Halichoeres's drawings

[Jose S.M.]

It's nice to see Onchopristis as more than just Spinosaurus prey, which is de most common depiction of it in paleoart.

[Stegotyranno420]

Spinosaurus was easily able to lift and throw large car sized fish. Thats proof its not skinny and weak, its was muscular and fat.

Sorry about that, I will go back to topic

[triceratops83]

Halichoeres, I really hope to one day buy a book written and illustrated by you on ancient fish.

[Halichoeres]

It's nice to see Onchopristis as more than just Spinosaurus prey, which is de most common depiction of it in paleoart.

That was my thought, too. All over the Internet people were updating their Spinos, and they were persistently getting Onchopristis wrong.

@Halichoeres  by the way im making a rhizodus sculpture. Its still in progress.

That's exciting, I look forward to seeing it!

Halichoeres, I really hope to one day buy a book written and illustrated by you on ancient fish.

Wow, that's very kind! I don't know if I'm really qualified to produce something like that but maybe if I enlist a collaborator...

[Stegotyranno420]

@Halichoeres i like the way your drawings feel, they give this primitive aquatic vibe of old times when strange sea beast swam the waters. A time when the ocean was clear of trash, but filled with life... and blood

[Halichoeres]

Thanks, @Stegotyranno, very kind.

Here's Candelarhynchus padillai (Vernygora et al. 2017), a lizardfish relative from the Cretaceous of Colombia. A young boy visiting a monastery found the fossil in a paving flagstone, showed a photo to paleontologists in Villa de Leyva, Boyacá, and it was described as a new genus in 2017. It's in the family †Dercetidae (Actinopterygii: Teleostei: Aulopiformes), many of which were scaleless, so I've reconstructed it that way here. The ones that did have scales had relatively few, mostly along the lateral line, and the scales had a strange three-pronged morphology.


If the following runs afoul of DTF strictures on politics, I will remove it. My opinion is that nearly everything is political, and that when someone says, "Don't make ________ political," what they are really saying is, "I am content with the politics surrounding ________ and I'd prefer that you not rock the boat." But again, if mods or admin feel it's inappropriate, I will remove it.



Top to bottom, they are:
Melanecta anneae (Coates 1998)
Woodichthys bearsdeni (Ibid.)
Akmonistion zangerli (Coates & Sequeira 2001)
All are from the Carboniferous Bearsden Formation in Scotland. They're traced over these quick and dirty line drawings based on photos of the holotypes:

[Crackington]

Wonderful drawing Halichoeres, took me a minute to see it, but very apt message for the times.

[Halichoeres]

Wonderful drawing Halichoeres, took me a minute to see it, but very apt message for the times.

Thanks very much.

I'm a bit late for that but I just want to say it makes me so so happy to see an accurate Onchopristis depiction for once. 
Sooo good!

And thank you! It's almost accurate. Someday I'll revisit this species and fix the minor proportion problems, give it a better color scheme, etc. But there are so many other prehistoric fish to get to, not to mention the occasional extant ones that I don't post here.

[Patrx]

I am also a bit late to respond, but I quite like all of these drawings and did not, until today, know that there was such a group as "lizardfish". Fascinating!

[Dinoreplicas]

Excellent graffiti style lettering on the BLM fish.

[Shonisaurus]

Wonderful drawings of fishes from the Cretaceous of Colombia and the Carboniferous. What I am wondering is this, why have so few prehistoric fish figures been made in the well-known brands of toy dinosaurs except for the Japanese and Eastern brands? What I also appreciate about you Halichoeres is that you explain as a good ichthyologist scientific details of extinct fish is as interesting or more than the illustrations.

[Halichoeres]

Thank you everyone for the kind words.

I dug this up recently, a drawing I did of the Cretaceous wasp Diversinitus attenboroughi, named after Sir David himself. It's about two years old, before I became aware of the human cost of Burmese amber (though the information was known! Just not known to me).


I find insects very challenging but enjoyable to draw; I should spend more time with them.

More recently I tried what is perhaps the closest thing to an eel that sharks have ever produced.

Thrinacodus gracia, from the Carboniferous Bear Gulch formation in Montana, USA. Its name means "trident-tooth," for the three-cusped teeth that lined its jaws. Besides its overall shape, it's unusual among sharks in having its nares (nostrils) retracted to just in front of the eyes, rather than tucked under a rostral cartilage as we're used to seeing in modern sharks.

[Shonisaurus]

Beautiful and detailed drawings of two species totally unknown to me. What I value the most about your thread is that you tell us about prehistoric animals from a scientific point of view. Thank you very much for your scientific descriptions.

[BlueKrono]

I love the eel-shark! Makes me want to make a model of it.

[Justin_]

What size would the Thrinacodus have been? It looks as if shark-references.com might be interested in your drawing.
https://shark-references.com/species/view/Thrinacodus-gracia

[Halichoeres]

Thanks everyone! @Justin_ I was not familiar with that site, I'll look into that! I should have mentioned the size; the largest body fossil shows an animal about 92 cm in total length. @BlueKrono please do make a model. It should be pretty easy, if this Far Side cartoon is anything to go by.

[Halichoeres]

What size would the Thrinacodus have been? It looks as if shark-references.com might be interested in your drawing.
https://shark-references.com/species/view/Thrinacodus-gracia

My drawing is now the illustration on that page Thanks for the tip!

I thought I'd posted these drawings earlier, but I guess I forgot!

One fish, two fish, Redfieldius, Bluefieldius:

Redfieldius (Hay 1899) is from the Lower Jurassic of North America, named after naturalist JH Redfield. Bluefieldius (Mickle 2018) is from the Carboniferous of North America and is named for the Bluefield formation in West Virginia. Both are primitive actinopterygians, but the tail morphology and skull anatomy are pretty different. Redfieldius had bony tubercles all over its face, maybe serving a function like the seasonal nuptial tubercles that lots of minnows (Cyprinidae) get, although those are principally keratinous. Ink on heavy-toothed paper, colored digitally.

The original:

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Interesting to see a life restoration of redfieldius. My local museum and I both have them but the reconstructions I have seen are out of date and don't make it look as distinctive.

[Halichoeres]

It really is a distinctive fish. If they lived today in rivers in the Mobile Basin, for example, they'd probably have a name like "pricklesnout."

[Halichoeres]

†Legnonotus krambergeri (Bartram 1977)
Upper Triassic
colored pencil and ink
Legnonotus (Actinopterygii: Holostei: Ginglymodi) was a very primitive relative of gars, and had the heavy ganoid scales of gars. But the area around the dorsal fin base was bare skin, maybe to give it finer control of the individual fin rays. Knifefishes and bowfin use long fins like this to maneuver stealthily through complex environments, backward and forward. This could have been similar. It might also be a convenient place to suffuse with pigment during courtship and spawning (I chickened out, though, and left it in non-breeding condition).