#john meszaros

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“The Enfield Horror” by John Meszaros (website, Deviantart, Blogspot).

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“Crawfordsville Monster” by John Meszaros.

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Anomalocarid illustration by John Meszaros

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Baroque Sharks | ©John Meszaros

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Three Porcupines | ©John Meszaros

Featured here are the three main types of porcupines: (i) The North-American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum); (ii) The South-American Prehensile-Tailed Porcupine (Coendou prehensilis); and (iii) The African Crested Porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis).

Although they are in the same rodent group (The Hystricognathi), Old World and New World Porcupines are actually in two different taxonomic Families (Hystricidae and Erithizontidae, respectively).

The North- and South- American porcupines are actually more closely related to chinchillas, capybaras, cavies, and guinea pigs (the Caviomorpha) than they are to the African Crested. 

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Anglerfish Group

These illustrations feature at least one representative from 11 of the 16-18 recognized anglerfish families (Order Lophiiformes).  

Artist: ©John Meszaros [Top photo] - [Bottom photo]

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ANOMALOCARIDS  [Anomalocaridids] Art and essay by John Meszaros

Anomalocarids are a group of (usually) predaceous arthropods found primarily in fossil beds of the Cambrian period.  

As more and more fossils are unearthed, the diversity of anomalocarids becomes increasingly clear.  

Some were the apex predator of their time,

others gentle plankton-skimmers,

some impaled actively swimming prey in the open water,

others probed for worms in the mud.

There are, however, a few features that unite them all:

GREAT APPENDAGES: Anomalocarids possessed a pair of spiny, multi-jointed feeding appendages on the front of the head. There is considerable variation in size and structure of these limbs among the various species. For instance, the "classic" anomalocarid, A. canadensis (the one people usually think of when they picture anomalocarids) had long, robust limbs with multi-pronged spines for capturing prey. Laggania cambria, on the other hand, had stubbier appendages with long, delicate, saw-like spines used for capturing plankton. On a historical side-note, the great appendages of A. canadensis, were originally discovered separate from the body due to decomposition before fossilization. As a result, the great appendages were originally described as completely separate organisms—specifically, a species of unusual shrimp (hence the name, Anomalocaris, which means “strange shrimp”.)

PINEAPPLE-RING MOUTH. The mouth of an anomalocarid is a ring formed from several wedge-shaped pieces. Like the great appendages, pineapple-ring mouth fossils were discovered before a complete specimen of the whole animal was known. Thus the mouth too was originally misidentified as an independent organism—a jellyfish called Peytoia.

SEGMENTED BODY WITH LATERAL FLAPS OR FINS FOR SWIMMING. Although researchers don’t know exactly how these fins moved in life, the most likely hypothesis is that they worked in a sequential sinusoidal motion like the wings of a stingray or the mantle of a squid or cuttlefish.

Available from the artist [(Nocturnal Sea)] as print and as t-shirt ... 

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Cambrian Microbial Mat by *NocturnalSea  [John Meszaros] October 2011

For the vast majority of Earth’s history, most of the ocean floor was covered by tough microbial mats. It was only in the Cambrian period that these mats were finally broken up by burrowing animals, creating the relatively soft, sediment-based ocean bottoms we know today. During the Cambrian many animals evolved to feed upon these microbial mats using rasping, radula-like organs. Here illustrated is a small assortment of them.

The red, scaled creatures with the blue dorsal spines are Wiwaxia.

The green, yellow-spined critters are Orthrozanclus.

The brown, sausage-shaped things with the shell at either end are Halkieria.

The blue and yellow flatworm-like creatures are Odontogriphus. Note that most of these creatures have armored scales and/or sharp spines as defenses against the many large Cambrian predators such as Sanctacaris in the upper left. While Odontogriphus was unarmored, I've imagined it here as a toxic animal like a sea slug. Its bright coloring advertises its unappetizing nature.

Well-developed microbial mats are stratified into several layers of microorganisms, usually with photosynthesizing cyanobacteria at the top. Here the mat-grazers have chewed away parts of this green cyanobacterial layer, revealing the purple-pink sulfur-utilizing bacterial layer below. The strings of white dots are bubbles of oxygen escaping from the edges of the cyanobacteria.

On the edge of this microbial mat is a forest of sponges, specifically: Crumillospongia, Halichondrites, Takakkawia, Pirania (with tiny Nisusia brachiopods attached to its spines) and Vauxia.

Also growing among the sponges are the odd Chancelloria (the spiked, pink-purple sponge-like organisms). While they superficially resemble sponges, several anatomical features of the chancellorids indicate that they are unrelated to Porifera. They may, in fact, be highly modified relatives of Wiwaxia, Halkerieria and Orthrozanclus (although that view is still fairly controversial).

Like the mat-grazers, many of these sponges have large spines, presumably to dissuade predators such as the blue lobopods feeding among them. 

Note the strings of hydroid-like organisms spreading out of the sponge forest. These are actually the red algae Waputikia.

Note also the tan, hydroid-like critters tucked among the sponges. These are Dinomischus. Like many Cambrian animals, their exact affinity is uncertain, but their closest living relatives are believed to be tiny, bryozoans-like animals called entoprocts