Staking the vampire pterosaur: Jeholopterus was NOT a vampire

It's a common misconception that staking the heart of a Stokerian vampire will do it in for good. In actuality, the characters of Bram Stoker's Dracula (above) only considered the undead truly out of action once they were staked through the heart (which only imobilised them, see, not killing them), decapitated, had their mouths stuffed with garlic flowers and the access to their tombs lined with holy masonry. This may seem like overkill, but, for the vampire mythos Stoker created, it is the only way to keep the blaggards down. In the last week, it's emerged that that palaeontological vampires need a similar heavy duty approach to ensure that they too don't continue to rise from the grave.

Enter, stage left, the hypothesis that the anuroganthid Jeholopterus was a Mesozoic vampire bat equivalent (image, above, from my upcoming book, shows the anuroganthid Anurognathus with a more accurate Insect Hawking Cookie Monster of Doom appearance, not a vampire). Proposed by David Peters in an abstract for the SVP annual conference of 2003, cited evidence for this idea stems from large caniform teeth inferred on the Jeholopterus holotype using DP's infamous digital photo interpretation (for anyone unfamilar with DP's work, you can see the most recent incarnation of it here). It is well known that palaeontologists have almost never seen eye to eye with Peters' interpretations of fossils or methods of analysing them, and a small body of literature exists that directly refutes his work (e.g. Bennett 2005; Hone et al. 2009) . Many other papers also disagree with his methods or conclusions. DP acknowledges his 'heretical' views and, indeed, has even named his blog after them: The Pterosaur Heresies. Our very own Pterosaur.Net even gets a good kicking at various points at TPH, but that's OK: we have our opinions (which we consider to be well supported and credible), and Dave has his (which we consider to be very poorly supported). I think we have to live with the fact that we're not going to agree with everyone in science, and, frustrating though this can be at times, we're much better off making sure our own work is as watertight as possible than constantly bickering with others.

The vampire Jeholopterus made a brief splash back in 2003, but was widely condemned by the entire pterosaur community. To many, this simply proved - again - that SVP perhaps needed to pay closer attention to the work they were allowing into their conference, but that was that. No peer reviewed paper on the vampire hypothesis followed, and no independent confirmation that Jeholopterus or other anurognathids were sanguivorous has been proposed. Instead, the long-held view that anurognathids were ace aerial insect hawkers has prevailed (e.g. Bennett 2007; Habib 2011 [a follow up publication to which is in the works. I'm lucky enough to have been invited in on the authorship and can promise that some of the stuff in it should blow your little socks off]). The vampire pterosaur idea, it seemed, was dead, the only remnants being the abstract, a few media stories, and the Jeholopterus page at DP's website. This week, however, the vampire Jeholopterus meme has risen from the grave, being portrayed in a half-credible light in this article and picked up elsewhere online. Several people, including myself, were a bit miffed at this, and, in full on SIWOTI mode, left comments on these articles. The original article seems to be picking comments that agree with the tone of the article as their 'featured' comments, hiding perhaps more informed opinions in other pages of the article. Hence, seeing as most people won't easily find these remarks, I thought best to regurgitate mine here. In short, I want to provide a one-stop shop for clarity on the vampire pterosaur hypothesis:

• The idea was not peer reviewed, and it's publication in a collection of conference abstracts is not of comparable standing to other hypotheses of anurognathid palaeoecology
• There was never any 'debate' amongst pterosaur workers on this idea: it was never considered credible by qualified researchers in the first instance, and rejected outright from the start.
• There is no evidence that Jeholopterus, or any other pterosaur, was a vampire
• There is no 'David Peters vs. Goliath' story here. DP's work is considered with the same scrutiny, not more or less, than any other piece of science. His ideas are rejected by other palaeontologists (amateur and professional alike, the only difference between many of whom is that some are paid to study fossils) because they have not stood up to this scrutiny.

Any claims to the contrary suggest very lazy journalism, I'm afraid, so shame on those who have given this idea even a whiff of credibility. With that, I'll hand you over to my rambly self of yesterday, when I commented on the article that inspired this post. Said article may make for required reading before you continue.

