Way back in 2008, I was working on a skeletal reconstruction of Pteranodon longiceps, sourced mostly from Chris Bennett's (1991) dissertation. It included a dorsal and a lateral view, and all I had left to do were the feet (feet are fiddly, annoying, and somewhat boring). While I was procrastinating about the feet, Mike Hanson beat me to the punch, and produced a skeletal reconstruction based on the same source. It wasn't just that he got there first, but it was better than mine to boot, with more views, and a more carefully drawn skull. So I gave up, and left my still footless Pteranodon to go mouldy on my hard drive. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to revisit my Pteranodon skeletal, to see if it was in a fit state to be incorporated into a new project. I also wanted to include the suggestion made by Claessens et al (2009) that the sternum sloped ventrally, rather than dorsally or flat and usually shown. As I started tweaking things, especially as I was working on an anterior view, I realised there was something quite wrong with my Pteranodon... the scapulocoracoid, when drawn in anterior view, was dorsoventrally way too short. I couldn't get the coracoid to articulate with the sternum, not by a long shot. My drawing matched Bennett's (1991), Hanson's (2008), Claessens et al (2009), and other drawings pretty well. So, if mine was wrong, then there was something wrong with a lot of the Pteranodon reconstructions out there. Moving the sternum up posed something of a problem, however, because the ribs didn't seem to fit. Looking into this more closely, it appears Bennett's drawings show the ribs flattened toward the viewer. In other words, there is little accounting for curvature and foreshortening, which has the effect of making the ribcage far too deep. Comparing different people's drawings, something quite interesting emerged, Pteranodon is nearly always reconstructed with a teardrop shaped trunk. Bennett's original 1991 drawing and Hanson's closely related 2008 drawing both have the error of an overly deep ribcage and scapulocoracoid. They also have the sternum sloping dorsally. These things combined give a strong teardrop shape. Greg Paul's (2002) drawing has a similar shape, but it achieves this in a completely different way.* Paul seems to have the depth of the ribcage and scapulocoracoid right, and even has a gentle ventral slope to the sternum, but he also adds a deep keel to the sternum, which I presume is meant to be cartilaginous (it isn't preserved in pterosaurs I've seen). So again, a classic teardrop shape. Claessens et al (2009) has a more pronounced ventral slope to the sternum, but it also has the overly deep ribs and scapulocoracoid; which makes for a slightly more portly teardrop. If we combine a (keel-less) ventrally sloping sternum, and make the ribcage and scapulocoracoid shallower as I think they ought to be, we end up with a different sort of shape for Pteranodon's trunk. A distinctly pot-bellied one: Sloping the sternum ventrally would make most pterosaurs deeper in the mid-trunk than we are used to drawing them, so I am looking forward to seeing whether other pterosaurs will turn out to be so hilariously shaped. *Greg Paul's reconstruction seems to have radically different proportions to the others, this could be because it is based on different specimens. References Bennett, S.C., 1991. Morphology of the Late Cretaceous pterosaur Pterandon and systematics of the Pterodactyloidea. PhD. dissertation, University of Kansas. Claessens, L.P.A.M., O'Connor, P.M., and Unwin, D.M., 2009. Respiratory Evolution Facilitated the Origin of Pterosaur Flight and Aerial Gigantism. PLoS ONE vol. 4 (2) pp. e4497 Online Hanson, M., 2008. Pteranodon Skeletals. Online Paul, G.S., 2002. Dinosaurs of the Air. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

This Velociraptor is dead. As, in fact, they all are. Based on Scott Hartman's skeletal

Tupandactylus imperator, a pretty big cretaceous pterosaur, with a crazyinsane head crest of megaepic proportions.

For those who don't know, this is the rather spectacular crested Nyctosaurus—a medium-sized pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous. I did picture of this pair a few years back where I put sails on them, to go with the skim-sailing hypothesis that was so hot right then. It's not so hot right now, so this is an un-sailed version (which is based on an old painting I did at the same time, but never uploaded anywhere). I've extended the rear-facing prong somewhat, as it seems there were extra bits that weren't obvious in the original description.

Aw, what a tweet liddle tweedy bird! I want to snuglylumphs it all up! The superb little pterosaur Nemicolopterus crypticus, in the trees, like all the restorations out there (hey, at least I went for something other than a ginko!). Based on my skeletal.

A preliminary skeletal of the new (and absolutely tiny) pterosaur Nemicolopterus crypticus. This was done from the not-very-high-resolution photographs and drawings in the description, so I do stress that it is preliminary. White indicates bones present and restorable, light grey indicates bones that are present but I had to pretty my make up (because they are badly crushed, partially obscured by other bones, etc.) and dark grey missing elements. Stipples indicate air sacs. Gotta say, this is one cool looking little beasty. Really birdlike. References: Wang et al., 2008. Discovery of a rare arboreal forest-dwelling flying reptile (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea) from China. PNAS vol. 105 (6) pp. 1983-1987

Nemo Ramjet commented that a lot of my pterosaur pictures look like those classic paintings of WW2 fighters. So I decided to go the whole hog! Anyway, the pterosaur is Tropeognathus mesembrinus, with the body modeled on Anhanguera. I've gone with my more customary "Cunningham" membrane configuration, which looks pretty sweet on these guys.

