tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post1554901831611906898..comments2024-03-23T12:02:36.626-07:00Comments on Mark P. Witton's Blog: What Daleks, xenomorphs and slasher movies tell us about palaeoartMark Wittonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-70168188837756420282022-03-12T20:50:26.958-08:002022-03-12T20:50:26.958-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-51491437827954140632022-03-12T20:50:04.529-08:002022-03-12T20:50:04.529-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-61960409280592507232016-11-10T08:54:06.208-08:002016-11-10T08:54:06.208-08:00"THIS IS MY TAIL CLUB. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT..."THIS IS MY TAIL CLUB. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT BUT THIS ONE IS MINE.IT IS MY BEST FRIEND. MY TAIL CLUB IS MY LIFE. I MUST MASTER IT AS I MASTER MY LIFE. MY TAIL CLUB, WITHOUT ME, IS USELESS. WITHOUT MY TAILCLUB, I AM USELESS. I SWING MY TAIL CLUB TRUE."<br />Ankylosaurus obsessed with his tail.<br /><br />I love this post!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-51379453145990635802015-02-25T14:17:27.020-08:002015-02-25T14:17:27.020-08:00@James: I believe there are time skips between the...@James: I believe there are time skips between these scenes, and that is most cases by the time the vocalizations began their presence was already known (which is the real unrealistic part, because they wouldn't attack in such a way that their presence is revealed).<br /><br />Also, some carnivores were more interested in being left alone than hunting anyone which eliminates the need for silence.BKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03759189747932749283noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-46582222051678335722014-07-25T07:11:41.152-07:002014-07-25T07:11:41.152-07:00@brie987 Yes, Primeval is just silly. All the roa...@brie987 Yes, Primeval is just silly. All the roaring. And the creatures just kill, kill, kill. They kill everything they see, non-stop. Do real life predators do that? No. Real life predators kill one thing, eat it, then take a nap.James Hubbshttp://jameshubbs.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-56699787599813344492014-01-10T05:30:54.638-08:002014-01-10T05:30:54.638-08:00Thanks for the comment, Andrea, and I can't di...Thanks for the comment, Andrea, and I can't disagree with anything you say. I think this issue, and similar ones, rise from a lack of intimate knowledge of known material for given taxa. I didn't know, for instance, that the nasals of megalosaurids were unrepresented by fossil material: these animals have been depicted as crestless for so long that I figured that's just how they were. That sort of information can be difficult to source without diving into the technical literature on these animals - which is not always possible.<br /><br />On your final point, I can't say I've ever considered <i>Torvosaurus</i> a boring animal: its distinctively shaped jaws and proportionally large head were part of the reason I wanted to render it for this piece. Megalosaurs just don't seem to get the press that other dinosaurs do, despite being just as interesting. Of course, you could say this about many extinct animal groups.Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-48816228060272640582014-01-10T04:20:41.972-08:002014-01-10T04:20:41.972-08:00I'm impressed by the lack of imagination in ma...I'm impressed by the lack of imagination in many theropod reconstructions, not for soft parts or behaviours, but for features that we may confidently infer from the skeletons, and thus are less speculative than most of the images many paleoartists produce.<br />For example, it seems that all Torvosaurus reconstructions done show it lacking any form of nasal crest/s. Note that no nasals of a megalosaurid are currently known (or as far as I know, described). Thus we lack evidence that megalosaurids lacked nasal ornamentation. Why artists depict megalosaurids lacking a nasal crest? This absence of crests in the reconstructions is bizarre since Torvosaurus is bracketed by taxa all showing various forms of nasal crests (spinosaurids, Monolophosaurus, allosauroids, dilophosaur-grade forms, all with nasal ornamentations). In particular, both Monolophosaurus and spinosaurids show an elongate median nasal crest, a shared feature that may support it as a genuine megalosaurian condition. <br />Perhaps, that boring flat nasal with no crests will result the correct condition, and they were unique among non-coelurosaurian theropods in having unornamented nasals... or, and I feel it's the correct explanation, it's just the "boring generalised unspecialised basal tetanuran"-meme from the early XX Century that never die even in the age of "All Yesterdays".Andrea Cauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10855060597677361866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-85751208477525376242013-07-01T23:23:41.883-07:002013-07-01T23:23:41.883-07:00Sorry, I responded to the wrong post by accident. ...Sorry, I responded to the wrong post by accident. I'm referring to a comment made by Evan Boucher below. <br /><br /><br /> Paul W.