Dig it: Oryctodromeus cubicularis
This is a piece I did for my friend L.J. Krumenacker, a Paleontologist up at MSU in Montana. He’s been making some awesome discoveries in Idaho recently, revealing for the first time the dinosaurs that lived in the state: Link. In particular, this is an illustration of Oryctodromeus, the first known digging dinosaur. Multiple individuals of Oryctodromeus have been found preserved inside their burrows. Basically, it was the dinosaur equivalent of a groundhog (someone said in a recent discussion that from now on we need to check on February 2nd whether Oryctodromeus sees its shadow lol). There have been a number of past illustrations of Oryctodromeus, but none really told the dramatic story of digging and exploring the depths in a way that was very compelling to me. That was my goal with this piece—to show what was really unique and exciting about this animal.