The popularity of dinosaurs - for better, for worse

This article is being cross-posted at the website of the London-based 2016 Popularizing Palaeontology workshop as part of a series of blog posts focusing on the discussions and themes of that event. Over the course of this two day workshop curators, artists, historians and palaeontologists presented talks and led round-table discussions about the history and current state of palaeontological outreach. I presented a talk at this workshop - entitled 'The importance and impact of palaeoart in palaeontological outreach', which you can see here. The following is not based on this talk, but rather a theme that seemed - to me - to be consistent across many presentations and discussions, including my own.

Whether it's a giant armoured thyreophoran like Panoplosaurus mirus (thanks to the Empress of Ankylosauria, Victoria Arbour, for advice on this restoration) or a svelte theropod like Chirostenotes pergracilis, everyone likes dinosaurs and we - palaeontologists - like using them in our outreach. But are dinosaurs really universally popular and appropriate for the wide range of outreach we use them in?

The Popularizing Palaeontology workshops held in August 2016 presented fascinating insights into the history and current state of palaeontological outreach. Our many talks and roundtable discussions touched varied topics but several central themes emerged, of which one was the prevalence of dinosaurs in virtually all palaeontological PR exercises. Whatever we discussed - the history of museums, the palaeoart industry, public interest in research or palaeontological influences on cinema - dinosaurs were almost always involved. Even if they weren’t a main focus, their influence there - catalysing certain events, influencing decisions, eclipsing other outreach topics. It would be wrong to say popularising palaeontology is totally synonymous with popularising dinosaurs, but for better and worse, these animals have a major role and influence over public outreach of palaeontological science.

The success of dinosaurs in outreach

Exactly why dinosaurs occupy such an important and influential space in popular culture remains largely mysterious. On paper, dinosaurs are a group of extinct reptiles which are not - superficially at least - so different from other long-dead sauropsids, and yet they have somehow gained global fame and many dedicated followers. My suspicion is that dinosaurs uniquely combine obviously amazing, ‘high impact’ anatomy - large size, fantastic skeletal structures such as horns, huge teeth and so on - with bauplans that are easily understood by the general public, without being so familiar that they’re pedestrian. For instance, everyone can appreciate Allosaurus as an active, large bodied predator even if just looking at its skeleton in a museum, but - as bird-like as it is in detail - the overall form is somewhat alien and intriguing. Other fossil groups, such as ancient carnivorans or whales, are impressive enough but perhaps also too familiar to inspire our imaginations in the same way. At the other end of the spectrum are extinct creatures which are just too unusual for widespread appreciation. Perhaps their anatomy is too strange or their life histories are too obscure and difficult to relate to familiar biology. This applies to many extinct invertebrates, as well as several types of weirder vertebrates. Dinosaur biology is thus near perfect for outreach material: they’re visually impressive, anatomically and biologically accessible, but different enough to warrant interest. Whether this is the actual basis for dinosaurian appeal or not, museum staff, educators and merchandisers have realised for over 150 years that dinosaurs are an excellent way to interest the public and make money, and given them prominent roles in outreach. Aiding any intuitive draw we have to dinosaurs is a lot of social inertia, and part of the enduring appeal of dinosaurs is a long history of ingraining them into popular culture.

The success of dinosaurs in the public eye almost certainly reflects many varied influences, but their unique anatomical qualities may play an important role. Does any other fossil group combine interesting, ‘high impact’ biology, in a format that the public can easily grasp, in the way that dinosaurs do?

For those of us interested in science education, dinosaurs are one of the most important and potent tools at our disposal. We see them as not only fascinating subjects in their own right but as a way to introduce ‘bigger picture’, perhaps fundamentally more important, scientific concepts to lay audiences. Dinosaurs are gateways to discussions of evolution, adaptation, anatomy, biological diversity, extinction, geological time and the changing nature of the planet. They provide, as charismatic and fantastic creatures, perfect characters to maintain interest in discussions of these sometimes complex concepts, and well-known Mesozoic dramas - the breakup of Pangea, formation of the Deccan Trapps, the Chicxulub Impact - offer rich backgrounds to stage our conversations. Dinosaurs are more than just awesome animals: they’re public ambassadors for science, facts and intelligent thinking.

We cannot ignore the economic value of dinosaurs, too - and not just to Hollywood movie makers and toy manufacturers. Dinosaurs provide academia and its satellite industries with vital income because of their easy marketability and merchandising potential. Public interest in dinosaur news, books and artwork keeps authors and palaeoartists in work, while the pull of dinosaur exhibitions in natural history museums not only keeps turnstiles spinning but brings essential revenue - in the form of gift shop purchases, entry fees and cafe visits - to these underfunded venues. I don’t know that anyone has ever attempted to work out the net worth of dinosaurs to education, but, globally, their appeal must bring millions of pounds into venues that perform outreach every year.

Too much of a good thing?

So hurrah for dinosaurs, then, and their role as not only fascinating subjects for research and art, but as bankable, relatable and demanded elements of modern culture. But the popularity of dinosaurs does have an impact on other aspects of palaeontological PR, and in some conversations at our workshop ‘dinosaur’ almost became a bit of dirty word. No-one will deny the positive aspects of dinosaur popularity, but their dominance in popularised palaeontology influences outreach strategies, merchandising and public expectation, and not always in a positive way.

