Scientific Illustration

ewilloughby:

This is a complete remake of an old picture of mine, and is hopefully the last full picture for this creation/evolution book, though I know I’ve been saying that for a while. It’s very interesting how much the scope of the project has, well, evolved since 2008. This painting is, obviously, a depiction of Microraptor gui gliding down from a rock. It is a rock and not a tree branch because (in my opinion, at least) there is not yet enough evidence for the idea that Microraptor was arboreal, so it’s possible that it didn’t spend very much time in trees at all. Here it is chasing Pompiloperus, a species of early Cretaceous Jehol digger wasp. Insect-chasing was unlikely to be something that Microraptor did often, but as we can learn from All Yesterdays, animals commonly do things they don’t do commonly, if you know what I mean.

This is old news at this point, but the main impetus for deciding to redo the old drawing was the Microraptor color study, which revealed a few finer points of the animal: that its long-assumed headcrest was more likely to be an artifact of smushed feathers in fossilization, that at least some Microraptor had a pair of long tail ribbons extending back from the fan, and most notably, that the animal’s feathers were iridescent, perhaps shiny blue-black like a crow.

There seems to be some debate at present about whether Microraptor’s legwings were typically held perpendicular to the metatarsals or more in parallel when gliding, so I painted them somewhat intermediate - a likely position for takeoff, I think.

This represents probably over 100 hour of work and is entirely hand-painted in Photoshop CS4. As always, a huge thanks to Jon for endless support, critiques and suggestions. Be sure to buy the book if you want to see this in high-res! ;) This will be my last upload for 2012 (perhaps my last ever, if the Mayans are right :p). May 2013 be full of many featheries!

(via prehistoric-birds)

terribleclaw:

i think i am MOSTLY done with this? dang

(via prehistoric-birds)

paleoillustration:

Microraptor II (Microraptor I posted here) by Edyta <-follow on Tumblr

prehistoric-birds:

Microraptor zhaoianus restoration by ~Green-Mamba

From the artist’s comment: 

It has been suggested that Microraptor may in fact be better suited to fly than its close relative, the much touted “first bird” Archaeopteryx.

fuckyeahdinoart:

Microraptor and Sinornis (recoloured) by *Gogosardina

rhamphotheca:

Microraptor and Flashy Feathers

by Sid Perkins

The pigeon-sized dinosaur Microraptor, which lived about 120 million years ago, probably sported glossy black plumage like today’s crows, a new analysis suggests. Detailed analyses of a fossil (inset) unearthed in northeastern China reveal that the creature’s feathers would have been densely packed with pigment-bearing structures called melanosomes.

The long, narrow shape of those melanosomes, as well as their arrangement in sheetlike arrays, indicates that the feathers would have been black and weakly iridescent, the researchers report in the 9 March issue of Science. Although other pigments could have been present in Microraptor’s feathers, they would have been largely masked by black pigments, rendering the creature crowlike in appearance (main image) except for that long, bony tail and lengthy feathers on its legs.

Previous studies of other Microraptor fossils, citing the presence of a large, bony ring within the creature’s eye, suggested that the species was nocturnal. But the new study hints that the creature was active in the daytime, because no extant birds with glossy black plumage are active at night. Perhaps Microraptor was active during dawn and dusk, the researchers say—a lifestyle that would require large eyes yet also provide opportunity for daytime activity for which iridescent plumage could be used to identify fellow members of its species and signal to potential mates.

(via: Science NOW)    

(images: Jason Brougham/Univ. of Texas; Mick Ellison - inset)

dendroica:

The more we discover about dinosaurs, the more these “terrible lizards” resemble otherworldly birds. None more so than the microraptor, which paleontologists have meticulously reconstructed in a paper in Science. Not only was the microraptor about the size of a modern-day crow, it looked very crow-like according to paleontologists, even down to the discovery that it sported dark iridescent feathers, the first yet recorded in nature. “This study gives us an unprecedented glimpse at what this animal looked like when it was alive,” said co-author Mark Norell, chair of the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology, in a statement. “While we’ve nailed down what color this animal was, even more importantly, we’ve determined that Microraptor, like many modern birds, most likely used its ornate feathering to give visual social signals.” (via Meet the dinosaur that looks like a crow)

fuckyeahdinoart:

microraptor gui by ~Onikaizer

fuckyeahdinoart:

Microraptor gui by Robert Alicea

fuckyeahdinoart:

Microraptor gui and Epicharmeropsis by Emily Willoughby