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Pteranodon

Pteranodon line art illustration (click image to enlarge)

Pteranodon full color illustration (click image to enlarge)

Artist's notes:

The Pteranodon was completed on 1.31.2012. I had attempted a few dinosaurs last year, and had some success, although the results weren't as good as I had hoped. I had this excellent sketch of a Pteranodon (sometimes mistakenly called a pterodactyl) by noted paleoartist Carl Buell (check out his Facebook page here) sitting around waiting to be fleshed out. Well, I believe my skills have improved somewhat since last summer, so I decided to have a go at the drawing. I'm happy with the results, but I still have a ways to go to in rendering extinct animals.

Information about the Pteranodon:

The Pteranodon lived in the late Cretaceous period in what is now the central section of the North American continent. It perhaps the best known of the pterosaurs, due to the fact the fossil record has provided many excellent specimens. It was a massive flying reptile with a wingspan of about twenty feet (6 meters) While it is strongly indentified with dinosaurs, it was in fact not a member of the Saurischia and Ornithischia groups - which by definition all dinosaurs belong to - but a flying reptile. These large animals lived for approximately 4 million years, during the late Coniacian (which is the early Campanian stages of the Cretaceous period.) The Pteranodon appears to have fed mostly on fish, as some fossilized remains have been found in their stomachs. There is some debate as to whether or not there were in fact two species of Pteranodon, but as of yet only one has been clearly indentified.