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Taxa Masterlist
3 min read
I spent most of the day on the 29th and then just a little bit of today trying to create a masterlist of every taxon I've restored. I spent way too much time browsing through my profile here and my Instagram profile, here are the rules I created:
1. Must be a full piece that I uploaded either on here or Instagram, no WIPS included. For example, I have non-finished WIPs of Galleonosaurus and the Haast's eagle on IG, they are not included in the masterlist.
2. Names change over the years. I restored Magnapaulia years ago when it was still considered a species of Lambeosaurus. It is included as Magnapaulia in the masterlist. Anzu was unnamed the first time I restored it, so it is included as Anzu. Troodon is no longer a valid species, but the Alaskan species has not yet received a name, so it is counted as "Troodon" for now.
3. Primeval concepts were excluded.
4. Some taxa, especially in the Paleozoic and Cenozoic, can be found over multiple time periods. In pieces meant to take place in some environment or some context, I took that into account. For example, Otodus megalodon was not restricted to the Miocene, and Carcharhinus is still around today, but because both were restored as part of a Miocene formation, they are included in the Miocene. If there was no context (for example, a scale chart), it was honestly just random, such as my placement of Xenacanthus in the Carboniferous so Kreischeria wasn't alone.
5. "Dinosaur" is used here to refer to any member of Dinosauromorpha.
6. Taxa were only included if they could be identified. For example, I've illustrated plenty of indeterminate insects and ammonites that don't count.
Here's what I found. Over the past eight years or so, I've managed to restore 517 taxa ranging from the Cambrian to the Holocene. Apparently, I hate the Precambrian and Silurian, as I've never restored any taxa from these time periods. Like a lot of paleogeeks, you'll find that my gallery is overwhelmingly Mesozoic in representation. There are less than one hundred taxa I've restored from the Cenozoic, and the Paleozoic looks even worse, with only 24 taxa. Of these 393 Mesozoic taxa, I was blown away by how much of that is Cretaceous-dominated. Again, something I suspect is a common "issue". Two hundred and sixty four taxa on this masterlist are from the Cretaceous alone! My Cretaceous selection is dinosaur-dominated, but my Jurassic selection seems healthily balanced, whereas my Triassic selection is heavily in favor of non-dinosauromorph taxa. Overall, I think the balance is quite alright, with approximately 218 non-dinosauromorph taxa restored.
You can see my spreadsheet here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Did this need to be done? No. But it was interesting and I like statistics about anything, so it was good for me to do. Happy New Year!
1. Must be a full piece that I uploaded either on here or Instagram, no WIPS included. For example, I have non-finished WIPs of Galleonosaurus and the Haast's eagle on IG, they are not included in the masterlist.
2. Names change over the years. I restored Magnapaulia years ago when it was still considered a species of Lambeosaurus. It is included as Magnapaulia in the masterlist. Anzu was unnamed the first time I restored it, so it is included as Anzu. Troodon is no longer a valid species, but the Alaskan species has not yet received a name, so it is counted as "Troodon" for now.
3. Primeval concepts were excluded.
4. Some taxa, especially in the Paleozoic and Cenozoic, can be found over multiple time periods. In pieces meant to take place in some environment or some context, I took that into account. For example, Otodus megalodon was not restricted to the Miocene, and Carcharhinus is still around today, but because both were restored as part of a Miocene formation, they are included in the Miocene. If there was no context (for example, a scale chart), it was honestly just random, such as my placement of Xenacanthus in the Carboniferous so Kreischeria wasn't alone.
5. "Dinosaur" is used here to refer to any member of Dinosauromorpha.
6. Taxa were only included if they could be identified. For example, I've illustrated plenty of indeterminate insects and ammonites that don't count.
