Naish, D. 2021. Dinopedia: A Brief Compendium of Dinosaur Lore. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ. Naish, D., Hutt, S. & Martill, D. M. 2001. Saurischian dinosaurs 2: Theropods. In Martill, D. M. & Naish, D. (eds) Dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight. The Palaeontological Association (London), pp. 242-309. As artist Terryl Whitlach also highlights in her foreword, it is heartening to see that illustrators aim to depict extinct life not as monsters, but as living, breathing creatures adapted to their natural environment. Artists seem to have internalised the lessons and encouragement from, amongst others, Witton's The Palaeoartist's Handbook regarding soft-tissue anatomy and depicted behaviours. Gone are the days of shrink-wrapped dinosaurs; instead we get to see well-rounded creatures with muscles, bulges, lips, and plenty of feathers or other integumentary coverings. Particularly noteworthy in this context is Jed Taylor's series of four Dromaeosaurid portraits. Gone, too, are the wide-mouthed carnivores chomping down on hapless herbivores. Only a few artists depict bloody predator-prey interactions, in keeping with the fact that animals are doing something else most of the time. Thus we get a sunbathing Therizinosaurus (Midiaou Diallo), a Scutellosaurus rolling in a muddy pool (Conway), and a very memorable closed-mouth vocalisation by T. rex (Witton) which would look fantastic in a frame. Charig, A. J. & Milner, A. C. 1997. Baryonyx walkeri, a fish-eating dinosaur from the Wealden of Surrey. Bulletin of the Natural History Museum 53, 11-70. The other spinosaurids. What of other spinosaurids, and what of the larger picture? In general, we found support for the idea that Spinosauridae contains the two clades Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae. Like a few other authors, however, we didn’t always get this result, since baryonychines were sometimes recovered as a paraphyletic grade to spinosaurines. Other authors have reported this result in the past ( Evers et al. 2015, Sales & Schultze 2017). Among other interesting things, we recovered Vallibonavenatrix from Spain – described as a spinosaurine – as either a baryonychine or as outside the baryonychine + spinosaurine clade, while Camarillasaurus from Spain was found to be a spinosaurine ( Barker et al. 2021). The Brazilian Irritator jumped around within Spinosaurinae, suggesting that data is needed on its postcranial skeleton (we coded only for the holotype skull) before we can better pin it down.

Geister, J. 1998. Lebensspuren made by marine reptiles and their prey in the Middle Jurassic (Callovian) of Liesberg, Switzerland. Facies 39, 105-124. A widespread assumption has been that all of these remains can be assigned to Baryonyx, if not specifically to Baryonyx walkeri. While, in cases, this might be correct, there are reasons for thinking that it might very well be incorrect in some other cases. Some of these fossils are more than 10 million years older than the type specimen of Baryonyx walkeri. The rest of the Mesozoic record shows us that dinosaur species and genera generally lasted, at most, for one or two million years. Ergo, at least some of these animals almost certainly represent new taxa: not Baryonyx walkeri, and likely not Baryonyx at all. In addition, quite a few of these baryonychine fossils come from sedimentary settings and geographical locations distinct from the Upper Weald Clay Formation, with distinct dinosaur assemblages. I’ve therefore argued that baryonychine remains reported from outside the Upper Weald Clay Formation should be identified as cf. Baryonyx, Baryonyx sp. or Baryonyx cf. walkeri (Naish & Martill 2007, Naish 2011) (all of these designations mean slightly different things; let me know if you want elaboration). Furthermore, many of these fossils differ in detail from the remains of B. walkeri: many isolated teeth from the Wealden – including those labelled Suchosaurus – have flattened longitudinal strips on both of their sides, instead of just the lingual (inner) side, as is typical of the B. walkeri holotype. Witton, M. P. & Michel, E. 2022. The Art and Science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. The Crowood Press, Marlborough. Finally, thanks as ever to my co-organisers and assistants – John, Jenny, Hel, Georgia, the staff at King’s College – and in particular to Chris Manias for access to the venue. Huge thanks to all the speakers, presenters, those with stalls, and of course to all the attendees. Another substantial success, and here’s to the TENTH event next year! A must-have for scientists, scholars and young dino artists!” — Creator of Age of Reptiles, concept artist for Jurassic Park III, and character designer for Disney's DinosaurMesozoic Art presents twenty of the best artists working in this field, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines, from traditional painting to cutting-edge digital technology. Some provide the artwork for new scientific papers that demand high-end paleoart as part of their presentation to the world at large; they also work for the likes of National Geographic and provide art to museums around the world to illustrate their displays. Other artists are the new rising stars of paleoart in an ever-growing, ever-diversifying field. Did Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs 'Glow'? Extinct Archosaurs and the Capacity for Photoluminescent Visual Displays On that note, Mesozoic Art is available directly from Bloomsbury here (this is the best option if you’re in the UK) and from digital retailers as normal. It’s also available from standard retailers; ask for it at your local bookstore.