--

This story has been told rather incorrectly. DP's 'publication' in 'the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology' was NOT peer reviewed: it was a short abstract for the SVP 2003 annual conference. I am confident as a 'professional' pterosaur worker myself that this paper would not have made it into any scientific journal, and it was rightly condemned by the pterosaur community as soon as it was made public. Along with the Bennett article mentioned here, a body of literature exists demonstrating that most, if not all, of David Peter's methods of reconstruction and image interpretation are flawed. The extraneous features he reconstructs for fossil animals (which have included, at one time or another, fantastic frills, sails, additional bones and teeth, long tails on short-tailed taxa, hatchlings clinging to their parent's body and others) have never been found on fossil specimens despite CT scanning, UV investigation and other analytical methods. The vast majority of DP's ideas are not corroborated by any studies except his own. In polite terms, DP's ideas are considered 'fringe' at best by palaeontologists, and very much the view of one individual. (animated vampire Jeholopterus feeding strategy, below)


I find it worrying that you wrote your article without uncovering or featuring these details. Likewise, the fact that you give the vampire Jeholopterus idea some credence with statements like 'what spurred the great debate' and 'without a living Jeholopterus to observe, we really cannot be sure of its unique attributes': there was never any debate, and the latter suggests a critical misunderstanding of scientific practise. Palaeontologists work, like all other sciences, by testing hypotheses: we are confident that Jeholopterus was not a vampire bat-like animal because it fails tests we can put against this idea. Does it bear large teeth for piercing flesh? No. None have ever been found on any actual specimen: the fact they have been found on someone's computer screen means nothing if they cannot be seen by some means on the actual fossil. DP probably picked up compression artefacts in the jpeg or cracks, shadows and prep marks in the matrix on the slab. Did Jeholopterus have a strong bite? Probably not, as the bones of the jaw are mechanically weak and slender, and ill-suited to anchoring strong muscles. Are there any alternative means it could use to pursue a vampire lifestyle? None that we can ascertain. Is there a more plausible hypothesis for the lifestyle of Jeholopterus? Yes: aerial insectivory, a lifestyle that decades of _actual_ peer-reviewed studies into anurognathid (the group that Jeholopterus belongs to) anatomy and biomechanics support without exception.

Finally, the portrayal of DP as a maverick, lone amateur 'informing' the body of professional palaeontologists is unfair. A great number of so-called 'amateur' palaeontologists produce work of the highest credibility without a whiff of controversy. Like DP, they work alone and draw their own conclusions, but find that their ideas are similar to those lucky enough to be paid to research palaeontological subjects. There is no conspiracy about preservation of dogmatic ideas or rejection of outsiders: the internet teems with blogs and forums where paid palaeontologists and 'amateuers' meet to discuss ideas at the highest level. I'm afraid to say I find this article very ill-informed and misleading, and hope this comment adds some balance to this page.

References

• Bennett, S. C. 2005. Pterosaur science or pterosaur fantasy? Prehistoric Times, 70, 21-23.
• Bennett, S. C. 2007. A second specimen of the pterosaur Anurognathus ammoni. Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 81, 376-398.
• Habib, M. B. 2011. Functional morphology of anurognathid pterosaurs. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 43, 118.
• Hone, D. W. E., Sullivan, C. and Bennett S. C. 2009. Interpreting the autopodia of tetrapods: interphalangeal lines hinge on too many assumptions. Historical Biology, 21, 67-77.
• Peters, D. 2003. The Chinese vampire and other overlooked pterosaur ptreasures. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 23(3), 87A.

The top 5 most important pterosaur specimens

As usual when it's me on here, this is a repost from my blog. Still, if ever I wrote something that was made for Pterosaur.net this was it. So, here is something that does rather combine every aspect of pterosaur research into one neat package.


Just an idle bit of fun this, but the thought was running through my head and I thought there was a blog post in there somewhere so decided to have a go at it. All very subjective of course and hard to assess but there are issues of completeness, importance, the scientific information held or conveyed by the material and other things. Anywhere, here’s my effort at least (in no particular order):

1. The Dark Wing Rhamphorhynchus.

Specimens from the Solnhofen are not uniquely flat, but the vast majority are compressed into two dimensions. The sheer number of Rhamphorhynchus specimens means that we do have a great understanding of their anatomy and ontogeny, even if it is 2D and there are lots of specimens with bits of soft tissues or unusual details preserving. This specimen though pretty much has it all. It’s complete, the bones are nearly entirely in 3D and it comes with a magnificently preserved set of wing membranes – easily the best out there. Stick all that together and it’s a hell of a specimen.

2. Jeholopterus holotype

Sure Sordes is nice and already covered in pycnofibers, but Jeholopterus is much the better preserved with more details of both ptero-fuzz and the wings. As a bonus it’s by far the best preserved anuroganthid specimen (well in total, the juvenile Anuroganthus is magnificent but has no softs), an otherwise badly known but potentially very important group.

3. The Tokyo Anhanguera

Probably the single most complete and 3D specimen I know of. Sure there are a few bits missing, but unlike the dark-wing, every bone is free of the matrix and can be picked up, turned around, examined from every angle and checked. Sadly it’s a juvenile and so some of the features aren’t quite what they would be at adult, but it is one hell of a specimen for the actual gross skeletal anatomy.

