Artistic Depiction of the K-T Extinction Event
Okay - so I've been "away" for a while. What can I say? I've been busy with other things.
However, one of them is now complete. I present for your viewing pleasure, my new paleontology-inspired artwork:
"K-T"
Sixty-five million years ago, a daily struggle occurs in the midst of the world-changing event that would result in the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs and the eventual rise of our own lineage of mammals.
If you or someone you know would like a poster print of this work, you can BUY IT HERE. Or you can browse a couple of my other pieces (more forthcoming).
Note: The poster is MUCH larger and higher resolution (these web images don't do justice to the actual level of detail). I can make other sizes available (or on other products). This took me three weeks to create, using the free and opensource Blender and GIMP software packages.
Here's a cropped piece to give you an idea of the true detail level:
May 13th, 2010 - 23:27
Holy Crappoly, he’s back! And with dinosaur posters! The universe, it is whole again! Awesome poster too.
May 14th, 2010 - 01:11
Welcome “back”. I trust you’ve also been busy with things scientific…?
May 14th, 2010 - 08:53
Science indeed. Pretty cool stuff, actually. I’m working on a group of genes that exist throughout much of the animal kingdom, but are now only pseudogenes in placental mammals (including us).
May 14th, 2010 - 12:14
Nice work Cousin! I sure am glad those are extinct or we would all be in trouble. Reptiles with hair?
May 14th, 2010 - 13:04
Actually, velociraptors (which is what this is supposed to be) had feathers (birds are basically just surviving dinos – with mountains upon mountains of evidence now to back that up). http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920145402.htm
My understanding is that many of the non-avian dino feathers were a bit fur like – not quite like flight feathers in birds.
Plus it is MUCH easier to create fur using the techniques I used to make this image than it is to make feathers. Really, based on the bits of fossil feathers we’ve found, an artist is pretty much free to use as much artistic license as he wants in the feather/fur/coloration of most dinos (though there are some amazing examples even in the museum next door to me).
May 16th, 2010 - 15:44
I’m curious if the synapsid is based on a particular fossil taxon? I hadn’t heard of any confirmed non-mammalian cynodonts younger than the Early Cretaceous aside from the controversial Paleocene Chronoperates. I like how the viewer’s perspective is placed in the sheltered protection of the burrow: very clear where the human allegiance is. Glad to have found your blog, great collection of biologically inspired art!
May 16th, 2010 - 19:04
Hey Neil,
Even the dino is just a generalized model with inspiration from multiple diagrams.
Lol – busted!
I should have been a bit more careful in my description. Based on the hour’s worth of reading I did on mammal ancestry before beginning my model, my understanding is that our mammal ancestor in the late cretaceous arose from the early/mid cretaceous cynodonts (but I am probably wrong in calling them actual cynodonts). So the creature I modeled was actually based on several different earlier cynodonts pulled from various artistic depictions and fossil skull diagrams. I am certainly not a mammal evolution expert – but it seemed to me that my cynodont-inspired model was a decent depiction of a generalized late cretaceous mammal (though I gather that the mammals at this time were tiny insectivores). My apologies for any inaccuracies
So what would you call mammal ancestors at 65 million years ago? I’d love to hear from someone who knows more about the details. And thanks for stopping by.
May 17th, 2010 - 02:18
Not trying to bust at all – just curious!
By the Late Cretaceous mammals proper were well established. Fossil marsupial and montremes are known and genetic evidence indicates that true eutherian placentals were around (the most radical molecular clock models suggest most modern mammal orders were already established by the late Mesozoic but this is controversial. The old picture of all Mesozoic mammals being dinky insectivores has been revealed to be inaccurate by some amazing fossils, including one fossil of a badger-like Cretaceous mammal with a small dinosaur in its gut, so you might have fairly reversed the roles in your scene.
Nevertheless, you are technically justified calling these guys “cynodonts” since the group is (otherwise) a paraphyletic grade of close mammal relatives and in order to make the group a monophyletic taxon it has to include mammaliformes, including us. “Typical” cynodonts were once thought to have gone extinct in the Late Triassic, but now there is good evidence that a few hold-outs persisted at least into the Early Cretaceous alongside their true mammalian cousins. There is a controversial non-mammalian therapsid from the Paleocene (Chronoperates which I mentioned in the previous post) but I think the consensus view is that it is more likely to be a true mammal, albeit an archaic one.
There is a very detailed, although now a bit dated fan-site devoted to Mesozoic mammals here.
I guess my take home message would be that 1) the common ancestor of the Koala, Platypus and us was alive in the Mesozoic so you can safely call most Cretaceous synapsids “mammals” 2) despite what is often said in books and websites not all Cretaceous synapsids were retiring insectivores though that ecomorph was well represented among our kin, just as it is today by shrews and solenodons!