Messy Theropod

Interpreting the dinosaur footprint shape and size is not easy even if it seems clear at the first sight.
 An unusual track from the Pogledalo promontory of the Main Brijun island seemed to have 5-6 toes. I tried to interpret it with the red outline (image at the bottom), but with a partial result. I managed defining one large theropod footprint with a hallux impression. It was close to 50 cm long left foot (pes). The impression on the right was obviously a case of overprint. The same or another theropod left a print earlier and this footprint that I interpreted obliterated it. It is of Barremian age (Early Cretaceous), some 125 mya.

Tempus fugit

Time flies. It even seems, that time is accelerating.

Here is some stuff from my old websites from the previous century... I think it was from the year 1997 until 2000.

 Me and my late assistant Koki. Both of us got seriously ill soon after this photograph was taken. Koki died while I got another chance to live.

 Pachycephalosaurus

 Erlikosaurus

 Xenosmilus

Suchomimus

and Homotherium

 

Pinocchio rex

It took me a while to get to restoring the looks of the tyrannosaurid popularly called "Pinocchio rex"

Qianzhousaurus sinensis. So here it is at last:

 Ups!....Sorry. Here it is. The face of  Qianzhousaurus sinensis probably looked like this:

 

For comparison, here is my profile portrait of the contemporary Alioramus remotus, I have done about 10 years ago (or more?). It has no "clothes" according to the fashion among the paleo illustrators at the time. The "fuzzy dinosaurs" started massively emerging in the last several years.

 Qianzhousaurus was larger than Alioramus and the fossil belonged to an adult animal, while the Alioramus fossils were from the subadults, according to researchers.

Marine reptiles for a change

I am presenting here my old Ichthyosaurus communis drawing for a change. I think I have done it in the mid 90's.

Deinocheirus sketches

The preliminary sketches of Deinocheirus mirificus. I have done the theropod without its "dino fuzz", although there is a 95% chance they had it. I did for better understanding of the anatomy and the posture. Because of the hump, the spine seemed bent in an awkward way.
 Deinocheirus in action:

Deinocheirus size (roughly). A woman silhouette is for scale, of course:

Linden blossoming and Deinocheirus

So, what do blossoming linden trees  and Deinocheirus mirificus have in common?
I am about to complete the illustration of Deinocheirus (below - almost done) for my upcoming article in Slovenian popular science magazine "Življenje in tehnika". In the meantime the linden trees have blossomed all over the town. It's a rare opportunity when one can actually enjoy the pleasant smell of otherwise traffic busy city.
Here is a pair of Mongolian Late Cretaceous ostrich-like theropods Deinocheirus mirificus. Don't get too attached to the image, yet, because the fossils haven't been researched properly nor the paper written yet. However, some images that had surfaced on the Internet showed the animal had a hump on its back and a rather long narrow snout that was broad at the tip, almost like in the duck billed dinosaurs. I might get back to correcting or rendering some features after seeing the paper. By the way, these theropods were the tallest discovered so far and it also seems that they were herbivorous.

Now, here is a linden in full bloom:

Small iguanodontoid tracks

Here are rather well preserved couple of small ornithopod footprints from the late Albian of Pula.

My interpretation of the tracks is the red outline in the right image. It seems there was some foot dragging and maybe even slipping over the mud.