Some of the problems caused by dinosaurs were outlined in detail during talks at our workshop. We heard that a large portion of natural history museum visitors are exclusively concerned with seeing dinosaur exhibits, challenging natural history museums to use the rest of their collections in a meaningful, impactful manner. This is despite many museum goers being unable to distinguish dinosaur remains from those of other animals without the aid of helpful signage. It seems that, for some museum visitors, dinosaurs act like a brand label, or justification for interest, rather than an excuse to visit a museum for a rounded educational experience.

We also heard that bringing attention to non-dinosaur groups can be extremely difficult, and the less dinosaur-like they are, the harder it is. Groups like pre-Cenozoic synapsids, extinct invertebrates, fossil fish and so on struggle for attention and require highly creative outreach tactics to receive any interest. One of the commonest strategies - used frequently for semi-technical books on fossil animals (below) - is to make sure dinosaurs remain prominently mentioned even in those events or products which are focused on completely unrelated groups of animals. We just don’t trust most non-dinosaur clades to draw crowds or revenue on their own and have to spin them as being relevant to dinosaurs in some way. Tellingly, the only groups to escape frequent dinosaur namechecking are those which are already somewhat ‘dinosaur-like’. Giant fossil mammals, pterosaurs and Mesozoic marine reptiles share aspects of size and gross appearance with Mesozoic dinosaurs and might be seen as ‘honorary dinosaurs’ by the public, and perhaps mistakenly interpreted as the genuine article by many. Both dinosaur-targeted museum visits and our resistance to promote palaeontological topics without a dinosaurian safety net questions whether dinosaurs are a genuine ‘gateway’ to wider scientific education, and perhaps suggests a rather narrower interest in prehistoric life among the public.

Just some of the non-dinosaurian textbooks coming your way in 2017. Probably.

Our group also raised the association between dinosaur outreach and very young demographics, and the challenge this presented to educators. The problem isn’t that many children are naturally interested in dinosaurs - if anything, this is something to celebrate and encourage - but the impact this association has on older audiences. Many adults assume that anything to do with dinosaurs, and by extension any prehistoric animal, is automatically related to children, and often very young children. This becomes an issue for to those attempting to perform outreach or market palaeontologically-informed products to older audiences, and particularly outside of online venues. Experience shows that ‘real world’ dinosaur events - regardless of venue, event type or advertising theme - will be primarily stocked by children and parents expecting child-friendly media. I’ve experienced this many times in my outreach career, such as bowing to pressure for colouring-in stations at a palaeoart gallery, being asked whether a public lecture (entitled Palaeoart: the Never Ending Quest for Accuracy) was suitable for toddlers, and being invited to run art stalls and events for older audiences at dinosaur-themed events to find few interested people over 10 years of age.

The general expectation that dinosaur-related events or products skew towards children presents a complex set of challenges. Firstly, it can lead to older audiences deciding a priori that they cannot take anything away from dinosaur outreach because the event - whatever it is - is ‘just for kids’. I’m sure many of us have seen how ‘switched off’ parents of young dinosaur fanatics are when visiting outreach events, even though the people their children are speaking to may be expert scientists, experienced fossil hunters or world-renowned palaeoartists. Secondly, mismatched expectations of outreach events can be frustrating for both outreachers and audiences: attendees may wonder why a dinosaur event is pitched above the level of their children, while outreachers may feel over-prepared or over-invested in their activity programme when confronted with only young audiences. Perhaps the most concerning issue is that many outreachers and merchandisers use young demographics as an excuse for low scientific standards and sensationalism, promoting outdated, erroneous and sometimes idiosyncratic views of palaeontology because their audience is too young and insufficiently educated to know otherwise, or ignoring scientific data where it might curb child appeal. I am sure most readers can think of numerous examples of products - many labelled as ‘educational’ - which show evidence of this, and it’s easy to see how this attitude may play a major role in perpetuating outdated and erroneous ideas about the past.

One of our final discussion touched on perhaps another issue faced by dinosaur outreach: the schism between public and palaeontological appreciation of what dinosaurs are. For palaeontologists, dinosaurs are a constantly - and sometimes rapidly - evolving set of hypotheses and ideas, and this is what we generally try to present to the world in our outreach. But certain dinosaur concepts outgrew palaeontologist-steered media long ago and now occupy their own place in popular culture, one almost entirely divorced from developments of dinosaur science and instead orbiting their portrayals in film, TV and popular literature. Most of these products - even those produced in the last few years - stick to now long-outdated 20th century interpretations of dinosaur biology and, divorced from guiding hands of scientists, solely emphasise marketable aspects such as their size, perceived ferociousness, and unusual anatomy. The result is a public largely familiar with dinosaurs in a scientifically-distanced, simplified and monstrous form rather than the animals reconstructed through biological and geological sciences, and with little appreciation for their evolutionary context, the scientific techniques used to understand them, or their relationship to wider, ‘core themes’ of scientific outreach. Recent studies partly vindicate this view in showing that the public are generally unaware of even the most basic aspects of dinosaur science, such as the near 50-year old revision from the classic ‘tail-dragging’ posture to an elevated tail and horizontal body attitude (Ross et al. 2013). This is despite museums, artwork, documentaries and some of the most successful blockbuster movies of all time showing the latter since at least the 1990s. This being the case (and with an added caveat that the study in question was relatively small), perhaps our issue with dinosaur education is more severe than we thought: are people really engaging with dinosaur media at all, or are our subjects of research, artwork, and hallowed gateways to other sciences little more than time-fillers and distractions?