4. The Darwinopterus + egg combo

This one is a bit fortuitious since it does rather let me get a two-for-one with both a transitional pterosaur (and just how significant that is for a number of reasons) and gives us a bona fide pterosaur egg. Each tells us so much about pterosaurs and pterosaur evolution, it’s an incredible animal.

5. The big Quetzalcoatlus.

Every specimen can tell you something, and there are surprises everywhere. The new Nyctosaurus and Thalassodromeus revealed how huge crests could get, the series of ‘Tapejara’s told us about the integration of soft tissues, Raeticodactylus served a warning about eudimorphodontid-like teeth for taxonomy. But head and shoulders over all of this is the giant specimen of Quetzalcoatlus (even if it isn’t yet properly described). Size is such a crucial aspect of the biology of any organism, but in this case it is simply so big and in a flying animal too, that it really was almost a gamechanger for our understanding of pterosaurs in their own right. That a flying animal could get this big was a shock (despite some of the wild estimates, 10 m is bloody massive!).

And to close out, a few near misses from the list: footprints that showed us how they walked, the Pterodactylus holotype which brought pterosaurs to the world, one of the embryos which proved they did lay eggs and gave us a window into their life history.

Tapejara wellnhoferi: the lost reconstructions

Ross A. Elgin

Only twenty three years after it was formally named Tapejara wellnhoferi [1], one of the best known azhdarchoids from the Araripe Basin of NE Brazil, finally has a body! While, if I’m honest, this isn’t exactly new news, the original publication being released in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology by my colleague Kristina Eck towards the end of last year [2], there is at least some merit to a post looking back at this particular discovery.

For a start, in case you missed it the first time around, the specimen is very unusual in that the remains of two juvenile pterosaurs – one largely complete and one represented by a partial wing, became embedded together within a single nodule. To the best of my knowledge the original concretion thus represents the only example of a multiple death assemblage in pterosaurs where neither specimen has been reworked from another layer of strata; a factor almost certainly attributable to the low preservation potential of the pterosaurian skeleton coupled with the presumably large geographical distance throughout which these animals were capable of being dispersed. Whether this unusual taphonomy was brought about by two unlucky individuals being downed during a storm, swept in from a nearby nesting site or simply as a result of local water currents, however, remains very much an open and unanswerable question.

Although numerous azhdarchoid postcrania are known the Early Cretaceous of Brazil they are almost always indeterminate owing to the lack of the skull and so remain of limited taxonomic value (to the great frustration of both myself and I’m sure other palaeontologists working on these animals). With this in mind the most valuable information that these two individuals are able to provide is a detailed look at the postcranial skeleton in a species so often defined solely by its cranial remains, and based on this the first reconstruction of T. wellnhoferi is presented here. The reconstructions posted below were originally destined to be included with the original description, however, were unfortunately cut due to space restrictions in what was an already overly long research paper. While it is thus worth noting that these diagrams have not been reviewed by the wider scientific community I nonetheless feel it best to present them here for reference and the benefit of future researchers or other interested parties.

Figure 1. Tapejara wellnhoferi reconstructed from skeletal material of SMNK PAL 1137 in left lateral view. Forearm and tibia/pes omitted for clarity. Bones shaded in grey indicate preserved elements.

Figure 2. Tapejara wellnhoferi reconstructed from skeletal material of SMNK PAL 1137 in ventral view. Bones shaded in grey indicate preserved elements. Left side of the body omitted to increase visibility.

So there we have it, in addition to some nice notes on the endocranial cavity and pneumatic system, for which I don’t have space to delve into here, Tapejara wellnhoferi finally gets its body and we can all enjoy a long awaited reconstruction of the animal, along with some interesting thoughts on pterosaurian taphonomy.

References

1. Kellner, A. W. A. 1989. A new edentate pterosaur of the Lower Cretaceous from the Araripe Basin, Northeast Brazil. Anais de Academia Brasileira de Ciencias 61:439-446

2. Eck, K., Elgin, R.A., Frey, E. 2011. On the osteology of Tapejara wellnhoferi KELLNER 1989 and the first occurrence of a multiple specimen assemblage from the Santana Formation, Araripe Basin, NE-Brazil. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, doi: 10.1007/s13358-011-0024-5.

Pterosaur.net research 2011

About this time last year I put together a little post about all the work that had been done by various members of the P.net team over the previous 12 months. Obviously we continue to carry out and publish research and are involved in conferences and the like. I thought it fun to carry on with this pattern, so here is what we've put together from 2011. It's rather less than last year quite simply because we'd had the Flugsaurier meeting in Beijing which naturally resulted in an additional glut of abstracts. Even so there's a good mixture of conference material and real research papers here and it covers quite a range of pterosaur subject including flight, ecology, taxonomy, anatomy and even history of research.

