We at LITC are the historians of prehistory, the rememberers of the forgotten, the detectives of dinosaurs. As the palaeontologist diligently searches the rocks and sediments, looking for traces of ancient life, so it is our calling to unearth the most dusty and ponderous tomes of outdated palaeontology, looking for ancient life reconstructions. And thus we come once more to the Victorians. Not the pioneers of palaeontology like Anning, Mantell, Buckland and the wretched Owen, but the second generation. Those…
Pterygotus
In my first post on this book, I exclusively looked at model dinosaurs, most of which were created by Arthur Hayward. (This is Vintage Dinosaur Art, after all.) However, ignoring the many, many models of other prehistoric animals would be doing the book a great disservice, especially because – surprise – Hayward sculpted rather a lot of them too. He even turned his hand to the odd giant ocean-going arthropod, as shown below… Yes, it’s Pterygotus, a “particularly cruel-looking” (in…