Despite the best efforts of many scientists, the public at large seem to associate dinosaurs with considerably outdated interpretations and monstrous creatures. Reviewing recent successful entries into one of the most widely-accessed sources of popular dinosaur culture - Hollywood movies - is this surprising? Perhaps the most visually progressive rendering in this set are the sparsely feathered dromaeosaurs from Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (bottom right). However, the state of their integument still recalls dinosaur palaeoart from the mid-1990s, and not the extensive feather body covering shown by fossil evidence and now commonly restored over certain dinosaur species. Image sources, from top row down; King Kong (2005); Godzilla (2014); Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014); Toy Story (1996 - onwards); Jurassic World (2015); The Good Dinosaur (2015).

So, are dinosaurs as useful as we think for outreach purposes?

The points raise a simple but significant question: how effective is dinosaur-based outreach, really? As noted above, many decisions about outreach are shaped around dinosaur science and resources are poured into promoting dinosaur science itself. But are we right to regard dinosaur outreach as highly as we do?

Trying to balance the positive and negative points raised above, my take is yes, dinosaurs are an effective means to bringing science to people… but probably only certain people. Specifically, they seem to work very well among those who are already tuned into palaeontology, natural history and general science, an audience composed mostly of adult enthusiasts and children. Beyond this, their effect seems to tail off quickly and they may actually be a barrier to effective outreach. Audiences with preconceived expectations of dinosaur-themed content may ignore anything dinosaur related, which is a concern with us giving dinosaurs such privileged consideration in educational material. Are we limiting our promotion of other topics that could engage these uninterested people? And is one of our challenges of popularising palaeontology making dinosaurs and related topics universally attractive, and not just subjects with appeal to specialist audiences or younger people?

Of course, your opinion on this matter may differ. But even so, I think most of us would agree that our wider education about dinosaurs and related matters could be more effective, or at least more nuanced and reflective of more topics, than it currently is. I am optimistic that a groundswell of suitable movements towards this goal may already be underway. Many modern curators, scientists and artists are attuned to matters of science communication and interested in identifying outreach issues, sharing best practise, evolving public engagement methods and reaching new audiences with new topics. The fact that this article is being written as output from a workshop dedicated to popularised palaeontology is evidence of these practises actually occurring, and it feels like the right questions are being discussed. How can we, and when should we, shift focus from dinosaurs? How do we make other forms of life/parts of museum collections of wider interest? How do we more effectively impart new science to publishers, movie makers and other non-educational bodies making palaeontologically-themed media? It’s also pleasing to see more discussions about the once largely backgrounded industry practises of palaeoartistry in both scientific and popular media. Realising the important role that palaeoart has for communicating science, many involved in its production are vocally distancing themselves from the ‘popularised’ image of dinosaurs to more nuanced, scientifically-validated and interesting portrayals of dinosaurs, as well as other forms of prehistoric life. We are still on the uphill part of this journey to revising our outreach approach, but it’s reassuring to know that a body of professionals are looking critically at dinosaur outreach and its wider impact.

Minor victories in recent palaeontological outreach involve effectively communicating to certain, interested audiences that Deep Time was not a dinosaur theme park, and that fossil creatures did not spend all their time battling and roaring at one another. Evidence that this message has hit home with at least some audiences is reflected in the broadening depth and nuance of palaeoart being posted across the internet. Shown here: my take on Jurassic stem-mammals, a gorgonopsian, gliding drepanosaurs, a goniopholidid crocodyliform, Cretaceous albanerpetontid, erythrosuchids, and... Longisquama, whatever the heck that is. Not shown here: dinosaurs in premier view, or roaring. The challenge is getting scenes like this, and subjects like this, to wider audiences.

Most of the discussions and innovation in dinosaur/palaeontolgical outreach are taking place online, and transferring these to ‘real-world’ outreach, where the necessity of resource investment makes change risky, may be our greatest upcoming challenge. Again, however, there are signs of this sort of thing happening, such as the famous (or infamous?) decision to replace the Natural History Museum’s famous Diplodocus cast with a blue whale skeleton. This logic of moving this famous attraction has been questioned by some, but I admire the museum for putting a very relevant and symbolically significant specimen in their most prominent location. In doing so, they’re making a clear statement about what they consider to be important, and what they want the public to engage with. Whether you agree with the controversial reorganisation of the natural history museum or not, the idea of outreachers taking initiative with their educational agenda is something I feel we should echo when popularising prehistoric animals. If our outreach is primarily reaching pre-interested audiences anyway, then why not have faith in their interest and tell them what we - as researchers, artists and curators - think is fascinating and exciting about our field, whether it’s related to dinosaurs or not? It would seem a diverse array of outreach topics is more likely to spread out from palaeo-primed audiences and into broader public interest than one largely revolving around a single, perhaps somewhat over-familiar topic. Perhaps cutting palaeontological outreach’s umbilical chord with dinosaurs would benefit us outreachers too, allowing us to freshen and rethink our approach to popularising neglected groups and focus on their own selling points, instead of using them to greater contextualise dinosaurs.