Here's to the pterosaurs of 2012.

Andres, B., Howard, L., & Steel, L. 2011. Owen’s pterosaurs, old fossils shedding light on new clads. Symposium for Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA), Lyme Regis, UK.

Chapman, S. & Steel, L. 2011. Reptiles from the Lower Lias of the Dorset Coast and Mary Anning. Symposium for Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA), Lyme Regis, UK.

K. Eck, R.A. Elgin & E. Frey. On the osteology of Tapejara wellnhoferi KELLNER 1989 and the first occurrence of a multiple specimen assemblage from the Santana Formation, Araripe Basin, NE-Brazil. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1007/s13358-011-0024-5

Elgin, R.A., & H.B.N. Campos. A new specimen of the azhdarchoid pterosaur Tapejara wellnhoferi. Historical Biology, DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2011.613467

Elgin, R.A., & E. Frey. A new ornithocheirid, Barbosania gracilirostris gen. et sp. nov. (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea) from the Santana Formation (Cretaceous) of NE Brazil. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1007/s13358-011-0017-4

Elgin, R.A., & E. Frey. A nearly complete ornithocheirid pterosaur from the Crato Formation (Aptian, Early Cretaceous) of NE Brazil. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica DOI:10.4202/app.2010.0079

Elgin & E. Frey. A new azhdarchoid pterosaur from the Cenomanian (Late Cretaceous) of Lebanon. Swiss Journal of Geoscience, DOI: 10.1007/s00015-011-0081-1

*Elgin, R.A., Hone, D.W.E. & Frey, E. 2011. The extent of the pterosaur flight membrane. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 56: 99-111.

Habib, M. 2011. Functional Morphology of Anurognathid Pterosaurs. GSA Northeast Regional Conference •2011.

Habib, M. Solving the pterosaur size problem: Quadrupedal launch in the Pterosauria. Los Angeles County Museum

Hone, D.W.E., Naish, D. & Cuthill, I.C. Cranial ornamentation and sexual selection in pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs. Lethaia, in press.

Hone, D.W.E. A new specimen of the pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus. Historical Biology, in press.

Hone, D.W.E., Henderson, D.M. & Palmer, C. 2011. Investigating the buoyancy and floating posture of pterosaurs. Symposium for Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA), Lyme Regis, UK.

Lawlor, E., Beardmore, S., Hone, D.W.E., & Orr, P. 2011. Skeletal taphonomy of pterosaurs from the Late Jurassic of Germany. Symposium for Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy (SVPCA), Lyme Regis, UK.

Sweetman, S.C., Martill, D.M. & Witton, M.P. 2011. Pterosaurs. In
Batten, D.J. (ed.). English Wealden fossils. Palaeontological
Association, London, Field Guide to Fossils, 14, 769 pp.

Witton, M.P. 2011. The pectoral girdle of Dimorphodon macronyx
(Pterosauria, Dimorphodontidae) and the terrestrial abilities of
non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs. SVPCA 2011 Programme & Abstracts, Lyme
Regis, 2011, 22.

Witton, M.P. & Maclean-Henry, G. 2011. Additional details on the
skull of Istiodactylus latidens and the palaeoecology of istiodactylid
pterosaurs. SVPCA 2011 Programme & Abstracts, Lyme Regis, 2011, 28.

*Came out in 2010 and we talked about it then but, well, it does have a 2011 date on it.

OFF-TOPIC: Mark Witton’s handy-dandy guide to making it as a palaeoartist

OR A most unexpected dose of possibly unsolicited, hopefully none-too-preachy advice

Not long ago I received an Email from ex-University of Portsmouth student Dominic Shaw asking for some pointers of how to get involved in palaeoartistry. As my reply got longer and longer, I wondered if anyone had ever published any general guidelines online as to how break into palaeoartistry and, to my surprise, I found nothing. Hence, I thought I could share my reply here – punctuated with a few pterosaur piccies to keep in with the décor of Pterosaur.Net – for all to see (reconstruction, above, shows Tupuxuara leonardii). Apologies to those understandably expecting something pterosaury from this post, and to my colleagues for abusing Pterosaur.Net’s status, but I figure this will reach a wider audience here than elsewhere, along with allowing free commentary below (something not afforded at other venues I regularly post in).

