Mark Witton
@markwitton
Palaeoartist, palaeontologist, author, documentary consultant and creature designer. Affiliated with the University of Portsmouth, UK; views and opinions are my own. More about me at markwitton.co.uk. Support my work at
Seeking feedback on this image of Neanderthals chatting. Any comments or feedback on their appearance or expressions, positive or negative?
Am happy to say that #SVPCA 2026 >is< happening: a one-day event, 10th September, at the Uni. of Southampton. Registration opens very soon so, if you're on the SVPCA mailing list or FB group, expect details imminently. I'll post links etc. here too. For now, here's the shiny new conference logo...
Protoceratops hellenikorhinus sits on a dune on another warm #FossilFriday, wondering when the heat will end. At least it looks cool with those snazzy low horns. #Paleoart from 2016 (one of my better pieces from that period, I think).
(Addendum: the sculptures were being illuminated as we left. Sadly @gizz47.bsky.social and I had to bail before the effect was fully realised, but @bobnichollsart.bsky.social's Palaeotherium magnum had already attained a fetching shade of red, and **relocated!!** Xiphodon was a cool magenta.)
The fantastic news is that the dinosaurs are no longer considered "at risk" by Historic England. More work lies ahead in getting the Geological Court resembling its original state, but this is an important milestone in the Dinosaurs' history. Congrats to all involved, we've done good.
The project has also relocated statutes to historic positions, used broken sculpture parts and photographs to model and 3D print missing and replacement body parts (including draconic pterosaur heads), and restored the geological sculptures.
...with an emphasis on making them "old" again. So, yes, those crazy two-tone colours, those oranges and purples etc. are based on sculpture paint analyses and how BW Hawkins imagined prehistoric animals in his paintings. The CP Dinos were far more garish than their recent history suggests.
Heading back early* from the big shindig to celebrate the restoration of Crystal Palace Park and the @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social. I'm proud to have played a part in a huge effort to repair and restore the Dinosaurs... *Stupid trains.
I turn a lot of my #paleoart paintings into silhouettes for book graphics and diagrams. I think they look pretty neat. If you can correctly identify all of these, award yourself an extra big slice of cake after dinner.
#Paleoart for #FossilFriday from 2021: elasmosaurid Albertonectes vanderveldei explores the deep, dark, cool waters of Cretaceous Canada. (Psst: if you also like murky pictures of extinct animals where you can't see anything, all my art is available as prints: www.markwitton.co.uk)
To celebrate the announcement of my #specevo #dinosaur book this #FossilFriday, here's my giant Olymposaurus, a modern-day abelisaur. The proportions were predicted using real abelisaur scaling regimes: that short, upturned face, enormous thigh etc. are expected features of a 13 m abelisaur. #sciart
Must have been a great place to spend a month! We didn't see any mammals but strong winds meant the auks had to swing right above our heads, just metres away, to get to the cliffs. We'd go back for a third visit but today is our last day away: tomorrow we return to the realm of normality.
Today's lunch spot is a slight upgrade from eating at my desk. (Watching c. 20,000 guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, gulls etc. at RSPB South Stack with @gizz47.bsky.social.)
A glance into the garden revealed some awesome natural history unfolding mere metres away.
So artists who still regard that JP T. rex aesthetic as plausible, or who draw sneaky, snaggly teeth emerging from lipped reptile mouths, need to get with the times. Deep-lipped, gummy lepidosaur-style jaws with reduced tooth visibility is what we should be imagining for most extinct reptiles.
There's a lot to digest in the paper because even fish-eating taxa that some regard as lipless - phytosaurs and spinosaurs - are inferred as lipped. (I've argued this for spinosaurs for over half a decade now in blog posts and books, most recently in 2025's Spinosaur Tales).
A lot of Terras and colleagues' approach builds on our recent work on theropod lips (Cullen et al. 2023), which is great to see. We aimed to present a toolkit for assessing the likelihood of extra-oral tissues in extinct animals and hoped it would be useful to others.
Also, I can't not post these images of Iguanodon supraorbital bones. I'm uncertain if there's some exaggeration in this specimen, but they join other examples in suggesting a decent (and seldom restored) set of eyebrows.
Went to the unveiling of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History's new palaeo exhibits this evening with @gizz47.bsky.social. Excellent new displays of British dinosaur material, well worth checking out even if you've visited umpteen times before.
Book 8 contract SIGNED. Am pretty excited for this one! I'll be sharing teasers and previews while I write and illustrate it over the next 18 months (especially at Patreon: www.patreon.com/markwitton). That's all for no - hey, what's this weirdly-proportioned sauropod doing here?
Added some older #Spinosaurus images to my print store, having forgotten to upload them earlier. These are Paralititan stomping towards Spino, and a Spinosaurus lek where they're showing off their sails and tails. Available to buy here: www.markwitton.co.uk/category/all... #FossilFriday #paleoart
Thinking specifically about putting soft-tissues over fossils, the oldest examples I know of are 1672 and 1717 fish studies: pre-science, even. I need to learn more about these (off the top of my head, I can't remember who drew them), but this is clearly palaeoart of some kind.
"Palaeoart can't be stylised" Because palaeoart has always, since the beginning, produced 100% photo-real, non-cartoony takes on fossil life. Whoops, I dropped some drawings from Cuvier's 1820s series on fossil mammals of France...
Was amazed to find a Harris hawk visiting the garden this morning, presumably a lost pet. It hung around for 20 minutes or so, making low-energy efforts at the neighbour's quail pen. No interest in our chickens.