2021 AMI Online Salon
Anatomy of a sauropod dinosaur, Malawisaurus dixeyi
Project Details
- Entrant Name: Dino Pulera
- Client: self-promotion
- Copyright: Dino Pulera, 2021
- Medium/software used: graphite pencil, Photoshop, Illustrator
- Final presentation format: poster, signage for museums and/or two page spread in a popular scientific magazine like National Geographic and Scientific America
- Primary Audience: general public and scientists (paleontologists)
Project Description
This is a self-promotional piece meant to showcase and combine my two specialities, animal anatomy and paleoart. It was hoped that this illustration would engage and inform a general or scientific audience in a didactic way about the anatomy of long-necked sauropod dinosaurs.I used the extant phylogenetic bracket (EPB) method in reconstructing the hypothetical anatomy of a long-necked sauropod dinosaur. EPB is a method of inference used by comparing an extinct taxon to its nearest living relatives, in this case a sauropod dinosaur, is bracketed by birds and crocodiles.The method is often used for understanding traits that do not fossilize well, such as soft tissue anatomy. Extensive literature search was conducted to decipher the similarities and differences between bird and crocodilian anatomy. I also delved into elephant anatomy because they are the biggest extant land animals that have some similarities with sauropods like their columnar legs and graviportal locomotion.