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-53658640538106057082013-07-01T23:11:51.639-07:002013-07-01T23:11:51.639-07:00I agree with Evan in regards to colour schemes. A...I agree with Evan in regards to colour schemes. Another one I don't like is when the artist depicts predatory dinosaurs with an over-adornment of wattles and crests. It seems a little counter intuitive to me. Vultures, turkeys and even iguanas seem like more popular models than the likes of eagles, shrikes and monitor lizards. Yes, there's sexual display but there is also practicality to consider. <br /><br /> Paul W.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-86312259411438019352013-06-30T03:06:03.073-07:002013-06-30T03:06:03.073-07:00Thanks for the tip: I've changed the text to r...Thanks for the tip: I've changed the text to read slightly more accurately.Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-65657413804675869092013-06-28T19:42:59.392-07:002013-06-28T19:42:59.392-07:00Interesting blog post. Must read it again. Too muc...Interesting blog post. Must read it again. Too much to take in all at once.<br /><br />One criticism: your comment on "the banded headcrest" could be clearer that it's the banded shape rather than the headcrest itself that's fictional.Adrian Morganhttp://outerhoard.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-59704946923476412272013-06-24T14:07:16.803-07:002013-06-24T14:07:16.803-07:00I don't like the book, I looooove the book. S...I don't like the book, I looooove the book. So has everyone I've shown it to. Blown away by the weirdness/awesomeness of the pterosaurs and the beauty of your illustrations of them.<br /><br />I should say that the overall design is also excellent. The colour bars to denote chapters are a great idea and the general layout is very easy on the eyes and works very well with the adjacent images. If you did it, kudos, if not, if you know the person who did, please pass on my compliments.<br /><br />I think fans of other types of animals will be dead envious of pterosaur fans. The world could use a similar book on ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, but I've been saying that since I read Dave Unwin's great 'Pterosaurs: From Deep Time'.Mike from Ottawanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-56014195904084253862013-06-24T11:43:11.010-07:002013-06-24T11:43:11.010-07:00For that matter, we don't even know if dinosau...For that matter, we don't even know if dinosaurs could vocalize at all, let alone make the range of sounds that some modern birds can achieve. Much as I like to imagine Anchiornis screeching like a scrub jay, or Microraptor making the kek-kek-kek sound of a Cooper's Hawk, or baby raptorlings peeping in their nests... (Of course, even if dinosaurs did vocalize they wouldn't sound exactly like any modern bird, just as their plumage wouldn't look exactly like that of an extant species.) <br /><br />Say, do we know anything about the possible vocal abilities of pterosaurs? Emilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03968539146840489973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-63671969808160318602013-06-24T11:28:26.645-07:002013-06-24T11:28:26.645-07:00Yes it is, and the illustrations are gorgeous. Alt...Yes it is, and the illustrations are gorgeous. Although there's one odd problem: fig.5.13 is missing, with a message saying "to see this image, refer to the print edition of this book." Emilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03968539146840489973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-61475857875739778502013-06-24T02:08:14.186-07:002013-06-24T02:08:14.186-07:00"1. When artists take exact color schemes/fea..."1. When artists take exact color schemes/feather patterns from living animals and pasting them on extinct ones."<br /><br />I don't mind that too much, so long as the source isn't something that's been done a million times before and it's not a 100% copy. In some cases, 'dressing up' an animal in familiar colours can make audiences view them in a very different light. For instance, I tried to make people think differently about therizinosaurs by using a very obvious and familiar pigeon-like colour scheme in <a href="http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/theyre-reptiles-jim-but-not-as-we-know.html" rel="nofollow">this image</a>, contrasting with their normal portrayal as weird, scissorhanded freaks.<br /><br />"...when animators try to sell the weight of a large animal by exaggerating its dorsoventral movement as it walks..."<br /><br />Yep. This is something that a lot of folks seem to struggle with. There's either over-the-top, silent movie style motions or overly restricted shuffles with no 'weight' behind them at all. Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-30306221119966420672013-06-24T01:57:47.887-07:002013-06-24T01:57:47.887-07:00"Is this a fair criticism or are there any li..."Is this a fair criticism or are there any living reptiles that actually do expose their nests to the elements (Better yet, is there any evidence of non-maniraptoran dinos having done so?)?"<br /><br />Not that I know of, though I'm not an expert on such things. I imagine most non-maniraptoran dinosaurs would be burying their eggs in something, and not leaving them exposed. That's certainly the take home message from the histology of the recently described <i>Torvosaurus</i> eggs: they're too porous and prone to dessication to be fully exposed.<br /><br />"I have a question about that: In a given piece of predator-prey how do you know that a predator is roaring at its prey & not just opening its mouth to bite down on its prey?"<br /><br />If the predator's mouth is close to the prey, then I agree that we could be seeing some biting action. All to often however, the predator is well away from the prey item and still waving an open mouth about. I assume these animals are meant to be roaring. <br /><br />"That's 1 of the things I liked about DR/Dinotasia's dinos: They (especially the Allosaurus & T.rex) used a lot more body language than what I was used to seeing in dino docs."<br /><br />Agreed. I thought about those shows a lot in this post. They're meme busting in all sorts of ways, and perhaps under-appreciated for that.Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-2915826159914643652013-06-24T01:45:21.458-07:002013-06-24T01:45:21.458-07:00Thanks Mike. Reading between the lines here, I'...Thanks Mike. Reading between the lines here, I'm assuming you like the book. ;)<br /><br />"I particularly like the use of the take-off pose, life and skeletal reconstruction as the standard."<br /><br />I found that the quad launch poses worked very well from not only a scientific perspective: they actually save a buttload of space. Drawing pterosaurs with their wings swept up, which is the more traditional way of restoring their skeletons, takes up a lot of room without too much imagery. A mid-quad launch pose is nice and compact however, and meant I could get the skeletal and life restorations neatly alongside one another on the same page.Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-55031519792774977572013-06-24T01:40:31.598-07:002013-06-24T01:40:31.598-07:00Thanks Emily. Is your version in colour?Thanks Emily. Is your version in colour?Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-63963940919425965842013-06-24T01:40:05.957-07:002013-06-24T01:40:05.957-07:00The point being made here isn't that dinosaurs...The point being made here isn't that dinosaurs and other extinct species shouldn't be depicted roaring or with wide open mouths at all, but that there's a lot more scope for showing these animals communicating than simply waving open mouths at each other. The same for predator-prey interactions: there will be cases where the animals do vocalise when being attacked (although not so much during chases, so far as I can see) but there some occasions where animals are eaten alive without a peep. Again, I'm calling out this trope because we it's so overused that it's misleading, not because it's wrong per se.Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-64823305390351920772013-06-24T00:44:51.777-07:002013-06-24T00:44:51.777-07:00When I first read the proposition that birds are a...When I first read the proposition that birds are a surviving branch of dinosaurs my thoughts flew back to the summers I spent on my grandfather's chicken farm and it immediately and permanently clicked with a solid and satisfying "cluck."<br /><br />Not that any chicken, anywhere, has ever been satisfied with a single cluck. Nor to the best of my knowledge has any rooster, anywhere, ever been satisfied with going more than five minutes without crowing rapturously (raptorously? :-) skyward. Let's not mention the racket ducks make, chicks of almost any sort make, or the terrifying open-mouthed honking and hissing of geese when they attack, the open-throated bawling of gulls or the sometimes deafening croaking of ravens and cawing of crows when they're on the offensive.<br /><br />At any rate, given that recollections of the moronic cackle of barnyard birds helped cement my recognition of the relationship between birds and other dinosaurs I'm completely sanguine about the notion of perpetually roaring dinosaurs (or, I suspect more likely of squawking, hissing, clucking, or <em>extremely</em> loud peeping ones.) Meanwhile I'm not impressed that you managed to pick out a notoriously mute stork as your counterexample. And if I'm not mistaken, like a lot of other birds with missing syrinxes and/or syringeal muscles, even they can still hiss when provoked.<br /><br />As for prey dinosaurs vocalizing when attacked, quite a few birds do this as well (nothing more piteous than hearing a starling's alarm cries as a Peregrine falcon carries it to the top of a local phone pole and starts tearing into it. So <em>to the extent</em> birds are related I'm not going to... err... grouse about that possibility either.