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Balcsika β Prehistoric Mammals / Livyatan Melvillei
Published: 2014-03-12 19:28:07 +0000 UTC; Views: 30237; Favourites: 711; Downloads: 370
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Description
Livyatan Melvillei after breathing air. It was a top predator of the Miocene.Related content
Comments: 47
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Would LOOVE to see a complete skeleton of this, one day!
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Just had to say it again.Β I really enjoy this piece of art.Β The scars, the lighting, the solid mass of the figure.Β It all adds up to make this guy look very ancient and powerful!Β Excellent work.
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Amazing artwork. It looks so... life like. Whatever you do. Dont stop doing what your doing.
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Really love how grizzled and rough you made it look!Β A big beast for a big time period!
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More like its ancestor
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Livyatan had no direct relationship with present sperm whales.
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Β Wow! The scars and white blotches make the livyatan look even MORE intimidating than Moby Dick! Captain Ahab's battle against that thing would have ended even faster than it did with Moby himself.
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If Moby Dick is a livyatan Ahab wouldn't even return after their first encounter.
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Not even Ishmael?
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Was he the only survivor in the book?
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Indeed truly a underwater juggernaut.
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Well i guess im never going swimming again
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Yes, my Baby. Feed apon the small, and become a GOD!
Yeah, I have a Whale addiction XD But this looks really good!
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CoolΒ . It is a dreadful sight if you were a scooba diver in MioceneΒ
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This picture looks really very good, but the problem is that you painted Livyatan more or less exactly like a modern day sperm whale with a different dentition and the eye at another position. But this animal was very different, and it was most probably not that similar to Physeter at all. The line of Livyatan and modern sperm whales divided already a very long time ago, even before the lines of modern sperm whales and pygmy sperm whales divived. So we can be quite sure, that anatomical traits only seen in Physeter but not in Kogia, were also not present in Livyatan. For example the shape and position of the dorsal fin, which is still normal in Kogia, but modified into a series of humps in Physeter. The position of the nostril is also only in Physeter at the very top of the spermaceti organ. Kogia has a totally normally positioned blowhole above the eyes. The wrinkles seen in modern sperm whales seems also some sort of novel feature. The shape of the mouth was also probably somewhat different in Livyatan, as there was probably more soft tissue of cheeks and probably also lips covering the upper teeth at least in the more posterior part of the jaws.
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Look like you know a lot about morphologyΒ , to me Balcsika drawing don't look so different from the one I've seem at the side of it's fossil head in a museum, just a little bulkier. Β
So... maybe you find it silly but I can't understand why Livyatan Melvillei was closer to a sperm whale if it resemble more a killer whale(I guess)Β . Can you help me with this question?Β
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To undertstand the relations of Livyatan with other whales, itΒ΄s good to take a look at this phylogenetic tree:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livyatanβ¦
Modern sperm whales are among the most specialized of all whales, and they have a lot of weird anatomical traits, like giant size, (usually) non-erupting upper teeth, a giant spermaceti organ which covers the whole rostrum, multiple "humps", wrinkled skin (itΒ΄s not always wrinkled BTW), a fully anterior and lateral blowhole and several other things. But in the past, there were much more kinds of sperm whales, which were similar in some anatomical traits to modern sperm whales, but still very different in others. For example, the ancestral sperm whales were not giants, but ranged from the size of a big dolphin to a big orca. They had still upper teeth, and their skulls show that in some very early lines, the spermaceti organ was still not covering the whole snout (like in Zygophyseter for example). Some of those very early sperm whales were probably just fish-eaters with comparably thin rounded teeth, but several lines evolved a more predatory way of live with massive interlocking teeth with sharp shearing edges, for example Brygmophyseter, Zygophyseter and Hoplocetus ritzi, which were probably very similar in ecology to modern orcas (which have also a very wide range of different prey animals), other were quite small but had massive jaws and teeth like Acrophyseter. The line which did lead to Livyatan was also different. It was still closer to modern sperm whales than the forementioned species, but still not as close to modern sperm whales as pygmy sperm whales are to Physeter catodon. After all, Livyatan was totally unique, and in its anatomical traits to some degree just parallel evolutions to both killer whales and modern sperm whales, but based on the bauplan of archaic sperm whales. ItΒ΄s all somewhat complex and not that easy to explain.
The problem with the life-reconstruction in the museum it that it includes some errors too.
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This is outright incredible. So very, very inspiring.Β
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those teeth look huge D:
but the picture is epic. I'm in awe with your use of colors!
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could this be that whale in the 4th Ice Age movie?
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Hello. May I use this excellent image for the book cover and the reference in the book will be provided to your site, or are you willing to sell this artwork for such a purpose?
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Very impressive, would I be able to use this as an illustration in one of my literary works? I'll give credit of course
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What a gorgeous image. You are very talented!
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Indeed this is one of the best paleo artists I have ever seen. His artwork is so life like. It almost feels like your actually standing in there with the creatures. Plus hes got an amazing eye for detail.
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Watch out, Carcharocles!
Truly epic painting! AWESOME!
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Nagyon, nagyon szΓ©p munka!!!
Beauty work!!!
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Now this is a fearsome leviathan! Very well done!
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really beautiful....many thanks for share it with us
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*Hides behind a rock on land where it's safe*
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