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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Some of the studies I made of the extinct megatooth shark Otodus megalodon, for an upcoming commission I can hopefully share soon. Megalodon is known almost exclusively from fossil teeth, which have not been found articulated with jaws.

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

It's been 90 years since the last living thylacine aka Tasmanian tiger was alive. I don't have anything profound to say, other than that Paschalis Dougalis' portrait below is a beautiful depiction #sciart

A highly detailed portrait painting of a thylacine, a dog-like carnivorous marsupial with triangular ears and large eyes, set against a soft olive-brown backdrop. Their is incredible detail in the light & depth of the large eyes and the nose. Its golden-brown fur is detailed enough it looks like you could touch it.

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Reposted by Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸

Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 06/09/2026

AI is certainly making all of this much worse, but every scientist you know, or at least all the physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, and climate scientists, gets tons of emails from men, especially engineers, who think they are Einstein. It’s sad and complicated and messy.

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Breakfast of champions! A female horn shark (Heterodontus francisci) eating its own egg case. There are no males in the habitat so the egg wasn’t fertilized

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Studies of the incredible and specialized eyes of elasmobranchs (sharks and rays). Shark vision is an ongoing research topic but the general consensus is, overall, sharks are more sensitive to movement and contrast than they are to colors.

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

The sharks you don't hear about: Deepsea catsharks (Pentanchidae) are the largest family of sharks, containing 11 genera & at least (!!!) 110 species.

Smalleye catshark (Apristurus microps) dentition

Fleshynose catshark (Apristurus melanoasper)

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

This incredible graphic is by @maijakarala.bsky.social and is an excellent crash-course in bird (and honestly animal) color/pigmentation. Check it out! I’ve continually come back to this for reference and always love sharing it with others 🐧🐦🐤🏳️‍🌈

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Anybody recognize this trilobite? Even family level or time period would be cool to know. Was a gift

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Feast your eyes on DOMINO! Potentially the world's first warty frogfish (Antennarius maculatus) successfully reared in human care 📍Shedd Aquarium

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

To anybody that knows fossils- do these look like brachiopods? From the limestone tiles of Shedd Aquarium. I believe quarried in Illinois

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

One of the most bizarre animals I've ever seen in person - the bowmouth guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma). Front of body, while ray-like, is fairly deep with several isolated rows of spikes. Back of body has taller fins and a weirdly "dipped" caudal peduncle. ~8-9ft long

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Another Megalodon reconstruction by Charles R. Knight from the book "Great White Shark" (Ellis & McCosker, 1991). I've never seen this before, very cool to feature specific taxa like spotted eagle rays (right) & tiger sharks (left). #sciart #paleoart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

An interesting camera effect I noticed when taking a pic of a bigtooth river stingray at Shedd Aquarium: from a distance their creamy-white spots look normal, but when you zoom in there's this crazy blue and orange halo. Is this a camera effect to make the spots pop? Or something else?

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

I recently searched "goblin shark" on Instagram and was disgusted by the ubiquity of generative AI slop masquerading as actual footage of living goblin sharks. So here's a thread on how to spot the bullshit (examples below) #scicomm #sharks

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Photo of a captive sandbar shark at Shedd Aquarium - those parallel diagonal lines running along the tail are the shark's muscles!!! Even animals we think of as "simple" or "smooth" can reveal a lot if you know what to look for

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

For #EndangeredSpeciesDay, a type of shark I had no idea existed until very recently: the daggernose shark (Carcharhinus oxyrhynchus). This is a super weird, poorly known requiem shark that is Critically Endangered. I'm not sure if it's ever been photographed alive/underwater

Daggernose shark (Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus) illustration [Marc Dando]

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Another great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) portrait study in pencil. The individual I referenced had some interesting damage/scarring to the lower jaw

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

January vs April- portrait studies of great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in pencil. Starting to get a feel for sharks and how to accurately depict all that character they have in their faces! 🦈 #sciart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

If you ever feel like humans have a solid grasp on animals, do some research on sharks & whales. You'd be amazed how little documentation there is. Some species have never even been photographed, or even seen, alive! pics of some rarely-seen weirdos

Bigeye sand tiger shark (Odontaspis noronhai) specimen

Crocodile shark (Pseudocarcharias komoharai) specimen

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Looking at photos from the NOAA Voyage to the Ridge 2022 Expedition and this is crazy - is it just me or does this sea star look like it was knit by hand?!

