#AnimalArtistsUnite .I think it's time that I post some the more than 180 double pages I worked on for our Europasaurus Graphic Novel. A new form of narrative paleoart awaits you ;). #europasaurus #dinosaurs #graphicnovel #animals #sauropods #europasaurusdiary #sciart #scicom

RT @AgateBloodlines: Meet Promerycochoerus! This oreodont was a strange piglike creature, and was likely very social and engaged in intrasp….

RT @ruadhribrennan: #Dinosaur hatchlings available at Scaled Beast!

RT @AgateBloodlines: Update coming tomorrow!

There is much more to say about this fossil but thankfully the paper, published in Nature, is OPEN ACCESS! have a look!.

Eventually a took a shot of the model in a way that satisfied me and I went to finish it digitally. We decided to show it swimming into a swarm of belemnites. The specimen has a small flipper injury to show of better that structure of the fin.

I became part of this project first as a interested observer but only a few month before it went into review Johan asked me to make some artwork of the press release. As I had a rather tricky perspective in mind I actually build for this a model of Temnodontosaurus.

However this fits well to what we already knew. Large eyes, long but robust jaws and stomach content that consists of other fast prey like belemnites and other ichthyosaurs speak for a ambush predator, in this case a silent one.

While not that efficient in improving the hydrodynamic properties these structures seem to reduce noise, similar to owl feathers! A puzzle piece that was so far completely absent from any considerations about the livestyle of these early Jurassic predators!

. impressions but that large portions of the skin structure were preserved. Which this wealth of data the researchers were able to do something pretty cool, they could build a digital model of a Temnodontosaurus flipper and test it's properties.

These are not bony but cartilaginous in nature and get the new name, chondroderms. These tiny spikes, embedded in the skin, supported a serrated trailing edge that stretched over nearly the full length of the flipper. As closer inspection revealed that these weren't just.

But also revealed completely novel structures that have never been found in a living or extinct animal. Already, kind of, known where the parallel skin grooves that are very visible, even under normal light, but more important are the tiny, light structures on the back of the fin

Temnodontosaurus is a ichthyosaur taxon that is nearly as old of Paleontology itself, and yet, after more than 200 years of research history new details still reveal themselves. This flipper that Georg Göltz found not only showed the flipper outline that was unenxpected.

We would get as much information out of the specimen as possible! Now, quite a few years later we can finally show what has been brewing behind the academic curtains for a while.

I remember saying, "well, that looks like a large owl feather" and oh boy. Some time after Sven got Johan Lindgren and @Dean_R_Lomax on board who likewise recognized the importance of the fossil and made it happen that all the necessary tests were done to ensure that.

Oh BOY! Story time! .All the way back in 2016, on our way back from Munich for a EAVP meeting, @dinosven got a mail by Georg Göltz, attached were some first images of an incredible specimen. That evening we went over the material again and again.

RT @Dean_R_Lomax: The first-ever soft tissues of the Jurassic megapredator, Temnodontosaurus! The winglike, metre-long flipper contains str….

RT @dinosven: Big news! Our study, just out in @Nature, is a game-changer for giant ichthyosaurs! We describe the 1st Temnodontosaurus flip….

RT @WryCritic: CALL FOR PALAEOARTISTS!. The Palestine Museum of Natural History 🇵🇸 is in a dire need of a PALAEOARTIST. A voluntary artist….

RT @TetZoo: #DinoConUK - Aug 16th-17th, University of Exeter - is going to be huge. Tickets are selling fast. Art exhibitions, talks, palae….

RT @enchannw: artists has this ever happened to you.