HOME | DD

Description
Lately, I've had a strange urge to paint. These are all speedpaints, done in about 60 to 90 minutes on Procreate and first published on my Twitter account (@MaijaKarala), which I'm still unsure what to actually use for.

Top left, Tupandactylus prances on his way to some pterosaurian party. This taxon was the subject to a recent study on fossil colour, concluding that using only fossilized melanosomes to infer coloration can be misleading. They found chemical traces of eumelanin on the pterosaur's crest. Eumelanins produce black, grey and brown colours, and can also play a part in structural colouration, such as blue.
Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41598…

Top right, a simple reconstruction of Halszkaraptor watching over a wetland area. Nothing special about it, I just realised never having depicted this "odd duck" before. Head colouration is after the beautiful Arctic long-tailed duck.

Bottom, baby Maiasaura meets her first crab. A couple of years ago, coprolites possibly attributed to hadrosaurs were found to contain unexpected food items: rotten wood and pieces of crab shell. The researchers suggested crabs were eaten as a source of calcium and protein, for which the demands were likely quite high in these fast-growing, egg-laying animals. It's not as unusual as it sounds: plenty of living herbivores will happily snack on small animals, bird eggs or carrion, if the chance presents itself. However, this large and very angry crab might be more than the baby hadrosaur is prepared for.
Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41598…

Description
Lately, I've had a strange urge to paint. These are all speedpaints, done in about 60 to 90 minutes on Procreate and first published on my Twitter account (@MaijaKarala), which I'm still unsure what to actually use for.

Top left, Tupandactylus prances on his way to some pterosaurian party. This taxon was the subject to a recent study on fossil colour, concluding that using only fossilized melanosomes to infer coloration can be misleading. They found chemical traces of eumelanin on the pterosaur's crest. Eumelanins produce black, grey and brown colours, and can also play a part in structural colouration, such as blue.
Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41598…

Top right, a simple reconstruction of Halszkaraptor watching over a wetland area. Nothing special about it, I just realised never having depicted this "odd duck" before. Head colouration is after the beautiful Arctic long-tailed duck.

Bottom, baby Maiasaura meets her first crab. A couple of years ago, coprolites possibly attributed to hadrosaurs were found to contain unexpected food items: rotten wood and pieces of crab shell. The researchers suggested crabs were eaten as a source of calcium and protein, for which the demands were likely quite high in these fast-growing, egg-laying animals. It's not as unusual as it sounds: plenty of living herbivores will happily snack on small animals, bird eggs or carrion, if the chance presents itself. However, this large and very angry crab might be more than the baby hadrosaur is prepared for.
Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41598…