The risk of failure is what prevents many of us, and our employers, from straying too far from tried and tested means of outreach. And yes, if we’re talking paleontology with the public, dinosaurs are an obvious safety net. But we should take advantage of the fact that we’re more enabled than any previous generation of educators to cooperate, create and promote the subjects we feel are important with only a little inventive thinking and technological knowhow. Individuals can now develop significant outreach resources without the need for expensive designers and developers; online promotion can be essentially free; and the increasing accessibility of printing - both 2D and 3D materials - is lowering the financial risks tied into ‘real world’ outreach events. Any public enterprise involves a level of investment and risk, but resourceful thinking and shouldering the brunt of development ourselves can minimise these.

In closing, I want to stress that I’m not wailing on dinosaurs. As may be evident from my own output, I think they’re fantastically interesting animals with an important role to play in outreach. But for dinosaur outreach to be successful and support, not restrict, other outreach efforts we have to realise their limitations, as well as their strengths, as public ambassadors.

This piece of outreach was supported by Patreon

The paintings and words featured here are sponsored by folks who are certainly very popular in my house, my Patreon backers. Supporting my blog from $1 a month helps me produce researched and detailed articles with paintings to accompany them, and in return you get access to bonus blog content: additional commentary, in-progress sneak-previews of paintings, high-resolution artwork, and even free prints. For this post we'll be looking at my new angry nodosaur painting, discussing ankylosaurs in palaeoart and why they're so darned challenging to render well. Sign up to Patreon to be part of the discussion!

Reference

• Ross, R., Duggan-Haas, D. and Allmon, W. (2013). The posture of Tyrannosaurus rex: Why do student views lag behind the science? Journal of Geoscience Education, 61, 145-160

New takes on the Wealden Supergroup palaeobiota, part 2: Baryonyx, freshwater plesiosaurs, ornithomimosaurs and others

Last week we took a look at some new art of animals from the Wealden Supergroup, the intensively studied, historically important Lower Cretaceous rocks of Southern Britain. We all know the Wealden for celebrity dinosaurs like Iguanodon and Baryonyx, but there's a heap of other interesting animals in there which get relatively little publicity. It's mostly these we're focusing on here, in the second (and final) part of these 'picture of the day'-style posts. 

As before, if you like anything here, remember that you can buy prints of them all from my shop (the Wealden section might be relevant) and its new Facebook outlet. Indeed, if you like my work and are on Facebook, why not 'like' the new Mark Witton Palaeoart page? It's the best place to see when new prints and finished pictures are available.

Baryonyx walkeri: king of the fishers, redux

Baryonyx walkeri, off for a stroll among the crocodyliforms and pterosaurs.

Let's break this post in with a familiar animal: spinosaurid Baryonyx. It's hard to appreciate now how weird this animal seemed back in the 1980s and 1990s. At this point, other spinosaur material was only very poorly known, and laymen and scientists alike found this weird, superficially-crocodile like animal fascinating. Ironically, it's recently turned out that we first collected Wealden spinosaur material centuries ago, but struggled to recognise its significance until more complete remains were unearthed in the 1980s. We now know that Baryonyx can be found throughout a good chunk of upper Wealden stratigraphy and teeth referable to it - or another spinosaurid - are fairly common, at least as Wealden dinosaur fossils go. Baryonyx provided the basic template we'd recognise for all spinosaurid anatomy until last year when, famously, some spinosaurs were proposed to be rather different. It's clear that, whatever is going on with Spinosaurus, Baryonyx retains more conventional hindlimb and pelvic proportions, and may not have been so aquatically adapted as true spinosaurines. In this updated image, B. walkeri is splashing into a body of water while goniopholidid crocodyliforms and gnathosaurine pterosaurs go about their business around it. Note how much larger Baryonyx is compared to the crocs: Baryonyx is the largest theropod in the Wealden Supergroup, by a good margin.

Button-toothed crocs, redux

Bernissartid Koumpiodontosuchus aprosdokiti foraging for molluscs. It's eating a mud snail, Viviparus cariniferus, while tiny (6 mm long) physid gastropods Prophysa crawl over pond scum in the lower left of the image. Dragonflies provide scale, and unnamed tetanurans prowl around the background.

Last year I was lucky enough to provide the first restoration of Kompiodontosuchus aprosdokiti, a small neosuchian crocodyliform common to the Wessex Formation, and perhaps other parts of the Wealden sequence. Koumpiodontosuchus is a bernissartid, a group of small-bodied crocodyliforms with robust, shell-cracking teeth at the back of their jaws. As you'll know if you read my write up last year, these were likely employed in smashing molluscs and insects. The tetanuran theropods in this image are unnamed, but are not thought to be referable to any existing Wealden taxa. We probably need more material of them to consider them nameable, however: recognising that they are different from other Wealden theropods is only half the battle. Modern students of Wealden fossils famously do their best to preserve historic names based on fragmentary bones, but there seems to be an effort to 'future proof' Wealden taxonomy against confusion by only naming well-represented, characteristic animals. I guess I could have chosen one of the better known theropods to play the 'This was the Age of Dinosaurs' card for this PR image, but I think it's good to show that not all large theropods in the Wessex palaeobiota were Neovenator, Baryonyx or Eotyrannus. 

Welcoming the new Wealden ornithomimosaurs

A flock of Wessex Formation ornithomimosaurs forage in a marshland, while istiodactylid pterosaurs skulk about behind them.

