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.

This one started out as a sketch and accidentally morphed into a black and white painting lol. I like the way it turned out though :)

Baryonyx is Greek for “Heavy Claw.” It was discovered in 1986 by English rockhound, William Walker, Greek for “Heavy Sideburns”  (that’s right 1986, not 1896, despite the  rockin’ hairdo—http://goo.gl/A0JXlI ). While prospecting in the clays of Smokejack’s Pit in Southern England, Bill Walker discovered a mysterious claw, unlike anything seen before. After further excavation, it was found to be the enormous thumb claw of a 9.5m (31ft) long predatory dinosaur. Baryonyx’s long, crocodile-like snout and nightmarish claws used for fishing shed new light on the spinosaur family. It was an entirely new body shape for predatory dinosaurs. In this image, Baryonyx is shown snatching up a 2m (6ft) prehistoric shark called Hybodus who has wandered too close to shore (against everything his mother ever told him, I might add).

•Nerdy Detail— The moon’s orbit has been decaying over the millennia, and so the moon would have been almost 5,000 kilometers (~3,000 miles) closer at the time of Baryonyx. Maybe not as close as depicted here, but you know, artistic license ;) Also, as Baryonyx lived 130 million years ago, the moon would not yet have experienced the impact that caused the prominent Tycho crater on its lower half. So, here I’ve expunged it (using the same digital tool the person who takes your local high school senior photos uses every year to remove thousands of zits from the graduating class. There’s an image for you).

While we’re on a tangent, Tycho (for whom the crater was named) was an interesting fellow. Imagine this: 16th Century Denmark, the master of a steampunk astronomy castle who wore a metal cyborg nose because he lost his own in a sword fight to defend his mathematical formulas. Interested? Here’s the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe#Tycho.27s_nose *cloud brushes by Yuumei: http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/Cloud-Tutorial-Part-1-396507964

Death from Beneath: Deinosuchus and Monoclonius A piece I did for the BYU Museum of Paleontology back in 2011