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

The undisputed #1 greatest photo of a person with a fossil: Paleontologist Altangerel Perle, with the Museum of Natural History in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, stands between the forearms of Deinocheirus

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Watching a video from the Smithsonian on the making of Gary Staab's 50ft-long Megalodon sculpture. Something about seeing artists/workers climbing on and around it like insects really leaves you with a sense of how big this thing would've been

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Reposted by Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸

David Levering @biogeoverse.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Regarding potential virtual paleontology meetings. (I built and ran the 2023 SVP virtual meeting.)

If there’s a desire for an online-based robust virtual paleontology “meeting”, my honest best advice is the folks that really really want this to happen aggregate a leadership team and make it happen. This isn’t a dig (🥁) at all, but it’s not going to happen through SVP this year. I ran the 2023 virtual meeting and promise there just isn’t enough time on the calendar to go the SVP route.

If a team of 8-12 highly motivated, reliable individuals can be brought together on this and establish 10-point lists of benefits, challenges, and deliverable targets, I will enthusiastically help however I can in a consulting capacity. Please understand though that however much work you think this will be, double that and you might be close. Not trying to discourage anyone, but that’s the reality of these things. That said, accessibility is crucial and this overall concept is definitely worth pursuing.

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Question for fellow paleoartists: When creating #paleoart to be featured on the cover of an academic journal, how do you decide the dimensions of the piece? Do you reach out to the folks at the journal and ask them? Design a vertical composition and let them crop? Or something else? #sciart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Not my sweaty ass being part of an exhibit panel at The Museum of the Rockies!!! I volunteered last summer to help dig up a new chasmosaurine ceratopsid (horned dinosaur somewhat related to Triceratops).

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Detail of the Triceratops reconstruction I made for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences' award-winning research project, Cretaceous Creatures Coloration is meant to match a mural/reconstruction by Julius Csotonyi #paleoart #sciart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

A paleoart meme/trope that kind of bugs me is giving Sinosauropteryx a bushy, fluffy, squirrel-like tail. I am not saying this is implausible, and I appreciate speculation, but it's not what the fossil evidence seems to reflect.

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Okay in hindsight not the best angle but for reference I am 6ft6in (2m) tall and the horns extend past where I was standing

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Timeline cleanse: The gorgeous, masterful fossil photography of Andre Gogol (in collaboration with the Royal Tyrrell Museum collections) #paleontology #photography #paleoart

Retrodeformation of the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen “Black Beauty”

Isolated view of the Gorgosaurus specimen known as “Blossom”

Platinum palladium hadrosaur contact print

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Biggest surprise of #DinosaursAndMOR so far: Yoshi’s Trike (long-horned Triceratops specimen) is WAAAY bigger than I thought! I’ll try to get a pic with me for scale before the conference ends 📍Museum of the Rockies

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Brodavis, the freshwater hesperornithiform bird from the Hell Creek Formation of Late Cretaceous North America. Composition loosely inspired by The Birds of North America by John James Audubon. Done for the Cretaceous Creatures Project at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences #paleoart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

That fish in the background of every single shark photo you've seen: the pilot fish, Naucrates ductor. It's almost hard to find pics of oceanic whitetip sharks *without* pilotfish in them

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Reposted by Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸

Tyler Keillor @tylerkeillor.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

