Mesozoic Miscellany 57

High time for another round-up, I reckon! Saddle up, pard'ners.

First up: the plate-backs have arrived at ART Evolved! January's gallery is devoted to stegosaurs, and a fetching group it is.

John Conway's log is essential reading, both for the artwork he shares and his insights. He recently wrote a piece on Gregory S. Paul, lamenting the paleoart titan's obsession with taxonomic acts. He writes:

Why is one of the greatest dinosaur artists of all time spending so much time on this? Considering he hasn’t a hope in hell of convincing the majority of people working on dinosaur taxonomy that his approach is right, continuing to fight this fight feels like a criminal waste of time and effort.

For more of Conway's thoughts, click on over.

It's always fun when The Onion writes dinosaur pieces, as in October's New Evidence Suggests Dinosaurs Died in Cretaceous Period Hospice.

Mark Witton's evocative illustration of a Pachyrhinosaurus family braving the Cretaceous arctic. © Mark Witton, of course.

Mark Witton made a splash with his speculative, musk ox-inspired Pachyrhinosaurus illustration recently, and he writes a characteristically insightful piece on why it's not such a nutty idea, existing ceratopsid skin impressions be damned.

Mark Wildman wrote about the joys of finding shark teeth in the doldrums of winter at Saurian.

At Symbiartic, Kalliopi Monoyios begins a series of posts on University of Chicago superstar paleontologist Neil Shubin's new book The Universe Within.

Kalliopi and her Symbiartic comrade Glendon Mellow have started a Google Plus community devoted to Science Art. It's been the shot in the arm I needed for G+ to make sense for me. Come on over.

Matt Wedel explores the sauropod nervous system at SV-POW, in a post hilariously titled Oblivious Sauropods Being Eaten.

Speaking of sauropods, Matt Martyniuk, author of A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds, responds to a recent Andrea Cau post about the All Yesterdays-flavored work of Emiliano Troco with his own double-dewlap bearing sauropod.

Finally, I'd like to share one sneak peek into a project I'm working on. I'm writing and illustrating a children's book! It's a paleo book. Of course it is. I've been sharing bits of it on various social media outlets, so it's high time I shared some here. I humbly present an artistic Ankylosaurus.
It's a work-in-progress, but it will give you an idea of what to expect. More details as 2013 rolls on!