Dilo’s general paleoart

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

Another piece, the new tyrannosaur Asiatyrannus!

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

Decided to start working on a Nanxiong formation size chart, so far I've got Qianzhousaurus and Nanshungosaurus.

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

Haven't posted here in a bit, but I've started work on a new project and I thought I'd share what I have so far. That project is a size chart of every single known Noasaurid, 16 in total. I have 5 done so far, and here they are, starting with the elaphrosaurs, who all have colors based on birds from the areas they were found, I've also tried to keep them all relatively similar to convey that they are all part of the same family.

First up we have Velocisaurus:


Then Limusaurus:


Next an unnamed taxon from France often referred to as the Angeac-Charente "Ornithomimisaur";


And lastly Elaphrosaurus itself:


And here they all are together:


And then for the non-elaphrosaurs we have Gualicho shinyae, reconstructed as a basal noasaur and sister taxon to Deltadromeus:


Which all together makes the chart so far:


For this project I wanted to have a full phylogeny of the noasauridae to base it on, but there aren't any that include every taxon, so I made my own composite tree base mainly on Averianov et al. (2024), and supplemented by Baiano et al. (2020), de Souza et al. (2021), Cau et al. (2024), and Zaher et al. (2020).

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

Oop, just realized I misscaled velocisaurus, lemme fix that rq!

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

Alright I've updated the post with the proper sizes!

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

I've been working on sculpting my personal favorite marine reptile, Leptocleidus, and I'm curious what ppl think so far!







@DinoToyForum since you're a plesiosaur guy I wanted to ask you in particular how I'm doing accuracy-wise.

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

(I am aware the top do the torso is too flat, but I only realized after taking these screenshots, I'll fix it tmmrw lol.)

[BlueKrono]

I'm nothing more than a casual fan, but I love it!

[DinoToyForum]

It looks good! Are you basing it on a particular species of Leptocleidus? The skull looks like it is based on L. capensis. How about the body?

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

It looks good! Are you basing it on a particular species of Leptocleidus? The skull looks like it is based on L. capensis. How about the body?

It is intended to be L capensis, and that's what the skull is, but I had to base the body on superstes as I just couldn't find much for capensis. I made a few changes yesterday based on some feedback I got elsewhere, mainly around the shape of the torso.

[DinoToyForum]

The postcranium of L. superstes is a bit scrappy, so it's difficult to determine the overall body proportions from it. The skelton of L. clemai is is bit more complete, and might provide a useful reference, if it really is Leptocldidus. Are you familiar with this reconstruction of it from Cruckshank and Long (1997)?

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

The postcranium of L. superstes is a bit scrappy, so it's difficult to determine the overall body proportions from it. The skelton of L. clemai is is bit more complete, and might provide a useful reference, if it really is Leptocldidus. Are you familiar with this reconstruction of it from Cruckshank and Long (1997)?

I saw it, but I was hesitant to use it due to age.

[DinoToyForum]

The postcranium of L. superstes is a bit scrappy, so it's difficult to determine the overall body proportions from it. The skelton of L. clemai is is bit more complete, and might provide a useful reference, if it really is Leptocldidus. Are you familiar with this reconstruction of it from Cruckshank and Long (1997)?

I saw it, but I was hesitant to use it due to age.

Understandable, but it's still the only reconstruction of Leptocleidus published by palaeontologists. I think you might have used Sachs et al.'s reconstruction of Brancasaurus, which is a close relative, so it's a good stand-in. I'm not convinced by the arched back in that recon, but I think you've corrected that pretty well. Brancasaurus also has unusually long fingers and toes, but there's no reason to think Leptocleidus didn't.

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

The postcranium of L. superstes is a bit scrappy, so it's difficult to determine the overall body proportions from it. The skelton of L. clemai is is bit more complete, and might provide a useful reference, if it really is Leptocldidus. Are you familiar with this reconstruction of it from Cruckshank and Long (1997)?

I saw it, but I was hesitant to use it due to age.

Understandable, but it's still the only reconstruction of Leptocleidus published by palaeontologists. I think you might have used Sachs et al.'s reconstruction of Brancasaurus, which is a close relative, so it's a good stand-in. I'm not convinced by the arched back in that recon, but I think you've corrected that pretty well. Brancasaurus also has unusually long fingers and toes, but there's no reason to think Leptocleidus didn't.

If the Brancasaurus is what I'm thinking of then sorta. I used a skeletal I found online specifically of L. superstes, but I based the find off of the Branca skel as the superstes skel gave it short flippers that seemed to contradict what I had seen elsewhere.

[DinoToyForum]

We just don't know about the proportions of Leptocleidus' flippers and there's such a lot of variation in this character, both between and within plesiosaur clades, that it essentially has to be a guess. My feeling, given the near-shore/brackish habitat Leptocleidus inhabited, is that it would have shorter flippers. But that's just my guess.

The proportions may be closer to a different leptocleidid, Nichollssaura (below), than Brancasaurus. But as long as you have a thought process behind your restoration, either is valid.

The only other comments I have are on the leading edge of the flippers and the tail. The leading edge of the flipper look rather sharp, but they would be more rounded, like the leading edge of a plane's wing. The trailing edge is sharp so that's correct.

You'll be familiar with the ongoing debate around the tail fin in plesiosaurs. Brancasaurus (and some other plesiosaurs) has been reconstructed with a horizontal one. But evidence in other plesiosaurs suggests a vertical tail fin. So, the choice is yours. If you decide to stick with the vertical tail fin, then the whole tip of the tail would likely be compressed from side to side, not just the dorsal fluke.

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

Thank you! The leading edge of the flipper is something I do intend to change, but the remesh of method I used in sculpting has left some major artefacting there that I have to fix first.