced himself to the crew in fine fashion, with a splendid rendering of Thoracosaurus, a crocodylian of the Late Cretaceous.

Gurney Journey: Gurney used a gorgeous painting from Journey to Chandara as an example of a technique painters use in scenes comprised of misty light and silhouetted figures.

The conversation about paleoart's direction and adoption of best practices continues. I've added recent notable blog posts in my roundup posted last week, which I'll continue to update. Please email me with anything I've missed.

Paleoart of the Week
I was instantly charmed by Ezequiel Vera's lovely little Aucasaurus, and immediately flagged it for this coveted honor. I love Vera's style, and am reminded of how grateful we should all be for the many artists with wildly different styles contributing great stuff to paleoart nowadays. Enjoy!

Illustration by Ezequiel Vera, from his Paleontología, Ilustración y Biston betularia blog.

Outrageously Off-topic Indulgence


Yup.

4 comments:

  1. Trilobite Boy was there? Where?

    Vera's piece is very cool. I love the low posture - my blue-fronted Amazon parrot I had back in university would sometimes stoop like that, to pick up something with his mouth, or to begin displaying attack feathers.

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  2. Not literally there, it's something in the expression or the pose that was reminiscent to me.

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  3. Became a fan of Ricky Gervaise through his radio show and podcasts, definitely worth the listen.
    If you're up for Atheist comedians with a musical bent check out Tim Minchin.

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  4. @Matt - Yeah, Minchin is great! Though really all I know is "Storm." His work exemplifies the fact that something has to work as an art form first to deliver a good message.

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