Jay
@kakapojay
Producer for factual TV (Evolution, Walking with Dinosaurs 2025, Earth), science communicator, paleoartist, paleontology enthusiast (she/they) 🏳️⚧️
That is about it! I am so excited for everyone to watch Evolution when it comes out tomorrow. I think it is beautiful, surprising, funny, and above all, a wonderful piece of science communication. I hope you all enjoy it – and tell everyone afterwards about the anus that changed the world. (14/14)
To supplement our wonderful existing storyboards, I also storyboarded some moments for the first time, which was a lot of fun. I am so pleased with how my art is becoming more and more incorporated into my job - keep an eye out for an Archaeopteryx illustration I made in episode 2 as well! (8/14)
I also wrote, directed, and edit produced two short films that go at the end of episode 1, The Elephant, and episode 3, The Bat. The first is about how we understand the tree of life via genomics, and the second is a deep dive into how we know the life appearance of my boy Metaspriggina! (7/14)
As usual, I don’t wear just the one hat on productions, and this time I had a really fantastic experience being on location in my home country of Malaysia. Here, we spent a week trudging through the rainforest and spending days shin-deep in bat guano, among the most incredible wildlife. (6/14)
There are 20 or so delightful oddities that we meet in deep time, ranging from the absolutely bizarre vetulicolians, to the flamboyant Coelophysis and bulbous-headed Numidotherium. Many of these animals have never been put to screen before, and it is such a privilege to be able to do so here. (5/14)
On this project, my role was VFX producer, and so my main responsibilities revolved around looking after our plethora of prehistoric critters and their worlds, working closely with our amazing friends at Moonraker VFX, who brought it all to life in a gorgeous, vivid way. (4/14)
This series tracks the deep-time lineage of five iconic modern-day animals (the elephant, the ostrich, the bat, the dolphin, and the horse), using them as anchor points to explore the evolution of major aspects of biology – complexity, sex, feeding, intelligence, and movement. (2/14)
Evolution with Chris Packham premieres tomorrow on BBC Two and iPlayer! We have been working on this programme for nearly two years, and I am so excited for people to watch it. I am so proud of this project and of our team – here’s a short thread ahead of release! (1/14)
Some of the first reviews are in for Evolution, and I couldn't be prouder of our team ❤️ "Evolution should be compulsory viewing for everyone over the age of five." Apologies for the paywall, but some screengrabs below: www.ft.com/content/c6c0...
I was reminded by my cloud drive that eight years ago today, while I was a student working reception at my university's Welcome Centre, I had some unexpected visitors. Obviously, I offered them a prospectus and a tour of the campus, but they didn't seem massively interested.
I really leaned into the snapping turtle vibe for this one. Not a huge critter, but still sizeable. Next up, a whole bunch of crocs.
Elsewhere, you can find me at: 💻kakapojay.com 📸kakapo.jay on Instagram 🖱️kakapojay on Tumblr 🤖kakapo.jay on Discord
Osteoderm/scale arrangement is hard to know in ones like Pseudhesperosuchus which don't preserve integument, but I've opted for something fairly conservative, with a paired row of slightly keeled osteoderms along the back, flanked by non-osteoderm scales.
Moving on from the big and beefy to the small and scamper-y, we have the metre-and-a-half-long Pseudhesperosuchus! This lanky little guy is an early crocodylomorph - a group that includes modern crocodilians and kin. Size comparison below ⬇️
In that vein, I really like making these guys quite gnarly with skin folds, dangly bits, and roughened skin. I imagine the other inhabitants of the region staying well-clear of this guy.
This dude and Tessellatia are both TINY. I don't think there will be any other critters here quite this small (though there might be a turtle?).
It is hard to get a gauge for size from just a skull, but I tentatively put it at about 30cm-ish. I love finding fun compositions spontaneously when I put the animals into the size chart - like here with the Lessemsaurus yelling at the little guy.