#FossilFriday & happy to see coworker & coauthor Erin Fitzgerald’s culmination of fierce fieldwork, ace preparation of difficult material & great paint job on the display-skull, out now w/ Spinosaurus mirabilis, debuting @ Chicago Children’s Museum on March 1 #SciArt

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Looking forward to my very first Dinosaurs and MOR! conference at the @museumoftherockies.bsky.social!!! Excited to reconnect with friends from fossil digs and see the Cretaceous Creatures exhibit #ThrowbackThursday to the last time I was in Montana

Photo of a tired, sweaty and dirt-covered paleoartist stretching hands out to the camera to emphasize how torn & useless his work gloves are

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Portrait of the iconic Jurassic pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus #sciart #paleoart

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Reposted by Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸

Chris Mah @echinoblog.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

#molluscmonday

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

I find it can be sometimes difficult to develop an original composition, color palette etc for aquatic #paleoart. Here's a thread of some inspiring #wildlifephotography: "The Night Shift" - molluscs moving on coral reef to graze as night falls & grey reef shark cruises (Laurent Ballesta)

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

This is crazy: platypus hairs have unique, hollow melanosomes (pigment cells) that may have an additional function unrelated to the brown color they produce: A unique hollow melanosome morphology in the hairs of the platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) in white studio setting, photo by Joel Sartore for National Geographic Photo Ark

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

I've been looking for references on the morphology of scombrid fishes (mackerel, tuna, bonito etc) and came across this AMAZING resource: Scombrids of the World. An Annotated and Illustrated Catalogue of Tunas, Mackerels, Bonitos and Related Species Known to Date (link below)

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Just heard on the latest episode of the Tetrapod Zoology podcast that John Conway is effectively “retiring” from paleoart for the foreseeable future to pursue other passions. I’m happy for him & hope he finds success, and also profoundly saddened by this news. #paleoart

"All Yesterdays: Protoceratops"
The small ceratopsian Protoceratops, reconstructed as a tree climber, despite having no obvious adaptions for it (like goats)
by John Conway

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

You could put a gun to my head and I'm sure I'd still confuse the names of Scelidosaurus & Scutellosaurus

Scutellosaurus skeletal by Scott Hartman

Scelidosaurus harrisonii skeletal by Scott Hartman

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Statement from Paul Sereno / University of Chicago Fossil Lab regarding Nathan Myhrvold: paulsereno.uchicago.edu/news/fossil_...

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Thought I'd do a thread of some of my favorite #paleoart - inspired by watching an old Skeleton Crew podcast episode "Sinopteroberries" - uncertain pterosaur, possibly Nemicolopterus, but probably a juvenile Sinopterus enjoying some red podocarp berries (John Conway) #sciart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Scott Williams at the Museum of the Rockies gave a talk a couple years ago where he demonstrated pretty clearly that Tyrannosaurus is like, exponentially more popular and well known than any other dinosaur. Not even close. Not sure where people got this idea but it's ludicrous

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Congratulations to all involved in Netflix's #TheDinosaurs! Here are some of my thoughts after finishing the series that nobody asked for #PrehistoricPlanet #LifeOnOurPlanet #paleoart #paleontology

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Reposted by Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸

Hady George @houdzgeorge.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

From El Hossny et al., 2020: Spathiurus, a Cretaceous relative of bowfins. This specimen is at a museum tied to the Lebanese University. One of the university’s campuses has been bombed, and the director of the Faculty of Science has been killed You can support Lebanon here: gofund.me/40b24e072

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

The Ordovician gastropod (aka sea snail) Trochonema, paleoart I made as part of an internship reconstructing Ordovician invertebrates with Paul Mayer, curator of fossil invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History. #sciart #paleoart

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Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸 @paleobyliam.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Proud to have contributed to Evolving Planet's evolution! In 2019 I created #paleoart of Helicoprion, Teleocrater, Parringtonia, Desmatosuchus, Asilisaurus, Deinonychus, Buitreraptor, Citipati, Archaeopteryx & Anchiornis. Still a major highlight of my career and an honor

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