Lingham-Soliar, T. 2000. Plesiosaur locomotion: is the four-wing problem real of merely an atheoretical exercise? Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 217, 45-87. Baryonychines in sympatry? So… three baryonychine taxa in the Wealden? Well, why not? For starters, Baryonyx walkeri, Ceratosuchops inferodios and Riparovenator milnerae are not demonstrably sympatric. They might all be Barremian in age, but the Barremian was four million years long and none of these dinosaurs are demonstrably from the same horizon. In addition, Baryonyx is from a different sedimentary basin from the one that yields Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops ( Barker et al. 2021). Here's your regular reminder that this blog relies on support via patreon, thank you to those providing support already. Harrell, T. L., Pérez-Huerta, A. & Suarez, C. A. 2016. Endothermic mosasaurs? Possible thermoregulation of Late Cretaceous mosasaurs (Reptilia, Squamata) indicated by stable oxygen isotopes in fossil bioapatite in comparison with coeval marine fish and pelagic seabirds. Palaeontology 69, 351-363. Mesozoic Era, second of Earth’s three major geologic eras of Phanerozoic time. Its name is derived from the Greek term for “middle life.” The Mesozoic Era began 252.2 million years ago, following the conclusion of the Paleozoic Era, and ended 66 million years ago, at the dawn of the Cenozoic Era. ( See the geologic time scale.) The major divisions of the Mesozoic Era are, from oldest to youngest, the Triassic Period, the Jurassic Period, and the Cretaceous Period. The ancestors of major plant and animal groups that exist today first appeared during the Mesozoic, but this era is best known as the time of the dinosaurs.Naish, D. & Martill, D. M. 2007. Dinosaurs of Great Britain and the role of the Geological Society of London in their discovery: basal Dinosauria and Saurischia. Journal of the Geological Society, London 164, 493-510. At the outset of the Mesozoic, all of Earth’s continents were joined together into the supercontinent of Pangea ( see the map of the Early Triassic). By the close of the era, Pangea had fragmented into multiple landmasses. The fragmentation began with continental rifting during the Late Triassic. This separated Pangea into the continents of Laurasia and Gondwana. By the Middle Jurassic these landmasses had begun further fragmentation. At that time much of Pangea lay between 60° N and 60° S, and at the Equator the widening Tethys Sea cut between Gondwana and Laurasia. When rifting had sufficiently progressed, oceanic spreading centres formed between the landmasses. During the Middle Jurassic, North America began pulling apart from Eurasia and Gondwana. By the Late Jurassic, Africa had started to split off from South America, and Australia and Antarctica had separated from India ( see the map of the Late Jurassic). Near the close of the Cretaceous, Madagascar separated from Africa, and South America drifted northwestward ( see the map of the Late Cretaceous). A stereotype that’s still perpetuated is that the Mesozoic was monotonously hot, stable, and hence perfect for reptile evolution and perpetuation. It’s true that parts of the Mesozoic were hot and stable. But it’s absolutely not right to think that this was true of the whole of Mesozoic time. Geological and isotopic data shows that temperate ( O’Brien et al. 2017, Alberti et al. 2019), cool and even cold conditions were present during parts of the Jurassic and Cretaceous; in fact, sea surface temperatures were close to freezing during parts of the Early Jurassic ( Korte et al. 2015). Marine reptile groups like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs were swimming in these seas. The fossil record also shows that plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs were in polar waters at times when these regions were cool and seasonally dark. Some of these animals were insulated by blubber and it seems that endothermy was present in all of the main groups (Motani 2005, 2010, Martineau et al. 2010, Harrell et al. 2016, Wintrich et al. 2017, Fleischle et al. 2018). Yes, today see the publication of my new book Ancient Sea Reptiles ( Natural History Museum in the UK; Smithsonian Books in the USA), and getting it published marks a major personal achievement. I’ve been trying for years to get such a book off the ground, but it’s the success of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved (Naish & Barrett 2016) that’s allowed things to go forward. I can’t express how pleased I am that things have finally worked out.

Robinson, J. A. 1975. The locomotion of plesiosaurs. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 149, 286-332.Martill, D. M. & Hutt, S. 1996. Possible baryonychid dinosaur teeth from the Wessex Formation (Lower Cretaceous, Barremian) of the Isle of Wight, England. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 197, 81-84. Buffetaut, E. 1989. New remains of the enigmatic dinosaur Spinosaurus from the Cretaceous of Morocco and the affinities between Spinosaurus and Baryonyx. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Monatshefte 1989, 79-87. Korte, C., Hesselbo, S. P., Ullmann, C. V., Dietl, G., Ruhl, M., Schweigert, G. & Thibault, N. 2015. Jurassic climate mode governed by ocean gateway. Nature Communications 6: 10015. Fanti, F., Cau, A., Martinelli, A. & Contessi, M. 2014. Integrating palaeoecology and morphology in theropod diversity estimation: a case from the Aptian-Albian of Tunisia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 410, 39-57.