The science and art of paleontology
A blog on dinosaur anatomy and reconstructing the appearance of prehistoric animals.
First off, I want to thank everyone who participated, we ended up with over 1000 votes (though not necessarily 1000 voters, as we'll see below). There were several lead changes, but in the end a suspiciously strong showing for one dinosaur lost out to an even more suspicious last minute route by another dinosaur.
So without further ado, that (winning) dinosaur is...
Read MoreWe're about halfway through the vote to determine what my next skeletal reconstruction will be, so I tallied up all the votes from the previous post, Deviant Art, and the Skeletal Drawing Facebook page. Currently Yutyrannus is holding the lead, although several dinosaurs are still in striking distance.
Vote totals as of noon EST on March 15th
Looking over the data (closing in on 600 votes already) it's clear that different venues favored different dinosaurs. For example Argentinosaurus and Protoceratops are the current winners on Facebook, but they can't keep up with theropod mania on the other two polls. It'll be interesting to see if there are any lead changes before tomorrow night.
I'll announce the winner on Monday, and do the skeletal drawing in the coming week, along with one or two other surprised (as time allows).
So here is the deal: Spring break is coming up and I plan to do a skeletal reconstruction, so I thought I'd try something fun and let you, my loyal readers, choose which animal I'll restore. I've created a list of taxa for which I already have the data (and in some cases began scaling and preliminary work) to choose from.
Vote for your favorite from now through Sunday!
Poll now closed. The winner will be announced later Monday.
Late last year Europe got a brand-spankin' new ankylosaur, Europelta carbonensis. It's the most complete ankylosaur yet known from Europe (unless you consider Scelidosaurus to be a basal ankylosaur rather than a basal armored dinosaur). Let's take a look at the anatomy of Europelta, with an emphasis on what we know (and aren't so sure of) when it comes to reconstructing its armor.
Read MoreLet's start out 2014 right, with a bunch of new and overhauled sauropod skeletal reconstructions. All of the reconstructions of your favorite four-legged dinosaur behemoths (and some of their smallish ancestors) have been brought up to date. For more on this and a look at some of the anatomical changes that have been incorporated into this overhaul click beyond the fold to check it out.
Read MoreThis was an exciting week for tyrannosaur fans, as a new tyrannosaurine was named (Lythronax) and new fossils of Teratophoneus were revealed. Eagle-eyed visitors to the Skeletal Drawing theropod gallery probably realize that they've seen two of these skeletals before, but it may not be the two you would expect.
Read MoreFor those of you wondering why the pace of content has slowed down, it's because I entered a PhD program in paleontology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall, and I lost what was left of my free time. But that's not to say that there hasn't been substantial work going on behind the scenes of SkeletalDrawing.com!
First and foremost, there is a new skeletal gallery featuring some of my non-dinosaur reconstructions. "Non-dinosaurs" is admittedly a pretty broad category, and indeed it features everything from the proto-dinosaur Silesaurus to crocodylomorphs, turtles, mammals, and even the basal tetrapod Ichthyostega.
Read More
Paleontologist and paleoartist Scott Hartman provides a wealth of anatomical data and skeletal drawings of dinosaurs, and information on how prehistoric animals looked in life.