Those keeping their ears to the ground will know that the newest arrivals to the Wealden dinosaur palaeobiota are ornithomimosaurs, commonly known as ostrich dinosaurs. Two specimens show that these animals were present in both the Weald and Wessex basins of the broader Wealden succession, and one of these fossils represents a historic taxon named in 1889: Valdoraptor oweni. Key to identifying ostrich dinosaurs in the Wealden was the discovery of abundant ornithomimosaur remains in France, many of which are so reminiscent of Valdoraptor and other Wealden theropod material that they may represent the same taxon. If you want to know more about these and their relationship to the complex story of Wealden theropods, check out Darren Naish's post on this at Tetrapod Zoology.

The above new painting shows a group of (nameless) Wessex Formation ornithomimosaurs in a well-vegetated marshland, in the rainy season, while istiodactylid pterosaurs mosey about in the background. The abundance of ostrich dinosaurs and juveniles in the middle-right are nods to the frequent recovery of abundant specimens of different levels of maturity at many ostrich dinosaur sites, including the new, French 'Angeac ornithomimosaur'. Note that the wings of the running foreround animal are somewhat swept back: I don't think the more common way of reconstructing ornithomimosaurs with 'dangly arms' looks right. They look like they should be holding shopping bags or something.

Valdosaurus in the forest, redux

Two Wealden dryosaurids Valdosaurus canaliculatus, and a stubborn avialan.

Ornithomimosaurs weren't the only fast runners in Wealden landscapes. Dryosaurids, like Valdosaurus canaliculatus were also fleet-footed animals with powerful, well-muscled hindlimbs, and tiny bodies attached to the front. In this reworked image, two of these 3-4 m long animals are taking it slow through a Wealden woodland. Although Wealden climates were quite warm and arid, leaving much of the landscape looking quite chaparral-like, some relatively upland parts seem to have been more vegetated: it's here that this picture is set. In my mind, these animals always walked with the stooping posture of the foreground animal - as noted last time, I like the idea that prehistoric animals had characteristic postures varying slightly from those we consistently restore in skeletal restorations. Note the avialan on the left of the image, which is a nod to the recovery of bird teeth from Wealden deposits. Anyone who's ever been forced to walk around a stubborn reclined mallard will recognise the situation now facing the Valdosaurus.

Barilium dawsomi in leathers, redux

Barilium dawsoni, a large and very robust iguanodont from Sussex. A flock of 'Ashdown maniraptorans' add scale.

Last time we featured Iguanodon bernissartensis: now it's the turn of the 'other' big Wealden iguanodont, the stratigraphically older, and osteologically chunkier Barilium dawsoni. In this redone painting, I've tried to make the Barilium skin more interesting than just plain old scales, covering the back in small, horny ossicles and creasing the flanks as if the skin is particularly thick, leathery and folded. I think we should be rendering more interesting skin regularly in scaly dinosaur palaeoart, as it seems most extensive dinosaur skin remains show unexpected features - strangle scales, wattles, folds and that sort of thing - which small skin patches mostly cannot record adequately. It's interesting to contrast these skin impressions with homogeneous restorations of scaly dinosaur appearance presented by some, where every species is covered in smooth hide following perfect contours of the underlying tissues: I'm not sure that's what fossils are telling us. As before, the 'Ashdown maniraptoran' provides scale to the bulk of Barilium. For the uninitiated, the Ashdown maniraptoran is seriously small for a Mesozoic dinosaur - maybe about 30-50 cm long. If you find big iguanodonts exciting, be sure to check out this previous post.

Polacanthus redux, again

A Wealden tree vies for attention with Polacanthus foxii, and some tiny birds.

OK, I'm cheating a bit with this one. This redone version of a much older painting has been posted fairly recently, but it seemed a bit remiss to skip this ankylosaur in this run down of recently produced Wealden palaeoart. Polacanthus foxii is, of course, the Wealden's sacral-shield-bearing nodosaurid, shown here strolling around a Cretaceous hillock with some birds for company. Having scratched the completist itch, let's move on, because we've seen this all before.

Accidentally sinister Leptocleidus, redux 

Mother and calf Leptocleidus superstes, a freshwater leptocleidid plesiosaur, explore a river inlet in Lower Cretaceous Sussex. 

Our final stop is in Wealden rivers and estuaries, where Leptocleidus superstes and other species of freshwater leptocleidid plesiosaurs roamed. The new version of this image has added a lot of detail on top of the original, which has inadvertently made the mother and calf Leptocleidus look more sinister than intended - hey, it's not my fault their teeth stick out like that. Back in the original post on these animals I mentioned that pliosaurs may also have been present in Wealden lakes and rivers, but note that this is no longer certain: the Hastanectes valdensis remains once provisionally considered pliosauroid have been placed in Leptocleididae in more recent analyses. That does make for a neater story - it means that leptocleidids retain their dominant role as 'near-shore-or-freshwater' animals, but perhaps a slightly less interesting one.

And that's all for now - I hope you've enjoyed this jaunt back to the ancient Wealden and these revised artworks. I'm sure we'll visit the Wealden again in time. Coming next, probably: walking with non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs.

More new-old art: Therizinosaurus, superpigeon, and Polacanthus, walking coffee table

Two Therizinosaurus cheliformis hanging out in Late Cretaceous Mongolia. The guy on the left thinks he's all that: she doesn't. Prints are available from my online store.