The ventral forelimb muscle attachment sites in crocodylians, Anhanguera, and a corvid. The attachments in Anhanguera are inferred from muscle scars, and comparison with crocodylians and birds. Bennett, S. C., 2003. Morphological evolution of the pectoral girdle of pterosaurs myology and function, in Buffetaut, E., and Mazin, J-M. (eds) 2003, Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs, geological society of London, 2003 217 pp. 191-215 Hudson, E. H., Lanzillotti P. J., 1955. Gross anatomy of the wing muscles in the family Corvidae, The American Midland Naturalist, 53:1 pp. 1-44 Meers, M. B., 2003. Crocodylian forelimb musculature and its relevance to the Archosauria, The Anatomica Record, Part A

The dorsal forelimb muscle attachment sites in crocodylians, Anhanguera, and a corvid. The attachments in Anhanguera are inferred from muscle scars, and comparison with crocodylians and birds. Bennett, S. C., 2003. Morphological evolution of the pectoral girdle of pterosaurs myology and function, in Buffetaut, E., and Mazin, J-M. (eds) 2003, Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs, geological society of London, 2003 217 pp. 191-215 Hudson, E. H., Lanzillotti P. J., 1955. Gross anatomy of the wing muscles in the family Corvidae, The American Midland Naturalist, 53:1 pp. 1-44 Meers, M. B., 2003. Crocodylian forelimb musculature and its relevance to the Archosauria, The Anatomica Record, Part A

This is a digital re-working of a fairly old picture of mine: Compsognathus longipes feeding on a dead fish it has found on a Solnhofen beach.

An oldie but an allrighty - Cardioderma cor, a false vampire bat. And one of the few living animals I've drawn.

Pteranodon sternbergi, a 6-8m wingspanned pterosaur from Late Creataceous North America soars over a choppy sea - generating lift from wind over the waves, just like an albatross.

Two nyctosaurs soaring about in the clouds, sporting a new membrane configuration suggested by Mike Habib, where the leg membrane meet the main wing membrane at a shrarp angle behind the elbow.

Muzquizopteryx cohuilensis based on the nice skeletal by Ville Sinkkonen. The membrane is in a different configuration from my usual drawings, and attaches to the hind leg down all the way to the ankle(!). This was was suggested as a possible configuration by Mike Habib, and differs from the usual ankle attachment scenario in that the wing membrane meets the leg membrane meet at a sharp angle behind the elbow, which is a configuration found in birds (done with feathers rather than membranes, obviously).

When I was about fourteen or fifteen, I went to an exhibition called "The Great Russian Dinosaurs" at the Australian Museum in Sydney. Fresh-faced from my readings of Bakker, I was all fired up, and looking for a fight with all that stuffy orthodoxy I'd been reading so much about. Luckily, I found myself outraged at once at the mounting of the skeletons. Hadrosaurs rearing high! Ribs not properly swept back! I was spluttering with the kind of smugness that only a teenage fanatic can have, and decided that something must be said. So, I bailed up one of the palaeontologists travelling with the exhibition, and confronted him about one of the most heinous of crimes against the Light of the Dinosaur Renaissance: an ankylosaur with semi-sprawling front legs. With a supercilious smirk I enquire politely as to why he had mounted the creature in such a way. He smiled and said "Real animals move — they change position sometimes". How was I supposed to fight with that? All my trackway data, my shoulder anatomy arguments, rendered moot by an evasive side-step. So, thought I, this man is an idiot; and I know just how to test him: I asked him if he thought Velociraptor had feathers. "Maybe" he said, without a trace of sarcasm. Foiled! Bitterly disappointed at the lack of my opponent's bombast, I stalked off to imagine the featheriest, erectest gaitiest, hottest, and fastest running dinosaurs I could from those evil and ignorant mounts. I would have never believed this day would come... ...my betrayal of the dinosaur renaissance. Guess what teenage John, sauropods were scaley and spikey, a bit like overgrown lizards. Sometimes they dragged their tails on the ground. And maybe they weren't always standing on their back legs to feed or fend off an Allosaurus running at a gazillion miles an hour.

A little pterodactyl, landing on a log in the Solnhofen lagoon, one hundred and forty five million years ago. Based on my skeletal »

White is bone, black muscle, dark grey integument, and stippled is hypothetical air sac extent.

A pair of Germanodactylus peruse some rock pools in Late Jurassic Germany.

Nyctosaurus bonneri over an Elasmosaurus