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MattMart — The Ascent of Bird
Published: 2012-11-03 18:33:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 22929; Favourites: 477; Downloads: 0
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Description
Illustration showing the rough lineage leading from basal/primitive coelurosaurian theropods to advanced carinated and modern birds, drawn for A Field Guide to Mesozoic Birds and Other Winged Dinosaurs. www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Mes…A t-shirt based on this design is available from my redbubble store: www.redbubble.com/people/panav…
Prints and posters of this design can be purchased from this link: www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/1216…
Obviously inspired by both Hallett's painting of bird evolution and Zallinger's famous "Descent of Man", this necessarily includes the same caveat that evolution is not a straight line (as is plain from the rest of the book!). However, each species can trace an unbroken lineage back through time via successive common ancestors, and this is an attempt to approximate that using species as basal as possible along each step of bird evolution (also inspired by the "view lineage" feature of PhyloPic phylopic.org ).
Coloration inspired by similar, older illustration of the same idea...
EDIT: By popular demand, here's a larger version. Might need to make this a 'guess the species' type thing
Edit 2: Here's a MUCH larger version. Thanks to Richard Dawkins linking this on his Facebook page. Unfortunately dA offers very few print options for a piece of this aspect ratio, but I've enabled the original for download for anybody who wants to print their own correctly.
Edit 3: Due to the terrible security measures at deviantART, I have had proceeds from the sales of this and other prints stolen. As a result I am no longer able to offer prints or downloads through dA. Please see the RedBubble links above for prints and T-shirts. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Species featured, from left to right: Dilong paradoxus, Nqwebasaurus thwazi, Haplocheirus sollers, Yixianosaurus longimanus, Xiaotingia zhengi, Archaeopteryx lithographica, Confuciusornis sanctus, Bohaironis guoi, Apsaravis ukhana, Ichthyornis anceps.
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Comments: 58
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Would it be alright if I were to illustrate my own evolution of birds (its for a class on Dinosaurs that I will be teaching in November) and of course, I would not be plagiarizing, though would it be ok if I were to illustrate a Haplocheirus, Yixianosaurus, Xiaotingia, Archaeopteryx and other Birds inspired by this piece?
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I guess that would be fine, as long as the artwork is original!
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It will be, I just wanted to display them in the same order as your (though at this point I've changed which animals are represented).
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I just pictured this line-up followed by the descent of man with the Homo sapiens sapiens saying "Sucks all the dinosaurs are gone!". I have been giggling over this for quite a while now.
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So this would explain why my chickens remind of dinosaurs.
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This could only be better if it finished with a bird of prey.
Raptor to Raptor.
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Better, raptor to terror bird.
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Not a bad idea! The final species isn't a true bird anyway (it's an Ichthyornis, which still has teeth and is more primitive than all living birds) so an actual avian would help complete the sequence.
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I loved that drawing. I just purchased your original art and am really excited to print it in a very beautiful piece of paper and display it in my living room. Thanks a lot. Claiton
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Glad you like it, and thank you! Hope the download to print quality is good, first time I've tried this!
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This lovely illustration just got the attention of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.
[link]
Lovely work.
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Dawkins brought me here too! Beautiful work!
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I'd like to get a print of this. Can you get one up online somewhere?
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Thanks, I'll see what I can do! All i've been able to do via DeviantArt is a different aspect ratio print with lots of white space and cropping the first species in line. I have enabled download of the original high-res image for $3 worth of dA points (whatever those are) in the mean time.
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This is really beautifully detailed and well illustrated
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I've wanted to see an image like this for so long. It's great.
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Awesome!
But were would Epidexipteryx or Scansoriopteryx fit in?
I used to think of them as close to the ancestry of Xiaotingia/Microraptor/Anchiornis, firstly because of feathers (which is redundant now) but also because they are small and scansorial, making fitting ancestors of scansorial gliders (Analogue to what we would imagine a proto-bat to be like).
Also what do you think of Eudromaeosaur ancestry? My guess would be that they derived from small, four-winged Microraptor like gliders and are secondarily unable to glide or maybe even secondarily flightless (but of course this is not meant to be the ridiculous "birds came first theory").
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Good question! I left those forms out because they're so strange it seems unlikely that they're anywhere near the avian "stem". Right now it seems like they must have branched off somewhere along this line in their own weird direction. AS for eudromaeosaurs, my personal hunch is that Microraptor could not only glide but had powered flight and that this may have been basal to deinonychosaurs in general, but we'll see what a few new studies in the pipeline have to say on Microraptor aerial ability.
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Thanks for the answer!
Very interesting stuff, seems my guess about Microraptor wasn't that bad.
Also really looking forward to future studies or finds of Scansoriopterygidae, I definitly agree that they a freakishly weird.
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Impressive. When displayed like this, it gives the lie to anyone who says that nature and evolution cannot have the beauty and artistry of God's hand upon them.
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Birds will look so fucking strange in 65 million years.
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Maybe, though this technically covers at least 160 million years, probably more... The last bird in line (Ichthyornis) is 80 million years old, and by 65 Ma ago we already had ducks.
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Fantastic! I have always been fascinated with dinosaurs, though I did NOT know about the ducks! Amazing.
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Nope. It's based on a well-preserved specimen in a rather funky pose that doesn't get nearly enough play 
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Uh... might it be the adult of Liaoxiornis?
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Seconding Emily's comment. Who are the ... 2? 3? 7 post-Sinocalliopteryx taxa?
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The first is Dilong and the second is Sinocalliopteryx. The third, maybe Haplocheirus? 4th not sure but maybe Yixianosaurus. 5th I think might be Xiaotingia. 6th Archaeopteryx, unless you're being sneaky and it's Wellnhoferia. 7th is probably Confuciusornis. 8th is an enant but which one is very hard to tell, for me at least. 9th probably a yanornithiform. I'll guess Yanornis for simplicities sake. Pretty sure 10th is Icthyornis.
How'd I do?
Also, does that Dilong now have scales on it's underside or is it just the way it's coloured?
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Wow, great try! The second is actually intended to be Nqwebasaurus but that's forgivable as I obviously just slightly tweaked my Sinocalliopteryx for it and Nqw is too fragmentary to have a well-known appearance (the only tipoff that it's a maniraptoriform would be the presence of wings I guess). Second to last is actually meant to be Apsaravis but again, no way to really tell with that one (other than it's basically a recolor of the one from my Djadochta lineup). Spot on with the rest! I'll leave the enant a mystery as in that case the skull shape and soft tissue features may make it identifiable for any hardcore opposite bird geeks...
And yup, I tossed some scales on the belly and tail of Dilong for good measure.
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This is very nice. Quite. Although the evolutionary trajectory described here is somewhat of an illusion, and not really a straight line, it's not hard to see this as a very nice descriptor of what is going onin the backbone of historical avian evolution. A nice callback to Zallinger, at any rate. Very nice.
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Thanks, I originally intended to try to 'backtrack' and basically depict hypothetical concestors for each node but figured that would be misleading.
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this is so cool! it would be great on a t shirt or something
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