The fifth episode of the LITC podcast is here, in which the team ventures off the beaten path into more unusual forms of palaeoart. We discuss a volume of vintage dinosaur art that was ahead of its time in its blending of photography and illustration. For our interview, Natee talks to Rebecca Groom, whose hand-crafted soft toys of underrepresented animals, both living and extinct, have won her many admirers. Featuring rainbows and unicorns and an exclusive poetry reading by Natee.
In the News
- A newly described bonebed in Utah, evocatively called the Rainbows and Unicorns quarry, yields many specimens of the tyrannosaurid Teratophoneus, which fits into a trend of tyrannosaurs often being found in mass sites – sites containing multiple Albertosaurus and Daspletosaurus are found elswehere. This might point to habitual gregariousness in tyrannosaurs. The paper can be read at open access here.
- Arackar licanantay is a newly descibed young titanosaur sauropod from Cretaceous Chile. Its description, by Rubilar-Rogers et al, can be found here. Mauricio Alvarez has made a wonderfully detailed reconstruction, and has given us permission to show it here. His work can be found on Instagram at @mauricio_alvarez_art.
Arackar, by Mauricio Alvarez, (c) 2021. Used with permission.
- A new hadrosaur from New Mexico has been discovered and described. Named Ornatops incantatus, it is believed to be closely related to Brachylophosaurus. The paper by McDonald et al is once again open access and can be found here. Brian Engh has provided the reconstruction; you can find a breakdown of his creative process – as well as an alternate version of the same illustration – on his blog here.
Ornatops. Note the partially speculative crest and the pupil shape. Image (c) Brian Engh 2021. Used with permission.
Vintage Dinosaur Art
Today’s featured vintage volume is 1984’s “The Age of Dinosaurs”, written by the famous Dougal Dixon, while wildlife photographer Jane Burton provides evocative and athmospheric images – aided by LITC favourite Steve Kirk. We discuss in what ways Jane Burton was ahead of her time, and Marc learns a new word. You can read Marc’s original 2012 review of the same book here on the old blog.
Cynognathus
Compsognathus
Saltopus
Coelurus
Tyrannosaurus
Deinonychus
Lambeosaurus
Archaeopteryx
Diplodocus
Pachycephalosaurus
Interview
Natee interviewed the wonderful and talented Rebecca Groom, creator of the esteemed Palaeoplushies series of soft toys. They talk about her influences, her creative process, her future plans and the topic of unusual palaeoart. As a footnote, Natee refers to one time they contributed to one of Bex’s creations; they in fact provided the desing and colour scheme to her Olorotitan plushie. (All images below (c) Rebecca Groom, used with permission.) Don’t forget to check out her portfolio!
Natee’s Olorotitan, on which the above is based.
Thank you for listening to the podcast! Our music was generously provided by Rohan Long. You can purchase his music at Bandcamp, and follow him at Twitter.
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2 Comments
Zain Ahmed
April 25, 2021 at 3:57 pmI actually remember having the book as a kid. The saltopus still sticks with me in my mind to this day.
For a similar thing only with actual models, there is Prehistoric Monsters by Jean Philippe-Varin, which you also reviewed years back.
https://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2012/05/vintage-dinosaur-art-prehistoric.html
A successor to this kind of style of dioramas or toys amongst photos would be using stock images for backgrounds, though the palaeo-community don’t generally regard them with much esteem beyond nostalgic ones (like I do).
Another of that kind is Dino Bricks, a book by Florent Goussard that poses lego figures of dinosaurs in what’s presumably its creators’ backyard. Learnt about it from a Discord sever i’m part of.
Grant Harding
April 29, 2021 at 11:48 pmGreat episode! I have the Dixon/Burton book. My wife calls it “dinosaurs of Instagram” since the photos are filtered and mostly square!