<br /><br />That said I'll agree with almost everything else in your post including the point that, like their surviving relatives, most dinosaurs also must have had a very wide array of postural and other behavioral forms of communicating both within and between species.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Oh, and don't forget Nathan Myhrvold's proposition that sauropods communicated by bull-whip cracks of their tails. :-P He's a genius at patent trolling! He wins chili cookoffs with ostrich meat (possibly involving liquid nitrogen and sous vide!) It <em>must</em> be true! How come you guys never draw that!?!?!<br /><br />tflAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-41881565064556861852013-06-23T12:09:13.045-07:002013-06-23T12:09:13.045-07:00I bought the Kindle earlier and it looks great! I bought the Kindle earlier and it looks great! Emilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03968539146840489973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-17452655177242734822013-06-23T05:59:23.707-07:002013-06-23T05:59:23.707-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.coelophysisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-21050942515914267842013-06-22T11:36:58.229-07:002013-06-22T11:36:58.229-07:00Yeah there is not really a quick reference go-to g...Yeah there is not really a quick reference go-to guide I have found. Paleobotany by Taylor, Univ Press 2nd edition is the best I can find. Still even this mammoth volume is not Mesozoic exclusive. Part of the problem is bias in the plant fossil record towards vegetation found near sedimentation areas as well as incomplete remains. Pollen records are only so useful because dominance in pollen count does not automatically imply dominance in the ecosystem, esp for plants that spread vegetatively.<br /><br />But I believe informed speculation is useful to a point- there must have been diverse communities of plants inhabiting riparian areas, deserts, mangroves, alpine habitats, volcanic soils, stuff we may never know about that was colonized by crazy gymnosperms/ferns/gnetales/horsetails and others. Stuff we have no precise reference for in todays angiosperm dominated flora but must surely have existed then.Duane Nashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14467779935085970909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-6036002088831030572013-06-22T10:18:58.544-07:002013-06-22T10:18:58.544-07:00Mark,
The book has arrived and in perhaps the lea...Mark,<br /><br />The book has arrived and in perhaps the least suprising outcome since Baldrick last cunning plan came a cropper, I love it!<br /><br />It's packed with awesome and leavened with the most hilarious picture captions I've seen (my Mom laughed so hard she had to use her inhaler early). Having skimmed over it, I'm really looking forward to delving into the text now.<br /><br />I particularly like the use of the take-off pose, life and skeletal reconstruction as the standard. Oh, and the full spread of the dust jacket is fabulous. The composition makes the whole image soar. Truly grand.<br /><br />You really owe it to yourself to take a bit of time to be insufferably proud of yourself for this book.<br /><br />To others: If you like pterosaurs, get Pterosaurs If you don't know much about pterosaurs, get Pterosaurs and you will and you will like them. If you don't like pterosaurs, (a) what are you doing here? and (b) what, seriously, is wrong with you - get help.Mike from Ottawanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-7503981504357529232013-06-21T18:34:26.839-07:002013-06-21T18:34:26.839-07:00A bunch of comments:
First, that resting Torvosau...A bunch of comments:<br /><br />First, that resting Torvosaurus puts me very much in mind of a similar pose I see from my cat. Overall relaxed but head up and aware of the surroundings.<br /><br />The watery Therizinosaur would make a good item in a pop-up dino book if it popped up quickly enough. Otherwise, it just looks silly to me.<br /><br />And, finally, a couple of well placed footsteps and those Daleks would look like pop cans run over by a bus. Dangerous getting in among the feet like that. No tactical appreciation of the uses of ranged weapons.<br /><br />I did get a good laugh from the pic, though, as I didn't spot the Daleks right off so they were a surprise. Now, what would be real fun would be a Dalek being punted by Brontomerus!<br /><br />And Bookwatch continues as the paleoliterary treat of the year didn't turn up today. Happily, I just realized that while Monday is a holiday where I work in Quebec, it isn't in Ontario where I live and so I might only have to Monday to wait. And, Mark, if I don't enjoy your book once it arrives, I will be checking myself into the nearest mental health facility.<br /><br /><br /><br />Mike from Ottawanoreply@blogger.com