Time for more new takes on old pictures. First up, above, is a reworking of my 2013 image of two Therizinosaurus cheloniformis, giant therizinosaurids from Maastrichtian deposits of Mongolia. Before we knew just how bizarre Deinocheirus was, these pot-bellied, small-headed and scythe-clawed animals held the title of least expected anatomy in a non-avian theropod. The metre-long claws on their hands suggest they were dangerous, ferocious animals, and they are often restored with long arms and claws ready to lash out at passers by. I don't doubt that being clobbered by a Therizinosaurus would be an experience best avoided, but, being herbivores, they probably spent far more of their time eating and digesting that they did swatting other animals. For me, Therizinosaurus was figuratively 'de-clawed' for good in John Conway's restoration of them as squatting, shaggy 'feather mountains' harvesting leaves from trees. Since then, restorations of keen-eyed, 'scythe weilding' therizinosaurs have seen especially silly, even among other 'slasher pose' artwork.

My own restoration of these animals sides with the idea of Therizinosaurus being a large herbivore largely disinterested in the world around it. A clear source of reference for this painting were pigeons, specially the wood pigeon Columba palumbus. I find the proportions of these birds - tubby bodies, small feet, small heads - reminiscent of the anatomy of large therizinosaurs, and I thought it might be fun to mix the two together. The male animal on the left of the image is engaged in pigeon-like display behaviour, strutting around with a cocked head, inflated chest and making noises best described as 'übercoos'. The female, right, like most female pigeons presented with courting, couldn't be less interested (although, to be honest, it's hard to tell what pigeons find interesting: they always seem a bit confused to me. They're like avian Dougal McGuires).

Much as I normally try to avoid painting ancient animals in the clothes of modern species, I quite like the spin the pigeon-appearance puts on these animals. All too often Mesozoic dinosaurs are considered embodiments of savage natural selection and intense, often violent competition. There are few modern animals with characters further from this concept than pigeons, which succeed despite their apparent tendencies for confusion, pratfallery, and seemingly simple behaviour*. Transferring these qualities to the Mesozoic seems to put a different spin on ancient dinosaur lifestyles ecology.

*I say this with fondness: I find watching pigeons really interesting. I'm sure they're a lot more sophisticated than they often appear.

Wealden ankylosaur Polacanthus foxii and tiny feathered friends. Prints are available from my store.

Next up is another reworked 2013 piece, the large ankylosaur Polacanthus foxii on a Wealden hillock, with some speculative avians hitchikers. I was lucky enough to have a quick glimpse at some new Polacanthus material being worked on at the University of Southampton a few years back, including lots of limb and hip elements. The size of the specimens was really impressive (an impression helped, I guess, by the fact I'm used to working on much smaller, more gracile pterosaur bones) and it definitely seems that, like other ankylosaurs, Polacanthus was a 'walking coffee table': a low slung creature with a flattish back. The broad sacral shield of was probably an excellent place to put drinks, and experts have recently predicted that Polacanthus had very strict 'use a coaster' policy.

There are two species of birds show here: a flock of small, grey forms leaving the tree, and a suite of smaller brown birds hanging out on the Polacanthus itself. These animals are speculative additions to this Wealden scene as, while possible avialan teeth have from one Wealden formation (the Wessex) have been mentioned, I don't think they've been described or analysed in detail just yet. However, a diverse suite of small birds have been found in Lower Cretaceous deposits elsewhere in the world (including Wealden-equivalent deposits of Spain, and famously in China), so it's not a huge stretch to embellish a painting with such animals.

The Golden Age of Palaeoart?

Polacanthus foxii, a Lower Cretaceous ankylosaur from the Wealden of southern Britain, trying to shake some tiny birds off his nose as he strolls around a knoll of horsetails. Prints of this image are available.

It's a bad time for many industries, communities and institutions at present. Economies have crashed around the world, money for scientific research and artistic projects is at an all time low, education and human rights are being challenged by extreme social movements and the global biosphere is in crisis. To make matters worse, there's not even anything good on TV to take our minds off it all. But all is not lost. At least one institution, and likely one that folks reading this will care about a lot, is thriving. Indeed, it may be a veritable Golden Age for this industry, creatively at least, and there's no sign this boom period is going to end soon. I'm talking, of course, about palaeoart.

The recent history of palaeoart has been pretty interesting. We've seen the publication of several new books which are, for various reasons, likely to be considered seminal palaeoartistic works in years to come. New philosophies to palaeoart have emerged, and, all the while, the internet palaeoart community continues to grow and evolve. It's not only these developments which have helped palaeoart blossom particularly brightly in recent years, however. The advancement of new technologies, as well changes to academic publishing models, have also help usher in this wave of palaeoartistic splendidness. Some of these developments may sound a little humdrum, and some may be so obvious that we've not really sat to think about them before, but they may well make today one of the best times ever to be practising the art of reconstructing extinct organisms.

The Future, now!, and what it means for palaeoart
We'll start at the most fundamental end of palaeoart procedure: acquiring reference material. This has long been a problem for palaeoartists. Because palaeoart has an obvious firm rooting in palaeontological science, no self-respecting palaeoartist begins their work without developing an understanding of the anatomy of their target species. This typically involves working from scientific texts which have been, classically, hidden away behind publisher paywalls, unavailable to anyone without access to a university library, an online subscription to their services, or unwilling to part with obscenely-large sums of money for a single pdf download. There have always been ways around this - emailing authors, asking connected friends for photocopies or pdfs - but there's still an initial barrier to hurdle before work is even started.

The sign of better times. From Wikimedia Commons.

