Galleries

Eons Roundup 4

Some more recent commission work for PBS Eons!

  • An illustration of an extinct entelodont, an omnivorous hoofed mammal. It has a hippo-like head and a body proportioned rather like a hyena, with high shoulders and long slender legs. It has cloven-hoofed feet and a short tail, and its body is covered in a coat of short bristly fur.
    Eoentelodon
  • An illustration of an extinct entelodont, an omnivorous hoofed mammal. It has a hippo-like head and a body proportioned rather like a hyena, with high shoulders and long slender legs. It has cloven-hoofed feet and a short tail, and its body is covered in a coat of short bristly fur.
    Brachyhyops

The entelodonts Eoentelodon and Brachyhyops, from “The Hellacious Lives of the Hell Pigs”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trJpxwMGoCw

  • An illustration of an extinct ichthyosaur, an ancient marine reptile. It has a short narrow snout full of rounded teeth, large eyes, a long tapering body, four flippers, and a long tail ending in a vertical fin.
    Tholodus
  • An illustration of an extinct mosasaur, an ancient marine reptile. It has long triangular jaws full of many small sharp teeth, a long lizard-like body, four paddle-like flippers, and a long tail ending in a vertical fin.
    Pluridens

The early ichthyosaur Tholodus and the mosasaurPluridens, from “When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V342aXQs9XY

  • An illustration of an extinct early bat in flight. It has claws on all five fingers on each wing, along with small ears and a long tail.
    Onychonycteris
  • An illustration of an extinct early bat in flight. It has claws on both its thumb and the first wing finger one each wing, along with small ears and a long tail.
    Icaronycteris

The early bats Onychonycteris and Icaronycteris, from “When Bats Took Flight”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWeYCULC0UQ

Eons Roundup 3

Some more recent work I’ve done for PBS Eons!

  • Hibbertopterus scouleri
  • Brachyopterus stubblefieldi

The eurypterids Hibbertopterus and Brachyopterus, from “When Giant Scorpions Swarmed the Seas”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sQXTXbuLYo

  • Plionarctos edensis
  • Arctotherium angustidens

The short-faced bears Plionarctos and Arctotherium, from “The Mystery Behind the Biggest Bears of All Time”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtsOhmBb92E

  • Panthera blytheae
  • Panthera atrox

The big cats Panthera blytheae and Panthera atrox, from “The Ghostly Origins of the Big Cats”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPJnqWke5n8

Eons Roundup 2

  • California Channel Island pygmy mammoth (Mammuthus exilis) and Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi)

And speaking of island elephants, I recently illustrated some for PBS Eons’ episode on the California Channel Island pygmy mammoths:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXwoKEDtdlM

Eons Roundup

This year I’ve been lucky enough to have some of my work featured in several PBS Eons videos – and I even recently got the opportunity to do some custom images for them! Since I didn’t show any of these off at the time, here they are now:

  • Iberospondylus schultzei

The basal temnospondyl amphibian Iberospondylus, from “When Giant Amphibians Reigned”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGthtRZl8B0

  • Lithornis sp.

The flying paleognath bird Lithornis, from “When Birds Stopped Flying”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3h05ajJw0o

  • Nematherium sp.

The ground sloth Nematherium, from “How Sloths Went From the Seas to the Trees”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9tBtQoAHo

Happy new year, everybody!

Unsolved Paleo Mysteries Month #05 – Confusing Chitinozoans

An illustration of an enigmatic microfossil. It's shaped like a round-bottomed flask.
Lagenochitina sp.
An illustration of an enigmatic microfossil. It's shaped like a tall conical flask, with its lower half covered in spines.
Spinachitina sp.
An illustration of an enigmatic microfossil. It's shaped like a short section of ball chain.
Margachitina margaritana

Chitinozoans are tiny microfossils (50-2000µm in size) commonly found in marine deposits all around the world between the end of the Cambrian and the start of the Carboniferous (~489-358 mya). Often described as “flask-shaped”, they have a variety of external ornamentation, are sometimes found in linked chains, and are important as Paleozoic index fossils.

But we don’t know what sort of organism actually made them.

They’ve been proposed to originate from a wide range of creatures, but currently the main hypothesis seems to be that they were the egg cases of certain marine animals – such as annelid worms, polychaete worms, molluscs, or even conodonts. Or possibly they might be immature graptolites. Or relatives of living ciliates. So far, though, no single identification seems to have gained any widespread acceptance.

[Edit: As of 2020, some exceptionally well-preserved chitinozoan specimens suggest these organisms were actually protists.]