Here's what I found. Over the past eight years or so, I've managed to restore 517 taxa ranging from the Cambrian to the Holocene. Apparently, I hate the Precambrian and Silurian, as I've never restored any taxa from these time periods. Like a lot of paleogeeks, you'll find that my gallery is overwhelmingly Mesozoic in representation. There are less than one hundred taxa I've restored from the Cenozoic, and the Paleozoic looks even worse, with only 24 taxa. Of these 393 Mesozoic taxa, I was blown away by how much of that is Cretaceous-dominated. Again, something I suspect is a common "issue". Two hundred and sixty four taxa on this masterlist are from the Cretaceous alone! My Cretaceous selection is dinosaur-dominated, but my Jurassic selection seems healthily balanced, whereas my Triassic selection is heavily in favor of non-dinosauromorph taxa. Overall, I think the balance is quite alright, with approximately 218 non-dinosauromorph taxa restored.
You can see my spreadsheet here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Did this need to be done? No. But it was interesting and I like statistics about anything, so it was good for me to do. Happy New Year!
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Drawings Update
1 min read
Thank you all who commented on my last journal post - I got some great requests on here and IG. If you follow my IG (zoneait) then you’ll know I’ve kept up with a couple requests, and I’m working on some of yours now!
Also wanted to let you know my brother in law fixed my laptop and I’ll see him again on Christmas Eve, so I’ll start uploading drawings here right around then.
Also wanted to let you know my brother in law fixed my laptop and I’ll see him again on Christmas Eve, so I’ll start uploading drawings here right around then.
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Drawing Ideas
1 min read
So as you might know, I’ve been pretty inactive with my art for quite a while, but I’m itching to draw again. But I need ideas. What taxa should I draw? You know I love obscure taxa. I can’t say I’ll draw everyone’s suggestions, but I’ll definitely look at all of them.
Side note: my laptop screen is currently busted so I might not upload here for a while unless I boot up my old computer (or draw in my Rocketbook). However, I’ll make sure to upload to my Instagram account, zoneait.
Side note: my laptop screen is currently busted so I might not upload here for a while unless I boot up my old computer (or draw in my Rocketbook). However, I’ll make sure to upload to my Instagram account, zoneait.
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Princeton Field Guide Follow-Up?
1 min read
Hey everyone, long time no see haha. I have a few pieces from the past few months that I'll have to get around to uploading. Anyways, I remember there was a post that someone had on Deviantart that was essentially a "fan-made" followup to the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Greg Paul, featuring new taxa and other things that weren't covered in the past two editions. Does anyone know who has that? I'm trying to find it but have had no luck so far.
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Paleofest 2019
5 min read
A blurb about Paleofest 2019 is a bit overdue, considering it has now been over two weeks since the event. Of course, I have been rather busy and don't check DeviantART as often as I used to, but might as well make one now.
It was great to see
in person again! I'm hoping that I didn't miss any other deviantART users while I was there, but if you're there next year, you know what I look like. I still highly encourage anyone within the area or who doesn't mind paying for a bit to travel to go, though it has unfortunately gotten more expensive over the years.
Nonetheless, they were still many great talks. Thomas Holtz addressed why I hate drawing tyrannosaurs now (way too much heated debate on integument and lips that people on both sides take way too seriously), and how there still isn't anything conclusive to be said about T. rex itself. Dr. Roy Plotnick also gave a fascinating lecture that instead focused on the future rather than the past. Dr. Plotnick talked about the Anthropocene and the fossil record it'll leave behind. Say some alien/human species visits Earth once we're all gone. Hopefully they'll love studying humans and livestock. Said future palaeontologists will be privileged perhaps with millions of cemeteries containing peoples of all ages and ethnicities. Livestock, especially cows, will be likely be the most prevalent fossil species on Earth after humans. Rather than seeing the biodiversity we see now, future palaeontologists of whatever species would be overwhelmed with humans, cows, chickens, dogs, cats, and several other livestock species. Elephants, tigers, Komodo dragons, etc, are all fascinating and charismatic beasts that may be extremely rare if not completely absent from the fossil record, given the chances of preservation. I believe zoos would be potentially interesting sites. Imagine if the world's only tiger fossil is known from a country such as China and then you find one in Kansas!