Before we begin though, a quick caveat. While I’ve had some success as a palaeoartist, my palaeoart has largely been done on the side of other employment. I’ve had an 18 month stint as a designer/sculptor with the UoP London pterosaur project and enjoyed brief periods in 2011 as a designer for the BBC’s upcoming Walking with Dinosaurs 3D movie, but I’ve never had to support myself for sustained periods with palaeoart commissions. Please bear this in mind as you read the words below: others may paint a very different picture of the palaeoart industry to my own. The points made here aren’t given in any particular order.

1. Develop a portfolio, and get it online

In this day and age, if you don’t own a website as a creative professional, you may as well not exist. Deviantart is probably the best first step: a limited service is free and it’s designed for viewing artwork, so it’s a good place to start building up a portfolio and start making a splash. Make sure your palaeoart work is kept distinct from anything else you do: there’s nothing wrong with having other work on the same site, but you want to make it easy for palaeoart aficionados to home in on their target.

Eventually, it’s probably worth transferring your portfolio to your own personal webspace. Make it stylish, but let people enjoy it in their own time: flashy movies of your portfolio seem like a good idea, but they tend to be more frustrating than dynamic. Visitors are there to see your work, after all, and having it whizz past while some ‘atmospheric’ music plays (which probably just makes most people turn the volume knob down) means your audience cannot appreciate what they logged on to see. Watermarks, restricted image resolutions or other means of blocking downloads are a much better way to showcase your work without it being ripped off.

2. Get in with the community

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do as an aspiring palaeoartist is to become integrated with the internet palaeocommunity. A truly international institution, it’s a terrific place where well-known professionals converse and rub shoulders with amateurs of all levels. As someone trying to get their work noticed, you need to get involved with it. Why not start a blog about your work, and keep visitors turning up with regular updates? To my mind, an ‘in progress’ shot of a painting or sculpture is the perfect excuse for a blog and invites discussion and advice from others about aspects of the reconstruction. Use forums like the Dinosaur Mailing List or ARTEvolved to keep people informed with what you’re up to. That way, when someone has an image in mind to be drawn, your work will be fresh in their mind. This, ultimately, is what you want: when a palaeontologist needs a reconstruction of species X or landscape Y for whatever reason, you want to be the guy they consider as the only person for that job.

Plus, these sites are great ways to directly talk to experts about any aspect of a reconstruction you’re having problems with (the Ask a Biologist website may also be of use in this regard) and keep up to date with the latest discoveries. Speaking of which…

3. Keep up to date with the latest discoveries, and do your homework

Others may disagree, but I think there’s definitely a ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ aspect to palaeoart. Your work should reflect the most up to date thoughts on the appearance and habits of whatever organism you’re depicting. If it doesn’t, it’s incorrect relative to our knowledge of that time. One of my favourite examples of glaringly inaccurate palaeoart is not a vertebrate at all, but stalked crinoids. These chaps, which should be ten-a-penny in some scenes of Mesozoic seas, are always shown with their brachials arranged in a cup-shape, waiting for detritus to fall from the seas above. The majority of modern stalked crinoids, by contrast, do quite the opposite when feeding, angling their calyx into currents with their arms fanning out behind them. Despite being known for decades (Macruder and Meyer 1973), this rather glaring error has yet to filter out of mainstream palaeoart. As such, we could most crinoid reconstructions as ‘incorrect’ with respect to our current knowledge of rheophilic crinoids*. Likewise, there is little excuse for getting the proportions of well-known species wrong, drawing soft-tissues volumes that could not fit their skeleton , depicting the wrong form of integument or, essentially, contradicting things that we have considerable evidence for. Learn and understand anatomy from modern animals (I particularly endorse this book in this regard) and apply it appropriately to fossil species: the trained eye can easily spot palaeoartists who appreciate relationships between skeletons and soft-tissues and those who’re making it up on the fly. It’s important that you do this to be taken seriously by the scientists you may one day be working with: they want to know that you’re keen on reconstructing extinct critters with as much accuracy as they are with their science. (Below: not a pterosaur)



*A get-out clause, I suppose, could be that a minority of modern stalked crinoids do feed in the ‘classic’ pose. Still, the fact that hardly any crinoids in palaeoart behave like the majority of extant crinoids is a bit of an oversight. Hmm… best stop talking about crinoids before I get lynched by my tetrapodophile colleagues.

4. Be your own PR agent

If the sniff of an opportunity wafts past your nose for high-profile or paid work, make sure you get an offer of your services in. Work is hard to come by in palaeoartistry (see below), so you want to grab opportunities with both hands if they’re available. The only reason I ended up working on Walking with Dinosaurs 3D is because, when approached as a consultant for their pterosaurs, I said I can also draw pretty pictures and was available for hire if they needed me. There’s obviously a need for tact in your approach to this (you don’t want to annoy any potential employers or commissioners) but be sure to seize any opportunities that come your way.

