Mar 5, 2022
A quick update for my baby Maiasaura illustration. Details, patterning, and shadows.
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A quick update for my baby Maiasaura illustration. Details, patterning, and shadows.
Fleshing out my Incisivosaurus gauthieri.
Fish coffee for Rhamphorhynchus.
Work in progress sketch for Quetzelcoatlus northropi. Discovered in 1971 in Texas by Douglas Lawson, this pterosaur lived during the Late Cretaceous (68 to 66 million years ago) and was one of the largest animals capable of flight in the fossil record. With an estimated wingspan of roughly 33 feet and a walking height of roughly 16 feet in height, with terrestrial proportions having been compared to those of a modern day Giraffe, only with a skull longer than a fully grown human. Despite this size it was relatively lightly built with upper estimates being between 440 to 550 pounds.
Not the only giant pterosaur, Q. northropi was part of a family of huge Cretaceous flyers called Azhdarchidae, with members of said family spread throughout the world.
It's thought that Quetzelcoatlus likely acted as giant Heron-like predators, hunting down prey in terrestrial and shallow water environments. Evidence suggests that it was quite ambulatory, walking on all 4 limbs while on the ground with it's wings folded at the sides. Very recently published research suggests that the hind legs were likely free of wing membrane and that such attachments would have been functionally useless based on the known anatomy.
It is important to not that the fossil remains of Quetzelcoatlus northropi are very fragmentary and much of the suggested proportions are drawn from other related (but smaller specimens) both of which were found in the Javelina formation. The smaller specimen was name as a different species of the same genus with more research being conducted on the larger remains to determine if they were the same or a different species.
Some more work in progress towards the completion of Phorusrhachos longissimus, the type species for the group known as the Terror Birds. Since I am doing a pair of them I am a little more than 50% finished, but soon enough I will have the second big bird completed as well. Color and patterning is largely based on 2 extant birds of prey native to Argentina, where P. longissimus's remains were first discovered, the Bay-Winged Hawk and the Black-Chested Buzzard-Eagle.
A wasteland emerges.
Work in progress sketch for Struthiomimus altus.
S. altus was a relatively small theropod from the Late Cretaceous (77 to 66 million years ago). Like many other members of it's family it was extremely bird-like, possessing a toothless beak and a body shape resembling modern-day flightless birds like the Ostrich, this lead directly to its name, which means "ostrich mimic."
While big when compared to a human, with its length reaching over 14 feet and weighing in at 330 lb, It was small compared to the animals it shared its environment with. It had one major advantage over many of its larger neighbors, and that was speed; some estimates suggest that it may have been able to reach between 30 and 50 mph.
Due to the shape of it's beak it's possible it was an omnivore, feeding on whatever small animals and plants it could in order to stay one step ahead.
Color work in progress of Nothosaurus mirabilis.