Lastly, a word on some of the compositions. I already mentioned the remarkable portraits, but there are also some nice dead-on frontal views, partial views that purposefully leave out heads and faces, while yet others highlight the long, lithe shapes of some creatures by curving their bodies in a near-circular shape. There are some moody pieces of dinosaurs caught in the rain (especially by, appropriately enough, Rainbolt) while Stokkermans's Bajadasaurus is almost all sky, showing that dinosaurs do not have to be the centrepiece to make impressive palaeoart. What happened at the end of day 1, after the drinks reception? I have no idea but I remember waking up in a taxi at some point during the night. Samathi, A., Sander, P. M. & Chanthasit, P. 2021. A spinosaurid from Thailand (Sao Khua Formation, Early Cretaceous) and a reassessment of Camarillasaurus cirugedae from the Early Cretaceous of Spain. Historical Biology doi: 10.1080/08912963.2021.1874372 Mesozoic Era, second of Earth’s three major geologic eras of Phanerozoic time. Its name is derived from the Greek term for “middle life.” The Mesozoic Era began 252.2 million years ago, following the conclusion of the Paleozoic Era, and ended 66 million years ago, at the dawn of the Cenozoic Era. ( See the geologic time scale.) The major divisions of the Mesozoic Era are, from oldest to youngest, the Triassic Period, the Jurassic Period, and the Cretaceous Period. The ancestors of major plant and animal groups that exist today first appeared during the Mesozoic, but this era is best known as the time of the dinosaurs. Yes, today see the publication of my new book Ancient Sea Reptiles ( Natural History Museum in the UK; Smithsonian Books in the USA), and getting it published marks a major personal achievement. I’ve been trying for years to get such a book off the ground, but it’s the success of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved (Naish & Barrett 2016) that’s allowed things to go forward. I can’t express how pleased I am that things have finally worked out.

On that note, Mesozoic Art is available directly from Bloomsbury here (this is the best option if you’re in the UK) and from digital retailers as normal. It’s also available from standard retailers; ask for it at your local bookstore. Naish, D. & Martill, D. M. 2007. Dinosaurs of Great Britain and the role of the Geological Society of London in their discovery: basal Dinosauria and Saurischia. Journal of the Geological Society, London 164, 493-510.Fanti, F., Cau, A., Martinelli, A. & Contessi, M. 2014. Integrating palaeoecology and morphology in theropod diversity estimation: a case from the Aptian-Albian of Tunisia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 410, 39-57. Bakker, R. T. 1993. Plesiosaur extinction cycles - events that mark the beginning, middle and end of the Cretaceous. In Caldwell, W. G. E. & Kauffman, E. G. (eds) Evolution of the Western Interior Basin. Geological Association of Canada, Special Paper 39, 641-664. Harrell, T. L., Pérez-Huerta, A. & Suarez, C. A. 2016. Endothermic mosasaurs? Possible thermoregulation of Late Cretaceous mosasaurs (Reptilia, Squamata) indicated by stable oxygen isotopes in fossil bioapatite in comparison with coeval marine fish and pelagic seabirds. Palaeontology 69, 351-363. Motani, R. 2005. Evolution of fish-shaped reptiles (Reptilia: Ichthyopterygia) in their physical environments and constraints. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 33, 395-420.

Naish, D. & Barrett, P. M. 2016. Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved. The Natural History Museum, London. Storrs, G. W. & Taylor, M. A. 1996. Cranial anatomy of a new plesiosaur genus from the lowermost Lias (Rhaetian/Hettangian) of Street, Somerset, England. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 16, 403-420.

About the contributors

Ruiz-Omeñaca, J. I., Canudo, J. I., Cruzado-Caballero, P., Infante, P. & Moreno-Azanza, M. 2005. Baryonychine teeth (Theropoda: Spinosauridae) from the Lower Cretaceous of La Cantalera (Josa, NE Spain). Kaupia 14, 59-63. And thus day 2 began. Hangover, what’s a hangover? The day consisted of five separate things: the pterosaur event, the Mesozoic Art signing event and its associated talk, the ‘designing aliens’ roundtable, the Crystal Palace talk, and the quiz. Robinson, J. A. 1975. The locomotion of plesiosaurs. Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 149, 286-332. A French language book – La Mer au Temps des Dinosaures, by Nathalie Bardet, Alexandra Houssaye, Stéphane Jouve and Peggy Vincent – appeared while I was writing Ancient Sea Reptiles. I haven’t yet seen a copy and an unaware of how comprehensive it is. Lingham-Soliar, T. 2000. Plesiosaur locomotion: is the four-wing problem real of merely an atheoretical exercise? Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 217, 45-87.

Liu, S., Smith, A. S., Gu, Y., Tan, J., Liu, C. K. &Turk, G. 2015. Computer simulations imply forelimb-dominated underwater flight in plesiosaurs. PLoS Computational Biology 11, e1004 . Taylor, M. A. 1992. Functional anatomy of the head of the large aquatic predator Rhomaleosaurus zetlandicus (Plesiosauria, Reptilia) from the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) of Yorkshire, England. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 335, 247-280. Jagielska, N., O’Sullivan, M., Funston, G. F., Butler, I. B., Challands, T. J., Clark, N. D. L., Fraser, N. C., Penny, A., Ross, D. A., Wilkinson, M. & Brusatte, S. L. 2022. A skeleton from the Middle Jurassic of Scotland illuminates an earlier origin of large pterosaurs. Current Biology 32, 1-8. Mesozoic Art presents twenty of the best artists working in this field, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines, from traditional painting to cutting-edge digital technology. Some provide the artwork for new scientific papers that demand high-end palaeoart as part of their presentation to the world at large; they also work for the likes of National Geographic and provide art to museums around the world to illustrate their displays. Other artists are the new rising stars of palaeoart in an ever-growing, ever-diversifying field. Geister, J. 1998. Lebensspuren made by marine reptiles and their prey in the Middle Jurassic (Callovian) of Liesberg, Switzerland. Facies 39, 105-124.

Reviews

However, there are numerous other relevant groups as well, and I did my best to give them fair coverage too. Many of these were alive during the Triassic, including the long-tailed thalattosaurs, the very peculiar hupehsuchians, the (mostly) shellfish-eating placodonts, the fang-toothed helveticosaurs, the nothosaurs, the pistosaurs, and so on. Shared anatomical traits show that some of these groups are close cousins of plesiosaurs and belong with them in a large group termed Sauropterygia; hupehsuchians appear to be close kin of ichthyosaurs (Motani 1999, Motani et al. 2015). Entirely different groups whose affinities lie elsewhere evolved during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, including the marine pachyophiid snakes. Ruiz-Omeñaca, J. I., Canudo, J. I. & Cuenca-Bescós, G. 1997. First evidence of baryonychid dinosaurs (Saurischia: Theropoda) in the upper Barremian (Lower Cretaceous) of Vallipon (Castellote, Teruel, Spain). Beca del Museo de Mas de las Matas 17, 201-223. Charig, A. J. & Milner, A. C. 1990. The systematic position of Baryonyx walkeri in the light of Gauthier’s reclassification of the theropoda. In Carpenter, K. & Currie, P. J. (eds), Dinosaur Systematics: Approaches and Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, pp. 127-140. Mateus, O., Araújo, R., Natário, C. & Castanhinha, R. 2011. A new specimen of the theropod dinosaur Baryonyx from the early Cretaceous of Portugal and taxonomic validity of Suchosaurus. Zootaxa 2827, 54-68.