5. Go to conferences, and pimp yourself out

Palaeo conferences are terrific: day after day of interesting talks, the chance to catch up with rarely seen friends, a plethora of beer and, most importantly, the chance to meet lots of new contacts at the same time. Whatever aspect of palaeo you’re into, there’s a conference for you somewhere. Most palaeoartists, I suspect, are more interested in vertebrates than invertebrate fossils, so dates for SVPCA (held annually and almost exclusively in Britain) and SVP (annually and almost exclusively in the US) are dates to pop into your diaries. Take a portfolio of work along and show yourself off a little. Have some business cards made up (it doesn’t cost much if you design them yourself: I had mine printed for around £15) and distribute them accordingly. Talk to scientists about their work and, if they’re interested, offer your services for a PR image or whatever. Again, be tactful - be sure not to push yourself too hard on potentially interested parties (conferences are busy places: if someone looks distracted and busy, choose another time) – but make the most of these rare chances to meet people who you may one day be working with. Don’t forget: you can make much more of an impression in person than you can as a faceless Email.

UPDATE: 07/01/12: Having never done it myself, it slipped my mind that a number of palaeoartists use conferences to showcase and sell their work. Most palaeoartists I can think of that do this are, admittedly, fairly big names, but this may not necessarily mean relative newcomers are unwelcome or unable to have their own stalls. This may be a really worthwhile pursuit if you're looking to make it big: it provides an opporunity for people to introduce themselves to your cataglogue without it being pushed directly to them, and nothing says 'I've arrived' more than having your own little piece of real estate at a big international conference. In addition, these stalls are a great opportunity to track down and ask advice from other palaeoartists, who are nothing but friendly in my experience.

6. Be unique

A good way to get some attention is to reconstruct some critters that the rest of the world ignores. Lovely as they are, there are probably enough pictures of Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor now that, laid end to end, they’d stretch to the Moon and back. Other animals - even well-known beasties within charismatic clades like Dinosauria – are frustratingly neglected. Fill your portfolio with good restorations of ignored critters (many of which do cool things that would make for ace pictures: where are all the images of burrowing ornithischians, head-butting schizotherines or virtually anything outside of the Mesozoic?) and you may stand out from the crowd of artists presenting the umpteenth picture of theropod X attacking dinosaur Y.

Of course, this is something of a double edged sword: there are probably so many images of certain animals because some critters are very popular. Perhaps, then, it may be good to have a few well-known critters scattered through your portfolio as well: it’ll keep the masses happy and, more importantly, has the benefit of web surfers being more likely to pick up your artwork. Far more people will stumble across your site by Googling ‘Camarasaurus’ than ‘Baculites’. Ultimately, an increase in web traffic can’t damage your profile.

Additionally, let yourself develop your own distinctive style: don’t merely imitate others or, even worse, copy them outright. I think this can take some years to do (I notice that my own style has changed a lot over the years – for the better, I reckon - judge for yourself with the reconstructions of Tupandactylus, above) but it’s worth it: your work will stand out a lot more and be recognisable even without reading your name scrawled at the bottom.

7. Make sure you’re credited

It sounds obvious, but politely insist that whoever displays your work makes it clear who the artist is. A lot of palaeoart is commissioned for press work, and successful press releases can run and run: this is a great opportunity for your name to be seen and generate more buzz about your work. Most folks are very happy to whack your name next to an image, save for newspapers. It’s all ‘an artist’s reconstruction of so-and-so’ instead of the artists actual name. Still, there’s no point putting your work out there to attract attention if people don’t know who drew it, so make sure it’s clear that it belongs to you.

8. Do not quit your day job, and be aware that you may never be able to

Professional and amateur palaeonerds surround ourselves with palaeoart: it’s plastered on our office walls, throughout the books in our libraries, on computer desktop backgrounds and wherever our better halves will let us have it around the house. This gives the impression that the market for this stuff must be lucrative, but the truth is quite the opposite. The number of employers who can pay reasonably for good palaeoart (primarily some museums, a minority of magazines and books, some film makers) is tiny compared to the number of people who could supply it. The internet has revealed just how many excellent palaeoartists there are around the world, and the market is being increasingly diluted with easily contactable talent. For an idea of your competition, take a look at Wikipedia’s list of palaeoartists working nowadays: it’s huge. With such a large amount of competition, it’s going to be a while before you land enough commissions to stand out from the crowd and start demanding the big bucks that you can make an honest living off, and even longer if you’re a grown up with dependents and financial obligations.