There are quite a few talks where information is embargoed, and I'm not inclined to spill secrets. Dr. Ashley Poust talked about "creodonts", the possibility of them being afrotheres, and how we're likely to see more taxonomic reworking of both mammals in general and "creodonts" in particular in the future. Aaron van der Eeest gave a lecture on tissue preservation in Ornithomimus, Latenivenatrix, and Chasmosaurus, whereas Denise F. Su discussed the palaeoecology of early hominins. Chasmosaurine histology was focused on by Carrie Levitt-Bussian, and I for some reason drew a Centrosaurus in my notes. Alexandria Brannick talked about remains of Alphadon from Egg Mountain, and how they may help to redefine marsupial phylogeny. James C. Lamsdell made an excellent case for using eurypterids as case studies for evolution, as we have a fairly robust phylogeny (with practically the same results under Bayesian inference and parsimony) that details the rise of eurypterids to apex predator status, their split into saltwater and freshwater forms, a trend towards increasing body size, and even the possibility of sexing sea scorpions (though we can't tell which is a male or a female, but we can infer sexual dimorphism). There's also some exciting adelophthalmid news that I believe is embargoed atm.
Jade Simon talked about Anzu and how it grew, revealing some interesting embargoed information on Hell Creek oviraptorosaurs. Dan Lovelace gave a fascinating lecture on his work in the oft-ignored Popo Agie Formation, where he has been unearthing vertebrate remains for the last few years along with his children. There are several very exciting finds that I can't discuss. Sarah Gibson gave what was perhaps my favorite talk, even though I know little about prehistoric fish. This is where I learned about Hemicalypterus, and she also talked about several other taxa she has worked on. This is also where I learned that there was a series of Triassic rift lakes similar to what we see in East Africa now, except these were formed between Morocco and the eastern seaboard of the USA. Armita Manafzadeh talked about reconstructing dinosaur locomotion by studying modern archosaurs, and how we both assume too little and too much of how dinosaurs could move. Eva Hoffman discussed Kayentatherium, lecturing in detail on a Kayenta mom and her 38 babies. Clearly Kayentatherium still employed a rather "reptilian" strategy of reproduction, and that big brains can often be associated with parental care and "cuteness" (with precocial young tending to look rather like miniature copies of their parents, as in Kayentatherium). It may be inferred that parental care could've arose in some of the earliest mammaliaforms such as Morganucodon. Maybe. Thomas Cullen talked about studies on Sue and on theropod growth, and that's about all I can say for now, but there is some interesting information that'll come out of the paper whenever it is published. Antoine Bercovicci and Regan E. Dunn both gave lectures on a botanical view of the K-Pg extinction event, and how we see a crash in plant diversity, followed by a huge spike in the number of ferns (ferns are excellent colonizers of ravaged lands, and were some of the first plants to grow in the areas affected by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens), and a relatively quick recovery of the forests of Hell Creek, which we may be restoring wrong. I believe that information may be secretive at the moment, so that's all I'll say as I loving infuriating tidbits.
Overall, I believe this was one of the most successful and interesting years of Paleofest with a great variety of lectures that were all given excellently. Even on topics such as Mesozoic fish and K-Pg pollen, I never found myself bored, though I was pretty tired on the first day. I can't wait to see what's in store for the future, and hopefully I may get to make more connections with the Internet palaeocommunity!
It was great to see
in person again! I'm hoping that I didn't miss any other deviantART users while I was there, but if you're there next year, you know what I look like. I still highly encourage anyone within the area or who doesn't mind paying for a bit to travel to go, though it has unfortunately gotten more expensive over the years.Nonetheless, they were still many great talks. Thomas Holtz addressed why I hate drawing tyrannosaurs now (way too much heated debate on integument and lips that people on both sides take way too seriously), and how there still isn't anything conclusive to be said about T. rex itself. Dr. Roy Plotnick also gave a fascinating lecture that instead focused on the future rather than the past. Dr. Plotnick talked about the Anthropocene and the fossil record it'll leave behind. Say some alien/human species visits Earth once we're all gone. Hopefully they'll love studying humans and livestock. Said future palaeontologists will be privileged perhaps with millions of cemeteries containing peoples of all ages and ethnicities. Livestock, especially cows, will be likely be the most prevalent fossil species on Earth after humans. Rather than seeing the biodiversity we see now, future palaeontologists of whatever species would be overwhelmed with humans, cows, chickens, dogs, cats, and several other livestock species. Elephants, tigers, Komodo dragons, etc, are all fascinating and charismatic beasts that may be extremely rare if not completely absent from the fossil record, given the chances of preservation. I believe zoos would be potentially interesting sites. Imagine if the world's only tiger fossil is known from a country such as China and then you find one in Kansas!
