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WanderingAlbatross — Ziapelta sanjuanensis
#dinosauria #ankylosauria #ankylosaurid #sanjuanensis #ziapelta #kirtlandian #thyreophora
Published: 2014-09-25 00:29:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 6463; Favourites: 194; Downloads: 0
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Description
Finally, a new piece! I was commissioned to reconstruct a new species of Ankylosaurid from Late Cretaceous New Mexico, and here it is in all it's firey glory. Ziapelta sanjuanensis is named for the sun symbol of the Zia people of New Mexico, which also appears in the New Mexico flag. This was inspired by the cervical (neck) half ring of osteoderms found in conjunction with the head, which abstractly resemble the rays of a sun. I chose to pay homage to that by including yellow and red tones in the actual animal, and I chose to mute them a little and focus them on the cervical osteoderms. We also wanted to steer away from both the poopy brown colours and dopey/dumpy anatomy that seem to permeate some ankylosaur reconstructions. Ankylosaur material is definitely not as common as some other dinosaur taxa (consider that only the head and neck of Ziapelta was found, so the body was based largely off of Ziapelta's closest relatives that are also more complete, namely northern North American Ankylosaurids.The paper is open access if anyone would like to read it: www.plosone.org/article/info%3…
Edit: Uploaded a better scan!
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Comments: 28
awesome, just hit me how little i see ankylosaurids
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I love this! Do you think its body really could bend like that?
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Thank you!
Not too sure what you mean by bending its body though. Its torso is shifted slightly so it's more head on with the viewer (this was to display the cervical osteoderms that gave the taxon its name), and the base of their tails was actually fairly flexible. It would be fairly odd to imagine a mobile animal with a completely rigid body!
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I mean, the imaginary line between its forelimbs looks like it's perpendicular to the viewer's gaze, while the line between its hips looks roughly 45 degrees from perpendicular.
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Congratulations on the commission! I also must say that this is an awesome restoration.
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Finally, I wanted to congratulate you for the artwork in Vicky Arbour et al.'s recent paper before.
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Thank you! It really seems to be making the rounds out there in the interwebs. That's why I love paleontology. It and art just fit together perfectly.
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Wow! Ziapelta the newly discovered ankylosaur from North America, cool, so I have to do the Cretaceous scene of New Mexico for One day, This it going to be awesome.
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Congrats on the commission! I see this lovely image doing the rounds.
Can't help but wonder if this will turn out to be the same thing as Ahshislepelta though...
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Thank you! It's so weird seeing it all over the place! I suppose it was about time for Ankylosaurs to be in the dinosaur spotlight!
It could. Who knows? Need more fossils (as usual 
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Neat new Ankylosaurid and I was in New Mexico too!
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Oh wow, what a cool dinosaur. I especially like the inspiration for the name. I'm glad to see some beautiful art of ankylosaurs, I have been doing a lot of research over the past week or so and paleoart and information is flooded with feathery raptors. This is a beautiful piece, thank you for sharing!
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I know right? Ankylosaurs are the group that kind of gets pushed to the side, for whatever reason. Everyone loves theropods, and I suppose for good reason. I draw them because I'm nutters about birds.
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Yeah, they seem to have some lovely designs and interesting anatomy, so I'm surprised nobody seems to care for them as much! I haven't gone in-depth with them yet but I hope I'll be able to do them some justice when I do get to them.
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This is amazing, lovely work!
Great pose, anatomy and colouring, simply stunning! Love all the details you put into this one. ^^
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Looks badass. I think my favourite part of this piece is the foot prints in the sand!
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