Thursday 26 June 2014

Azhdarchid pterosaurs - invading TetZooCon this July!

Mountains of respect to whoever can name the sources and years of each of these silhouettes. If your surname is 'Naish', you're not allowed to play. Title slide from my TetZooCon talk.

What are you doing on the 12th of July this year? If you're in London and you fancy a day of tetrapod-themed fun - and who doesn't? - you could do a lot worse than attending TetZooCon, a whole day inspired by the famous Tetrapod Zoology blog and its podcast. TetZoo really needs no introduction to anyone reading this, being renowned for mixing semi-technical zoological discussions of Recent and fossil tetrapods with speculative biology, fictitious creatures, cryptozoolgy and, well, whatever else takes the fancy of hosts Dazza Nash and Johnny Conners.

The full TetZooCon timetable of events is appropriately broad and covers dinosaurs, cryptozoology, conservation, speculative biology, primatology, wildlife watching and two regular stalwarts topics of this blog - pterosaurs and palaeoart. I'm taking reigns for the pterosaur aspect of the morning (you can get a sense of what I'll be talking about above - more details on this soon) as well as taking part in an interactive palaeoart event with two real artists - Bob Nicholls and John Conway. This promises to be great fun, and allows audience members an unusually good insight into palaeoart processes. I'll be selling prints of my work alongside other artists and merchandisers - the Palaeoplushies will be in town! - so bring your pennies for products you won't find anywhere else. And if that doesn't already convince you that there's something for everyone, the venue is none other than the London Wetland Centre, and delegates are free to wander around it all day.

In all, it sounds like it's going to be a terrific day, and I'm pretty stoked to be invited along. If this post tickles your fancy, and especially you'd like events like this to become regular fixtures in your calendar, support the event by spreading the word and grabbing some tickets. Looking forward to seeing you there!

11 comments:

  1. Wow... actually got what I wished for... too bad the 'con's 6,700 miles away.

    I haven't seen the art for the left-most silhouette on the 3rd row from the top (as well as the one on the bottom right).

    Is that last one (bottom right) the 2014 "short-necked" hatzegopteryx?

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  2. *apologies for the double post*

    If this is arranged by year, I'm surprised to find out that the Sibbick blunt-nose came after the first iteration of G.Paul's nesting parents.

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    1. The third row, left-most azhdarchid is indeed a thing of bizarre terror. I wonder if a blog post is in order. As for the 2014 short-necked Hatzegopteryx... that would be telling!

      Check out this post for comments on the Sibbick "blunt-nose" regressing azhdarchid art from the more accurate 1980s versions produced by Greg Paul and Paul MacCready.

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    2. Yes. Yes please (on posting about the wattled eater of prehistoric lobsters). And robust short necked Azhdarchids please.

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  3. Hi Mark,

    God, I wish I could go, good luck ^^

    >Mountains of respect to whoever can name the sources and years of each of these silhouettes<

    Ok... I try it

    1. maybe Giovanni Caselli's 1975 Demon Quetz?
    2. Bob Hersey's purple Demonic Quetzalcoatlus
    3. ?
    4. ?
    5. wasn't that one of these models to test pterosaur flight abilities?
    6.Greg Pauls version, normally with nest and tyrannosaur
    7.Sibbick, many times used for toy azhdarchids
    8."Spotter’s Guide to Dinosaurs & Other Prehistoric Animals", the 2000 version
    9. god, I know it I know it...
    10.early Raul Martin work
    11. Walking with dinosaurs Quetzi
    12. Sibbicks Azhdarchid which was used to illustrate the "not stalking" theory
    13.early Quetzalcoatlus wittoni
    14. Flying Monsters Quetzalcoatlus
    15. hmmm... Hatzgopteryx from Plant Dinosaur I guess
    16. Quetzi quad launch, can be seen in "Pterosaurs" by M. W.
    17. Walking with Dinosaurs 3d short necked Quetzi
    18. maybe something new...?

    Could be worse.

    All the best,

    Joschua Knüppe

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  4. Oh, wait!

    No. 4 is Wann Langston's Quetzalcoatlus from 1977!

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    1. Let's check your scores...

      1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12*, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17* and 18 are all correct - well done! A few notes...

      12. Yes, this is Sibbick, but nothing to do with promoting 'non-stalking'. This painting pre-dates any real notion of terrestrial stalking in these animals.

      17. The WWD3D Quetz shown here is from the promotional work had its head and neck shrunk, so it's not really a short-necked form: it's a distorted long-necked one.

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  5. The second one, first row is either Caselli's or Hersey's. Third of this row is Kish's. Last of the same row is Langston's. Center third row is from the original WWD. The second to last of the last row is from WWD3D.

    --Sean

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    1. Well done - each one you've picked out is correct.

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