Mark Witton

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Food for thought on #FossilFriday: infographic summarising theropod growth rates based on D'Emic et al. 2023. Some theropods raced to giant sizes in just 20 years, but others plodded towards max size over 40-50 years. Interesting implications for ageing #paleoart reconstructions.

23/08/18 23:03

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Thanks to an injured arm I've not been able to paint much recently, so instead I've been reading and writing a lot about the K/Pg extinction for a book project. I want to paint a new scene of it soon, but in the meantime here's an effort from 2019. #paleoart

23/08/08 01:29

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Listening to a podcast about the yeti today, and Gigantopithecus keeps being mentioned. It needs to be more widely appreciated that our sole Giganto. fossils are teeth and a couple of lower jaws - that's it. Suggestions of size, proportions and lifestyle are largely speculative.

23/07/25 23:04

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OK, for real this time: WIP #paleoart of adult Dilophosaurus racing across a Kayenta salt flat to cannibalise a younger conspecific. One of the last Palaeogames images I'm working on (46 in total, 4 to go, including this one).

23/07/10 23:21

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Scientists can't prove that Dilophosaurus didn't hunt prey with a projectile head that emerged, xenomorph-style, from its open mouth. (This Totally True Fact™ is brought to you by a moment of surreal #paleoart composition.)

23/07/10 19:34

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Sauropod Twitter: I have to draw Magyarosaurus and am feeling lost - so little data to work from. The convention seems to be rendering a small Saltosaurus-type animal and hoping for the best. Is that the least-worst route to take right now? (Unrelated sauropod #paleoart below)

23/06/30 22:57

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FACT: Scientists believe that carcharodontosaurids had better than average footballing skills. Their various rugosities - evidence of cornified pads, ridges etc. on their heads - are linked to a reduction of dementia in later life after long careers of heading the ball.

23/06/21 05:31

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More WIP #paleoart for the Palaeogames book: Carcharodontosaurus vs. Rebbachisaurus. Like so many living prey animals, Rebbachisaurus has taken to water to escape predation and, like so many living prey animals, they're discovering that this tactic often fails.

23/06/21 00:07

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Working on #paleoart of a rearing Kentrosaurus for the Palaeogames book today. It's not doing any favours to dissuade my opinion that Godzilla is best interpreted as a gigantic, bipedal, carnivorous stegosaur - official canonical backstory be damned!

23/06/15 22:59

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I missed Jurassic Park's 30th birthday (my god, I'm old) but it's close enough to re-post my Jurassic franchise-inspired essay from 2022: Can dinosaur movies have too many dinosaurs? markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2022/06/can-di…. (Spoilers: yes, yes they can.)

23/06/13 17:53

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For #FossilFriday, here's #paleoart of Bentonyx, a UK rhynchosaur. This piece is doing PR rounds for a new study showing that rhynchosaurs wore out their teeth with age, like elephants. If they lived long enough, they starved to death. Er... Happy Friday! bristol.ac.uk/news/2023/june…

23/06/09 21:40

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Just submitted proofs of a #paleoart chapter for an upcoming dinosaur book. I broke ground on this in... [checks email]... 2018(!), so it's been a long road. Full sympathy for the editors managing me and the other authors! To celebrate, here's a Plateosaurus I painted for my MS.

23/06/09 00:20

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Digging back to 2018 for this week's #FossilFriday #paleoart: my mural of a hyper-busy Jurassic sea for Scarborough's Rotunda Museum. Rhomaelosaurus takes the starring role.

23/06/02 22:04

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Following on from yesterday's job is today's job, which is to finish the #paleoart I've been working on since the day before yesterday to meet a deadline for later today. With that stated succinctly and clearly, I better get to work on these Purbeck iguanodonts.

23/06/02 18:21

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Today's job: paint a mural of Early Cretaceous UK iguanodonts (cf. Owenodon, I guess?) as fast as I can. Current stage shown here. #paleoart

23/06/01 18:32

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New blog post: a review of "Prehistoric World of Zdeněk Burian, Volume 1". This 4kg(!) book might be the best #paleoart collection ever compiled. Worth every penny of the (admittedly high) cover price, parts 2 & 3 can't arrive fast enough. markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-r… #FossilFriday

23/05/26 22:20

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This evening's #paleoart job: Stomatosuchus gets ready to rumble. What a weird animal this was. We've not found any fossils of it for over 100 years and stomatosuchids as a group remain very poorly known. Truly enigmatic fossil animals.

23/05/17 07:06

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Today's #paleoart WIP: putting Spinosaurus in its place with some sauropod awesomeness, courtesy of Paralititan. Spinosaurus? More like Whineosaurus, amirite? (Another image for the upcoming Palaeogames/@Palaeofox book)

23/05/15 19:05

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I'm up to my eyes in #paleoart commissions at the moment but can't share any of the results for #FossilFriday. Here's a take on the K/Pg event from 2020 to keep things ticking over. That's not a good place to swim, Prognathodon.

23/05/12 21:39

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For #FossilFriday: I've never been clear how large the scales of Triceratops were, so took some notes and photos of a touchable skin cast at the Field Museum. Here's the result: big, 8 cm wide tubercle scales surrounded by c. 3-5 cm scales. Should be a useful #paleoart reference.

23/05/05 18:00

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WIP #paleoart: fighting Balaur. There's a lot of uncertainty about Balaur's affinities and lifestyle, so I've avoided showing diet and foot function. But you can't avoid taking a side in the bird/dromaeosaur controversy: I've gone birdy. Another @Palaeofox/ Palaeogames image.

23/04/14 18:49

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Today's #paleoart job: this Carnotaurus. It's chasing... something, but to see what that is you'll need to grab the @Palaeofox /Palaeogames book (when it's published).

23/04/12 17:57

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Working on #paleoart of Big Al for the @Palaeofox /Palaeogames book project. Made famous by the WWD special, Al was not a healthy dinosaur when they died with almost 20 injuries and infections evident in their fossil bones. Makes one wonder what they looked like near the end.

23/04/04 21:30

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The paper is open-access, so you can dive right in. Or if you want a semi-technical summary, I have one over at my blog: markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2023/03/new-pa…. Here's our PR #paleoart showing a lipped - and gummed - T. rex swallowing a juvenile hadrosaur...

23/03/31 04:12

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...and if you want a breezy, one-page overview, here's a handy cut-out-and-keep infographic. The QR code in the corner will take you straight to the paper (so, you know, when the arguments start about this, no one has any excuse not to be informed).

23/03/31 03:15