My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

Here's a cheat sheet for Megalograptus, commissioned in 2022 for a project I cannot talk about yet. The scientific consultant was Fiann Smithwick.

#Art #Painting #PaleoArt #PalaeoArt #SciArt #SciComm #DigitalArt #Illustration #Dinosaurs #Reptiles #Palaeontology #Paleontology #Megalograptus #Eurypterid #Eurypterids #SeaScorpions #FossilFriday

#Eurypterids, often informally called sea scorpions, are a group of extinct arthropods that form the order Eurypterida. The earliest known eurypterids date to the Darriwilian stage of the Ordovician period 467.3 million years ago. The

Findings reveal #eurypterids evolved giant size independently at least nine times https://phys.org/news/2024-08-reveal-eurypterids-evolved-giant-size.html

#ConvergentEvolution of giant size in eurypterids https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.1184

#SeaScorpions, ancient predators that patrolled Earth's marine and freshwater habitats hundreds of millions of years ago, are the focus of a sizable scientific mystery... the #evolution of giant size in eurypterids was rapid, and in some instances giant species evolved among much smaller relatives.

#NewPaper #Paleontology #Eurypterids #Biomechanics

Bicknell RDC, Simone Y, van der Meijden A, Wroe S, Edgecombe GD, Paterson JR. 2022. Biomechanical analyses of pterygotid sea scorpion chelicerae uncover predatory specialisation within eurypterids. PeerJ 10:e14515 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14515

#Biomechanical analyses of pterygotid #SeaScorpion #chelicerae uncover #predatory specialisation within #eurypterids https://peerj.com/articles/14515/ via @PeerJ #paleobiology #fossilfriday #InvertebrateBiomechanics https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14515

#paleontology #fossils #Silurian #arthropods #SeaScorpions An article published in the journal "Science Bulletin" reports the identification of Terropterus xiushanensis, a species belonging to the order of the #eurypterids (Eurypterida),
https://english.netmassimo.com/2021/10/15/terropterus-xiushanensis-is-the-first-sea-scorpion-discovered-in-china/