Finally, and at the risk of sounding overly negative, it’s worth considering that the career of dedicated palaeoartist may be on its way out. A heated exchange on the Dinosaur Mailing List in 2011 hinted at this: established professionals stated that the number of modern palaeoartists working for lower wages was seriously undermining their livelihoods. The opinion of some folks in this discussion was that a lot of modern palaeoart is done by kids working in their parent’s basements, not functioning adults with mortgages and families, and that said children should either charge sensible money (which is difficult for young upstarts to do without a reputation to barter with) or quit professional palaeoart altogether.

Such an attitude, though, does not consider that palaeoart may not be the sole livelihood of many modern practitioners, meaning they can afford to take the financial hit of a low-cost commission. After all, it’s extremely flattering and exciting to be asked to reconstruct a new taxon or an exciting new behavioural hypothesis, and why should these artists not be allowed that opportunity? It’s not the 1990s any more: excellent palaeoart is no-longer synonymous with Sibbick, Paul, Henderson and a smattering of others in the way it was two decades ago. There’s a world of artists, each with their own style and expertise, that are slowly dispersing the contents of the palaeoart moneypot far and wide, which ultimately means a less reliable income for each individual. This is not to say that it’s not worth chasing the ambition of being a professional, dedicated palaeoartist, but you will be in a very lucky, and very tiny, minority if you achieve that goal. The take-home message here, then, is that aspiring palaeoartists, and perhaps palaeoartists in general, have to be realistic about the scant nature of our work in our field.

UPDATE: 07/01/12
9. Let’s talk money

The sticky topic of money is one that palaeoartists are a little cagey about: I suppose people are afraid of giving their costs away for fear of being undercut by others. It’s one that we should discuss a little more openly, however, to ensure that we’re being treated fairly by commissioners. So, when should you start charging, and how much? I don’t think there’s a straight answer to either of those. For reasons mentioned above, a new artist may not be able to charge anything of note: until you have something of a reputation, it may be better to think of establishing yourself than putting people off with high price tags for your unproven, unknown art. Some folks will, no doubt, scoff at this idea, but it’s no different from being in a band: you have to do a lot of free or poorly-paid gigs before there’s enough buzz about your show to start demanding higher fees.

Perhaps the time to start charging is when requests for your work start appearing frequently (and your time, therefore, is increasingly valuable to others), and definitely when you’re approached by Big Names with large amounts of funding. These, to my mind, includes film companies, larger magazines and publishing houses, and perhaps large research labs. While the latter may irk some – palaeontological science is hardly overfunded even in the best instances – I’m sure the scientists working in these labs appreciate that budding artists need to earn a living too, and, though they’re basically being paid for drawing a pretty picture (and probably having a ball doing it), they’re still executing a piece of work that can represent a substantial time investment, and should be reimbursed (for the record, I’ve a number of commissions from research labs and often been offered money before asking for any). In all instances, once you’re a known name, do not be afraid to ask for money: sometimes bringing this issue up yourself is the only way you’ll get paid. Money may not be the deal-clincher in your decision to take on a commission (it’s not for me, for one) but it’s good to ensure that you’re financially rewarded where possible.

Still, this doesn’t answer the big question: how much can you expect to make as a palaeoartist? There’s a lot to consider here, which means there may not be a straightforward answer for many scenarios. Are you merely being asked for the right to print an older image, or is the commission entirely new? How complex is the piece (considering backgrounds, number of taxa and individuals, use of colour, size etc.)? What is the timeframe you’ve got to work with? Importantly, are you retaining the copyright to the work? And where are you in your career? Is your name established yet? The bigger your name, the larger your price tag can be. As someone with perhaps some reputation as an artist (though still several country miles from the big leagues), my rough guide for imagery use and commissions is thus. The right to print an image in a profitable magazine should fetch you at least £100 – 200, the exact cost really depending on who’s asking you. If the magazine is a tiny one with small circulation, you may have to forgo any money at all. In an ideal world, the price of new commissions should fetch you many hundreds of pounds at least, and thousands if the work is particularly large, complicated or you’re surrendering your copyright with the work. The latter point is an important one: once the copyright has left your hands, that image will never make you any money again. Generally speaking, I suggest retaining the copyright to your work unless you have no choice: a successful press release image can turn into a little money spinner if popular, and you also get more control over what your work is associated with. Because I’ve never made a sculpture to order, I’ll refrain from commenting on their costings. In all instances, be friendly, sympathetic but assertive in your negotiations for money: you may be doing your hobby in exchange for cash, but that doesn’t give people a right to take you for granted.


Reference

• Macurda, D. B. and Meyer, D. L. 1974. Feeding posture of modern stalked crinoids. Nature, 247, 394-396.

