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TheDragonofDoom — Elasmosaurus Skeleton Study
#anatomy #elasmosaurus #fossil #plesiosaur #prehistoric #reconstruction #reptile #skeleton
Published: 2015-07-17 19:23:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 5146; Favourites: 106; Downloads: 0
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Description
New prehistoric animal study, it's a elasmosaurus! Man, this took forever to draw, so many vertebrae! The body is done in markers and colored pencil, background is painted in acrylic paint, and the labels added through Illustrator. I'm still learning paleo reconstruction, so feedback is always appreciated.My site: rushelle.com/
Contact me at: rushelle@sbcglobal.net
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Comments: 12
Always love it when plesiosaurs get attention. Since you requested a critique here is mine; I am leery about the amount of play and flexibility implied in those propodials (paddles) all I have came across suggests that they were quite stiff; no scale reference to show size such as a meter stick or human figure; neck looks a little short to me, in other reconstructions the neck is as long or even longer than the rest of the body. Cervical vertebrae look a little crammed together; multiple angles needed - perhaps a lateral view, dorsal, and ventral. A ventral view would best show off the interesting gastralia and pelvic/shoulder girdles these guys have. I like it that you didn't go for the same old black/white skeletals everybody does and your illustration has a lot of "pop" to it. Nice job labeling all of the bones although I don't know if it is necessary for all those intricate podial bones - gets a little busy. I know a lot of skeletals don't even try and label everything so this is something to consider. Put the species name as well in addition to who named it and what year. Keep it up!!
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Thanks for the great feedback! I'll be sure to work on all of those. I'm still learning about plesiosaurs so this critique is really helpful. 
Do you have any advice on the muscles? I'm working on the muscles next and I'll admit this ones challenging. I can't find any reverences and as far as I know there's not many living animals with the same build. So far I've been relying on muscle anatomy of reptiles (sea turtles for the flippers), but the neck I'm not sure. I can't think of any animal with a similar neck that is that stiff and long. I'm leaning towards more of a sauropod build, for example: www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/backya… What do you think?
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There are no good reconstructions of the musculature for elasmosaurs/plesiosauromorphs. Some scant stuff available on musculature of pliosaurs I have seen online but can't find right now. Plesiosauria.com is a good reference too. I can send you a pdf of a paper looking at the muscles of the pectoral girdle in plesiosaurs if you give me your email.
Also if you attempt a musculature of an elasmosaur most depictions give them too slim of necks. All those dorsal processes/transverse processes attached muscles along the neck. Especially if you look at the base of the neck/shoulder region for large elasmosaurs these attachments were huge and that neck was more powerful and well muscled than most recognize. I don't know if you are familiar with my blog antediluvian salad but I have a pretty popular series on plesiosaurs called Plesiosaur Machinations which addresses a lot of the dogma surrounding these animals and potential hypotheses regarding their ecology/social structure/use of neck etc etc. You should check it out.
As for neck stiffness this likely varied between species a lot and there has been some suggestion that, although they could not recoil like a snake, the necks had a fair degree of flexibility that allowed striking in all four dimensions (side to side, ventral, dorsal). CHeck out Adam Smiths blog post on potential flexibility: plesiosauria.com/news/index.ph…
And my blog where I have numerous posts on plesiosaurs: antediluviansalad.blogspot.com…
Sauropods might be useful but look at the musculature of large snakes/birds too.
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I really enjoyed reading your articles! Really gave me great insight on these animals. I was planning on making the neck more muscular and thicker than most illustrations, since I hate the "shrink wrapped" look. I'm glad there's research that supports a thicker plesiosaurs than how they're usually portrayed in the media.
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Thanks for all those resources and information! I've been to plesioauria.com which is a very helpful site, I'll have to check out the others though! Hopefully I'll do a decent reconstruction. I'll just keep learning as I go.
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This is a really well-done image. I think the only thing I would ask is about the back end where you marked it "Chevorns" -- I may be wrong, but I THINK this is MAYBE supposed to be Chevrons? Either way, this is a great image and the artwork is fantastic and so detailed.
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Oh gosh, you're right, that's a typo! How did I let that slide? I'll fix that ASAP, thanks for pointing that out!
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You're welcome! Glad to be of assistance! <3
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Mesopodials? Podials? I'm used to calling them carpals/tarsals and phalanges
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