There are quite a few talks where information is embargoed, and I'm not inclined to spill secrets. Dr. Ashley Poust talked about "creodonts", the possibility of them being afrotheres, and how we're likely to see more taxonomic reworking of both mammals in general and "creodonts" in particular in the future. Aaron van der Eeest gave a lecture on tissue preservation in Ornithomimus, Latenivenatrix, and Chasmosaurus, whereas Denise F. Su discussed the palaeoecology of early hominins. Chasmosaurine histology was focused on by Carrie Levitt-Bussian, and I for some reason drew a Centrosaurus in my notes. Alexandria Brannick talked about remains of Alphadon from Egg Mountain, and how they may help to redefine marsupial phylogeny. James C. Lamsdell made an excellent case for using eurypterids as case studies for evolution, as we have a fairly robust phylogeny (with practically the same results under Bayesian inference and parsimony) that details the rise of eurypterids to apex predator status, their split into saltwater and freshwater forms, a trend towards increasing body size, and even the possibility of sexing sea scorpions (though we can't tell which is a male or a female, but we can infer sexual dimorphism). There's also some exciting adelophthalmid news that I believe is embargoed atm.
Jade Simon talked about Anzu and how it grew, revealing some interesting embargoed information on Hell Creek oviraptorosaurs. Dan Lovelace gave a fascinating lecture on his work in the oft-ignored Popo Agie Formation, where he has been unearthing vertebrate remains for the last few years along with his children. There are several very exciting finds that I can't discuss. Sarah Gibson gave what was perhaps my favorite talk, even though I know little about prehistoric fish. This is where I learned about Hemicalypterus, and she also talked about several other taxa she has worked on. This is also where I learned that there was a series of Triassic rift lakes similar to what we see in East Africa now, except these were formed between Morocco and the eastern seaboard of the USA. Armita Manafzadeh talked about reconstructing dinosaur locomotion by studying modern archosaurs, and how we both assume too little and too much of how dinosaurs could move. Eva Hoffman discussed Kayentatherium, lecturing in detail on a Kayenta mom and her 38 babies. Clearly Kayentatherium still employed a rather "reptilian" strategy of reproduction, and that big brains can often be associated with parental care and "cuteness" (with precocial young tending to look rather like miniature copies of their parents, as in Kayentatherium). It may be inferred that parental care could've arose in some of the earliest mammaliaforms such as Morganucodon. Maybe. Thomas Cullen talked about studies on Sue and on theropod growth, and that's about all I can say for now, but there is some interesting information that'll come out of the paper whenever it is published. Antoine Bercovicci and Regan E. Dunn both gave lectures on a botanical view of the K-Pg extinction event, and how we see a crash in plant diversity, followed by a huge spike in the number of ferns (ferns are excellent colonizers of ravaged lands, and were some of the first plants to grow in the areas affected by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens), and a relatively quick recovery of the forests of Hell Creek, which we may be restoring wrong. I believe that information may be secretive at the moment, so that's all I'll say as I loving infuriating tidbits.
Overall, I believe this was one of the most successful and interesting years of Paleofest with a great variety of lectures that were all given excellently. Even on topics such as Mesozoic fish and K-Pg pollen, I never found myself bored, though I was pretty tired on the first day. I can't wait to see what's in store for the future, and hopefully I may get to make more connections with the Internet palaeocommunity!
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