Happily, these walls are starting to crumble. The Open Access movement, which makes scientific literature available free to everyone, everywhere, has taken the academic world by storm, and even the greediest publishers are being forced to make their archived material more readily available. The battle for entirely free scientific literature is not yet over, but its victories are already making the life of palaeoartists far easier: high-quality reference material is increasingly often only a click away. It's not just the availability of literature which is a boon, either. New, online-only journals have thrown aside pesky limitations on figure numbers and image quality, permitting publication of numerous, top-quality illustrations for reference. Sometimes, we even get spinny-rotatey movies of CT scans to work from, showing anatomies in almost any view we could desire. As a bonus, the digital format of this information makes it easy to zoom up to tiny details which would be lost in print publications, allows for easily compiling our own anatomical reference sheets, and makes tracing anatomies for skeletal reconstructions infinitely easier than it's been in the past.

It's not just scientific papers that are an increasingly accessible resource, either. Dedicated websites committed to archiving the anatomical information craved by palaeoartists are becoming more plentiful. Sites like Digimorph, the Witmerlab pages, and the Bird Skull Collection are full of detailed graphics of animal anatomy of both extinct and modern species, and they're entirely free to access. Even Wikipedia is doing a fairly good job at providing references for palaeoartists. The excellent image of the sacral shield of Polacanthus, below, was sourced from the Wikipedia entry for that species for use the reconstructions adorning this post, for instance, and there's a lot more where that came from. Add this the increasing wealth of information scientists are putting online through blogs, podcasts, media releases and Youtube channels, and palaeoartists are on considerably better ground for finding reference material than we were even a decade ago.

 Woodward's 1881 depiction of the Polacanthus foxii sacral shield. From Wikipedia.

By palaeoartists, for palaeoartists
It's not only the scientific community that's feeding the blooming palaeoart scene. Several authors, many of them world-class palaeoartists themselves, have recently been producing easily-accessed works which are almost solely designed as references for fellow palaeoartists. I'm referring, of course, to the digital and printed works of the likes of Gregory Paul, Scott Hartman, Jaime Headden, Mike Hanson, and others. These chaps have published extensive libraries of anatomical orthographics for numerous fossil species, made suggestions about the most appropriate ways to reconstruct extinct anatomies, and generally helped artists transition fossil bones to restored animals significantly in recent years. (Note that a lot of Paul's guidance in this area pre-dates the Internet, and has mostly been published in books and magazines. Pdf versions of these articles, including his seminal 'rigorous guide' to dinosaur reconstruction from 1987, are available from his website). Matthew Martyniuk has also been contributing to this area recently, his excellent guide to Mesozoic birds (Martyniuk 2012)* and website detailing approaches to reconstructing avialans and their immediate ancestors. Elsewhere, I made a stab at providing a few helpful pointers to reconstructing pterosaurs in my own book, with some text and graphics specifically targeted at palaeoartists (Witton 2013). Even non-artists, like the guys behind Tetrapod Zoology and SV:POW!, are getting in on the act, regularly commenting on the possible life appearance of their extinct subjects and providing constructive criticism on certain bits of palaeoart.

The books, imagery and accessible discussions of these individuals will almost certainly inform palaeoartists for years to come. In particular, Paul's (2010) Field Guide to Dinosaurs is probably the most comprehensive collection of dinosaur skeletal reconstructions in a single volume, ever, and is of obvious utility for the high numbers of palaeoartists interested in Mesozoic dinosaurs. Pushing Paul (2010) as a key reference is, of course, complicated by Paul's insistence that his orthographics are not to be used as reference material by other artists. I must admit to finding this request a little odd and I suspect it's mostly falling on deaf ears. Still, however you want to use it, Paul's book, and other recently published resources like it, are invaluable resources for palaeoartists, and make it easier than ever for everyone to get basic anatomical data for their subject matter.

Taking it to strange new places
Is there any reason to think our conveyance of palaeontological subjects has improved in recent years? This is very much a matter of opinion, but I think it has, for some species at least. I've got to stress that this isn't because modern artists are more talented than their forebears. It's because modern palaeoartists seem to have finally got a handle on the rather dramatic new ideas and data that have coming our way for the last few decades, which has helped make newer depictions of certain species a little more convincing than those that came before. For instance, we've been bombarded with the discoveries of feathers on numerous type of non-avian dinosaurs, new considerations of soft-tissue masses (e.g. pterosaur limb musculature, dinosaur caudofemoralis mass) and novel ideas on the locomotory habits and postures of many species. That's a lot to take in and regurgitate into an image. It's not only changing scientific opinions which have altered the way we restore the ancient world, either. Radical shifts in palaeoartistic culture have also occurred, such as the well documented (including here) move away from overly conservative and 'shrink-wrapped' depictions of fossil species. It's been a changeable and dynamic few decades for palaeoartists, and I think it's understandable that it's taken a little time to work out what all this new information and philosophical changes equate to in artwork.

Perceptions of pterosaurs have changed a lot in recent years. The thin, lanky azhdarchid on the left didn't look odd in 2006, but looks positively anorexic compared to more recent reconstructions (right, from Witton 2013).

