Hello #PortfolioDay!.I illustrate extinct animals and their environments.

Just noticed there are Tarchia in the background of #PrehistoricPlanet season 1. How do I keep finding new details on every rewatch 😭.I was too distracted by the Therizinosaurus I guess. The attention to detail is just astounding.

What do you want to know?.

RT @TetZoo: You'll all have seen the many announcements and PR pieces from #ColossalBiosciences. There are reasons to be concerned about th….

RT @AppleTV: From towering giants to baby sloths, it doesn’t get cooler than this. #PrehistoricPlanet: Ice Age — Streaming November 26 htt….

Thanks to @paleobyliam for organizing a wonderful Field Museum visit this #FossilFriday! And thanks to @AkikoS9 for showing us around behind the scenes.

Presented a poster today on my research on mammals from a new Lancian microsite. The poster is in Dutch but don't worry, I'm almost done with the paper which will feature significantly more material anyway.

Solar eclipse at the museum today

Here are the original sketches I made last year. At the time I didn't have the intention of turning them into a full illustration but here we are.

The bone core of completer crests were recently discovered in Niger and have not yet been described. This reconstruction is not based on those specimens (in which case I would have made them even taller, especially as they were likely covered by a keratinous sheath).

In case people are wondering about the crest: it is known that Spinosaurus had one, as the base of some have been found. Unfortunately no complete crests have been described, but seeing the extent of displays like the sail and tail, I find it likely the crest was quite prominent.

When it comes to the presence or absence of lips there are valid arguments for both sides. I usually reconstruct them with lips but chose not to this time. Reasons include: interlocking teeth, teeth angling out labially, and tight skin covering on much of the snout.

Scalation is based on other theropods. Wrinkly neck as in Carnotaurus. Larger scales on the feet and square scales in rows on the tail, as in Concavenator. Despite some filaments being preserved on the mostly scaly Juravenator, my Spinosaurus is mostly bald (except for one spot).

The skin around the snout sits quite tightly on the bone. As seen in vascular grooves, as well as bumps on the anterior portion of the maxilla which you can also see in my reconstruction.

The fragmentary nature of the specimens makes many aspects of Spinosaurus difficult to reconstruct. Depending on how the sail is reconstructed it may be M-shaped, or relatively round. The sail in my recontruction is mainly based on the reconstruction by Sereno and collegues.

Many isolated Spinosaurus bones were also found in Morocco. These revealed that Spinosaurus possessed a long flexible neck and a snout with a large notch to ensnare prey such as large fish.

A century later a similar partial skeleton was uncovered in Morocco. Work on this specimen is still ongoing but it expanded our understanding of the animal in that it preserved very short hindlimbs and a tall (and very long) tail.

Per usual I'll post the fossils and reasoning behind my reconstruction in this thread. Starting off with the history of discovery, the first Spinosaurus specimen was discovered during a German expedition in Egypt. The skeleton was eventually destroyed during a bombing in WWII.

Here are isolated versions of the Spinosaurus reconstruction, as well as some close-ups.

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.An animal difficult to do justice with an illustration.

Finally finished my Spinosaurus reconstruction today. Just have to write the thread now. I'll be posting it on sunday. In the meantime, have some titanosaurs.