Detail of the Parasaurolophus painting I did
for the cover of Paleontology of New Mexico
I’m happy to announce the release of a new book—The Paleontology of New Mexico by Barry S. Kues. Dr. Kues is a professor of paleontology in the Earth & Planetary Sciences Department at the University of New Mexico with a longstanding interest in the prehistory of our state. The handsome cover (more on that later) states that this is an updated and expanded version of Dr. Kues’ 1982 work, Fossils of New Mexico. But since that time, so much fieldwork and research has been done around New Mexico that this work is literally twice the size of its predecessor, and almost entirely rewritten.
The book follows a familiar format—a few introductory chapters, followed by a chapter-by-chapter look at the fossils known from each geological period through the Paleozoic & Mesozoic Eras, and by epoch through the Cenozoic. (The least fossiliferous chapter of New Mexican prehistory? The highly volcanic Oligocene, which takes up less than a page in this book.) The text is written in a style I’d describe as “accessible scientific,” and the book contains numerous black and white illustrations, mostly compiled from the primary literature, which provide ample visual appeal for the interested non-specialist. All in all, this volume is a very solid overview of the current state of paleontology in the State of New Mexico.
I do want to thank Barry Kues and the publishers at UNM Press for giving me the opportunity to create a painting for the cover—a dapper Parasaurolophus tubicen hooting at dusk on the shores of a steamy Cretaceous riverbank in what is now northwest New Mexico. (And a big thank you to Mina Yamashita at the Press for a cover design that really pops the painting off of the jacket!)
Gomphotherium installation at Galleta Meadows. Photo from here.
From this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune, I learned of the life-sized (or larger) sculptures of Ricardo Breceda, who is in the process of installing an entire zoo of sheet metal megafauna on the Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs, California. The project appears to be a collaboration between sculptor Breceda, who was inspired to start sculpting prehistoric animals after watching Jurassic Park, and landowner Dennis Avery, who came up with the idea of “of adding ‘free standing art’ to his property” to recreate the area’s prehistoric inhabitants.
It’s hard not to be impressed with ambitious scope of this project, and Breceda’s sculptures seem to be a perfect fit for the arid landscape around Borrego Springs. I’m particularly fond of the character and detailing seen in the Gomphotherium (shown above) and the smaller ground sloths, like this little fella.
LIFE magazine and Google have begun making millions of images from the LIFE photo archive available online. Some quick searches have already brought these interesting items to my attention:
A Jurassic scene by early paleoartist Joseph Smit. Unsigned pieces that look like Smit’s work include this size comparison of a human, Diplodocus, and Gigantosaurus, and a couple of placid sauropods unperturbed by the kangaroo-hopping carnosaur (Laelaps?) entering from stage left.
“Most of the nearly two billion children in the developing world have inadequate access to dinosaurs. Some receive no paleontology training at all. One in three has never even seen a dinosaur in person…
…dinosaur ownership emphasizes what Chua calls “survival learning” as the fundamental experience. A dinosaur uniquely fosters learning survival skills by allowing children to “think about living” in ways that are otherwise impossible.”
Tyler is a talented preparator and sculptor for the University of Chicago’s Fossil Laboratory. Chances are you’ve seen his work before—both his Rugops and Nigersaurus got a lot of play in the media, and he’s recently gotten some attention for the “Stone Age Embrace” plaque reproducing the Gobero triple-burial uncovered from the “People of the Green Sahara” project. Tyler won this year’s Lanzendorf Prize for his sculpture of the Devonian “fishopod” Tiktaalik roseae (shown above). A little web searching uncovered a video showing how Tyler created this award-winning sculpture:
Carol’s work has been most familiar to me as skeletal diagrams and specimen illustrations for many of the finds described by Project Expedition – Sarcosuchus (aka SuperCroc), Nigersaurus, andJobaria, to name a few. Her illustrations have appeared in Science, Nature, National Geographic, and Newsweek. Carol’s renderings of the phalanges and claw of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus won this year’s Lanzendorf Prize for scientific illustration.
