Episode 539: Award Winning Paleoartist Franco Tempesta. We have loved Franco’s art longer than we knew the term “paleoart”. He joins to explain his process of illustrating for books–including ours. Plus a new sauropodomorph with a big head named Lishulong wangi.

News:

• There’s a new sauropodomorph dinosaur, Lishulong wangi, and it had a large skull source

Interview:

Over two decades, Franco Tempesta has illustrated more than 50 books on dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals for major publishers worldwide. His piece “T. rex couple vs. Dakotaraptor pack” won the 2016 John J. Lanzendorf-National Geographic PaleoArt Prize. He compares the scene to lions defending a kill from hyenas, highlighting the possible social dynamics between top predators and opportunistic rivals. Check out his illustrations and the text of the interview here: iknowdino.com/franco-tempesta-on-bringing-dinosaurs-to-life-through-art/

The dinosaur of the day: Chilantaisaurus

• Theropod that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now China (Ulansuhai Formation)
• Being a theropod, walked on two legs, had a long head and sharp teeth, a long tail
• Had long arms
• Had large claws on its hands
• Large, estimated to be about 36 ft (11 m) long and weigh 2.5 to 4 metric tons
• Other estimates at 6 metric tons, though that’s based on its femur length being similar to Tyrannosaurus
• Holotype includes a right tibia (lower leg bone), claw on the first finger, part of the femora (thigh bones), part of the hips
• Claws described as strong with a sharp curve
• The claw on the first finger is similar to spinosauroids (large and long)
• Fossils found in 1960
• Described in 1964 by Hu
• Type and only species is Chilantaisaurus tashuikouensis
• Genus name means “Jilantai Salt Lake”
• Has been considered to be a carnosaur related to Allosaurus, a spinosaur because of its large claws, and also a coelurosaur (which includes groups like tyrannosaurs and birds)
• Other species named in the past but they are not for certain, like “Chilantaisaurus” sibiricus, based on one foot bone, or they were reclassified, like “Chilantaisaurus” maortuensis was reclassified in 2009 as Shaochilong maortuensis, the “shark toothed dragon” that lived in the Early Cretaceous
• There was also “Chilantaisaurus” zheziangensis, based on foot bones and part of a lower leg bone, now known to be a therizinosaur
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include the pachycephalosaur Sinocephale and the ornithomimid Sinornithomimus

Fun Fact:

Many birds have feathers that weigh more than their skeleton. There is a dinosaur alive today with a feather that weighs more than an entire dinosaur of another species.

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