The upshot of this, in my opinion at least, is reconstructions of several species - including well-known taxa - have only started to appear in the last few years. This particularly applies to animals like maniraptoran dinosaurs and pterosaurs, species which have been classically portrayed rather outlandishly because of their unusual anatomy and some outlandish approaches to their depiction (Slasher Poses, I'm looking at you). I'm astounded at the convincingness of some of Matt Martyniuk's reconstructions in his Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds, for instance. His oviraptorosaurs look like elegant creatures painted from life, instead of the incredibly goofy forms we're more familiar with. The same applies to Emily Wolloughby's bouncy, eutherian-chasing Velociraptor, John Conway's famous squatting Therizinosaurus and many others. These animals make a lot more sense to look at now now, as do a lot of other restored ancient creatures. My feeling, at least, is that these very recent interpretations of these animals are closer to reality than anything we've seen before, and that can only be a good thing.

As an added bonus, an almost postmodern approach to palaeoart has emerged (crystallised, of course, in All Yesterdays [Conway et al. 2012]), which helps avoid the many tropes and clichéd artwork we see again and again. The result is that modern palaeoart may not only be more accurate to life, but is more interesting to look at. I almost get the feeling that there's greater confidence in palaeoart than there used to be. Because we know more about the animals, more about the most convincing ways to depict them, and more about our own collective foibles, palaeoart seems to be moving confidently into new and interesting areas. Again, I stress that I'm not downplaying the quality or importance of other artists and previous work - as with any artform, palaeoart is a product of its history - but it feels that a lot of modern palaeoart is trying hard to break into new territory. And that's great.

Being seen and heard
Of course, all of this work would be for nothing if it weren't seen. As a child living in the pre-Internet age, the only way I'd see new palaeoart was though purchasing new books, or sometimes in magazines and newspapers. New bits of artwork were rare, important events. The situation nowadays couldn't be more different. Most palaeoartists have online galleries or blogs (or both), and they post new artwork to Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. We don't just see new press release artwork because it's been a slow news day: if a new bit of artwork is released, there's a good chance we'll see it. What's more, the artists themselves are no longer simply represented by squiggled names in the corner of an image: social media allows them to introduce and comment on their work. While most of this is happening online, it does, on occasion, still happen in print: see Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Palaeoart (White 2012), and Douglas Henderson's new book detailing his early work and inspirations (here) for examples. I think this is a terrific change from simply waiting for new books to be released. There's a much greater sense of community, greater familiarity with each other's work, and very liberal exchange of ideas.

A closer look at the Polacanthus from up top. He's nothing to do with anything here, just livening up the post.

The Internet has also revealed how much terrific artwork is being done by up-and-coming artists. The only palaeoart we routinely saw in the 90s was that of a few masters: Henderson, Hallett, Sibbick, Paul and so forth. Nowadays, we know of have a much broader range of individuals producing art at very high levels. The growing number of palaeoartists seems to have ruffled a few feathers among some established profressionals who have found a lot of their work being outsourced to others (see this thread on the Dinosaur Mailing List) but, on reflection, I think growth in the palaeoart community is inevitable. Greater availability of palaeontological information, the rise of the online palaeontological community, the increasing availability of palaeoartistic guidance, the affordability of digital painting setups and the ease of uploading content online are all contributing factors here. This does mean greater dispersal of the available work among more individuals, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about that.

Besides, this greater range of artists has to be a good thing, and not just because it we get to see more palaeoart. It also allows for a wider range of styles and media than we're used to. Most palaeoart I remember from my childhood was attempting to rival photographs in detail, but a lot of modern work offers more stylised - more artistic, even - interpretations of ancient life. This goes hand-in-hand with a range of media being used. Modern palaeoart is not only being produced by traditional painting and sculpture, but also by compositing photographs, 3D digital modelling, digital painting, vector art and combinations thereof. It's great seeing how these diverse media bring ancient worlds to life in different hands, and makes working within the palaeoart community a generally more interesting and inspirational place.

On top of that, the palaeoart community itself is proving to be an active and interesting one, with events like the open source Life Galleries of ArtEvolved (sadly, these galleries are coming to an end soon after a 4 year run), palaeoart competitions at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs and from the All Yesterdays chaps, and even pooling resources to generate it's own independent products. And this doesn't even scratch the surface of palaeoart coverage and events in social media, not the mention the palaeoartist meetings and gatherings that now frequently happen at conferences. We only have to look to the rapid uptake and discussion of All Yesterdays as a good example of how lively and active the online palaeoart community is. How successful would that project have been without the online palaeoart community?

So there you have it
And that's why, all told, I think we're living in a 'Golden Age' of palaeoart. There's more of it, the artwork we have is generally better informed because of improved access to reference material and guidance from experts, we've (finally) got a a handle on ways to reconstruct some stranger ancient species and, to boot, developed a wide, friendly community of excellent artists. It's a good time to be a palaeoartist, then, and long may that continue.

References

• Conway, J., Kosemen, C. M. and Naish, D. 2012. All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals. Irregular Books.
• Martyniuk, 2012. A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and Other Winged Dinosaurs. Pan Aves.
• Paul, G. S. 1987. The science and art of restoring the life appearance of dinosaurs and their relatives – a rigorous how-to guide. In Czerkas, S. J. and Olson, E. C. (eds) Dinosaurs Past and Present Vol. II. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County/University of Washington Press, pp. 4-49.
• Paul, G. S. 2010. The Princeton field guide to dinosaurs. Princeton University Press.
• White, S. 2012. Dinosaur Art: the World’s Greatest Paleoart. Titan Books, London.
• Witton, M. P. 2013. Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy. Princeton University Press.