Pterosaurs in the Carnegie

People keeping up with my main blog, the Archosaur Musings, will know that about a month ago I hopped over to Pittsburgh to do some pterosaur work with the esteemed Mike Habib at the legendary Carnegie Museum. Since then I've been furiously blogging about the huge number of dinosaurs that are on exhibition.

However, there's also a much-better-than-you-might-expect collection of pterosaurs on display and I took some time to blog my way through these. Since this has gone utterly unmentioned on P.net, it seemed I should rectify this. Sadly I'm just going to link back to all the other posts, but there's pretty pictures and stuff, so that should help with the disappointment right?

Campyloganthoides
'Pterodactylus'
Nyctosaurus
Pteranodon

Quetzalcoatlus

Enjoy!

Scarfe's snout

This is a shameless re-post from the Musings, but really rather an appropriate one. Not only is it about a brand new pterosaur from the UK, but the post (and indeed new pterosaur) come courtesy of Dave Martill. Dave supervised the PhD research of Lorna steel, Darren Naish and Mark Witton, so in one way he has quite a claim to Pterosaur.net. Take it away Dave:

Cuspicephalus scarfi from the Late Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay Formation of Dorset is one of those irritating fossils. It was clearly a beautiful animal, with long, slender jaws and fine teeth that would have made it look impressive. It is without doubt a cracking fossil, displaying a near perfect right lateral outline, with only a little bit of the dorsal rest missing. OK, it is sad that the lower jaw and rest of skeleton is missing, but in the UK, this specimen is the best thing since the second specimen of Dimorphodon was discovered in the Lower Jurassic in the mid 1800s. But despite its near completeness for a British pterosaur skull, it is not entirely clear where it belongs in the grand scheme (or schemes), of pterosaur phylogeny. It appears to be a pterodactyloid similar to Germanodactylus on the basis of its single NAOF and straight dorsal border, but when compared with Darwinopterus, its affinities become less clear cut. Sure, it isn’t Darwinopterus, but it isn’t Germanodactylus in the strictest sense either. Dave Unwin thinks it might lie close to the base of Dsungaripteroidea, and I am inclined to agree, but caution that this is based mainly on the nature of its crest… not a good criterion given the distribution of elongate fibrous-looking crests in Pterosauria.

[caption id="attachment_6550" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Cuspicephalus skull. From Martill & Etches, in press"][/caption]

Cuspicephalus was discovered by Steve Etches. Known to most UK vertebrate palaeontologists, Steve collects fossils exclusively from the Kimmeridge Clay of Dorset and has built up a renowned collection housed in the Museum of Jurassic Marine Life (MJML) in Kimmeridge, Dorset. Steve discovered Cuspi on the wave cut platform in Kimmerdge Bay and reckons that one more tide would have destroyed it. Steve has found several other pterosaurs in the Kimmeridge Clay, some of which are represented by associated remains attributable to an animal close to Rhamphorhynhcus, and currently being examined by PhD student Michael O’Sullivan. A few specimens in Steve’s MJML have been identified as representing a germanodactylid by DMU, and it is possible that these elements are from the same animal as Cuspicephalus: clearly Steve needs to get out and find the complete skeleton.
The name Cuspicephalus is derived from the sharp pointed nature of the skull in lateral view, and I suspect in dorsal view too, but Kimmeridge Clay fossils are rather 2D to tell. The specific epithet honours Gerald Scarfe CBE. Scarfe is known to most UK citizens as the artist who provided the caricatures for the intro to the extremely popular satirical TV series Yes Minister and follow up Yes Prime Minister. Both were excellent lampoons of the UKs higher civil servants and mainly incompetent elected politicians. Globally Scarfe is known to several generations of Pink Floyd fans as the artist behind The Wall (album, film and more).

[caption id="attachment_6549" align="alignright" width="226" caption="Margret Thatcher as drawn by Gerald Scarfe. Courtesy Dave Martill"][/caption]

To readers of certain newspapers and periodicals Scarfe is loved or laothed for hard hitting political caricatures, and in particular those of British Prime Ministers and other notorious world leaders. Many were reproducible in daily newspapers, but others remained within the underground literature for reasons of decency (check out Rupert bear ****ing Mary Whitehosue with the Pope watching on). One cartoon of Scarfe’s that stands out is a caricature of Margaret Thatcher, an ex British Prime Minister who Scarfe Portrayed as a Tory blue, saggy-breasted pterodactyle, and therefore it seemed only fair that he should be honoured. Scarfe’s cartoon might have the number of fingers wrong, and he might have followed the Frey and Riess model for the orientation of the pteroid, but we all know he got the colour right.

Pip pip
Martill