Mark Witton

Artwork by Mark Witton of a griffin standing in a desert landscape. In the rock at its feet is a fossilised skeleton of the dinosaur Protoceratops.

#WyrdWednesday The idea that ancient discoveries of Protoceratops fossils inspired tales of griffins has become popular, but in 2024 @markwitton.bsky.social and I wrote a paper examining it in detail and concluded it probably wasn't true

Read all about it here:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Hope you enjoy it!

I'll have what she's having (2026) | MarkWittonPalaeoart Uncropped print on 312gsm smooth fine art paper.

Prints of this image are available: www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

In a yellowing Cretaceous ginkgo tree, a chestnut, black and white Sinornithosaurus perches on a branch beneath a black, iridescent Microraptor. It has a small mammal in its jaws, which the Sinornithosaurus covets. Another Microraptor, all four wings spread, approaches to land. Ginkgo leaves fall around them, and X-shaped Microraptor silhouettes glide in the skies behind.

More new #paleoart and discussion at #Patreon: the colour schemes of Sinornithosaurus and Microraptor. What do we know, and what do their colours tell us? www.patreon.com/posts/sinorn...

#sciart #dinosaurs #paleontology #fossils

Caudipteryx in... this newfangled solid water (2026) 2 | MarkWittonPalaeoart Uncropped print on 312gsm smooth fine art paper.

If you like this winter scene of dinosaur mishap enough to want a print, I've got you covered: www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

It's a quiet winter morning in Cretaceous China. Mist clings to the bank of a frozen lake, but shadows from adjacent trees hint at their impending dispulsion from the coming sun. From the crunchy, leaf-strewn shore comes a turkey-sized, black and white, bird-like dinosaur, Caudipteryx. It steps onto the ice: one foot, then the other. All is OK. But then... whoa. WHOA. What's happening to the first foot? It's sliding away! And foot two? Also sliding! What fresh hell is this? _Solid, slippy water_? Caudipteryx leans forward, arms spread, tail raised, showing its striped tail fan. It stands there, legs akimbo, as frozen as the water beneath it. This is going to get worse before it gets better.

New #paleoart at #Patreon for #FossilFriday: Caudipteryx encounters a frozen lake, is unsure, prob. makes wee bokking noises as its feet slide apart hilariously.

Lots of discussion about the colour data of this animal in my Patreon post. www.patreon.com/posts/149439...
#sciart #fossil #dinosaurs

Thanks!

Finally, North America gets some spinosaurs!

OK, OK: North America finally gets _Spinosaur Tales_, by @davehone.bsky.social and me, from today. It's been out in the UK since Nov. and reviews have been v. positive. All your usual book vendors will stock it.
Info: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/spinosaur...

Spinosaur Tales with @markwitton.bsky.social is out now in North America. It's been getting top reviews already from readers, so if you like your giant, weird, controversial, carnivorous #dinosaurs and spectacular palaeoart, then check it out!

I can't think of many early palaeoartists with such a strong style, and his influence was huge considering he only did three palaeoart pieces. He's long overdue a reappraisal, in my view.

Plus, he moved palaeoart into a more artistically interesting place. As you say, he transferred a lot of his usual apocalypstic motifs to his pieces on ancient reptiles, and in some artworks his dinosaurs seem to take on those world-ending roles. That's quite a visual statement!

I have plans to write a paper on his palaeoart as there are lots of details within them that are often overlooked. I feel he's often written off for being so fanciful (which is somewhat understandable), but his pieces aren't bereft of all science. He was, after all, interested in science himself.

The psychology of "alternative" scenes like this is really fascinating. How did old-timey artists equate scenes like this with the natural world? Nothing in nature or reality looks like this. Consciously or not, it speaks to a sort of primordial supernaturalism.

Ah, OK. I thought you might be talking about the art from the novels.

Are you thinking of the film or the book?

The Wealden, c. 1838 (2026) | MarkWittonPalaeoart Uncropped print on 312gsm smooth fine art paper.

Like a lot of my recent work, you can buy prints of this image from my online art store. Subscribers to my Patreon feed get a 20% discount, too! www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

Enormous reptiles, neither quite lizard nor mammal-like in form, rear, grapple and tear at one another in front of a setting sun at a rocky, foreboding shore. One, the horned Iguanodon, roars so widely that its grotesque tongue protrudes from its mouth like a tentacle; the other, a Megalosaurus, tears a string of dark flesh from its opponents' chest. They are surrounded by other snarling, roaring beasts: plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and a distant, spike-backed Hylaeosaurus. Palm trees and ferns dot the top of rocky escarpments alongside perching pterosaurs with translucent, bat-like wings. The remains of ammonites and skulls of reptiles decay into water and rocks.

Another John Martin-style #paleoart piece painted for fun. This riffs on 1830s views of the British Wealden, where giant dinosaurs (Iguanodon and Megalosaurus here) engaged in violent combat in grand natural amphitheatres. Pterosaurs and other animals watch on. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? #sciart

On ancient dunes under a starry sky, two rival troops of spindly-limbed, tiny-bodied fuzzy reptiles leap and dance at one another to prove their right to ownership of this sandy realm. They pirouette and twirl, wind their limbs and display their white chests and necks, gleaming in the moonlight.

It's #BurnsNight, so here's some #paleoart of one of Triassic Scotland's most famous inhabitants: Scleromochlus taylori. Exactly what Scleromochlus represents is still debated. Most think it's an early pterosauromorph, but not all. Like this image? Get a print @ www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

Thanks! I put a few DDDD prints for sale in the store, from the more paleo-oriented end of the spectrum. A few of my favourites are in the gallery pages too, right at the bottom (what I'm terming the gallery "Basement").

How paleoartists bring dinosaurs to life

Want some #paleoart content for your ears this #FossilFriday? I've been interviewed about reconstructing extinct animals by the nice folks at the Instant Genius podcast. Check it out here: open.spotify.com/episode/4haO...

#dinosaurs #paleontology #sciart #art #fossil

Screengrab of my print store webpage, where you can exchange money for ink printouts of my art on high-quality pulped wood.

For #FossilFriday: After many, many years of absence, I've finally restored a working print store to my website markwitton.co.uk. There are over 120 #paleoart prints to choose from, and I'll periodically add new pieces over time (or older pieces at request, but serious inquiries only, please!).

The real secret of how work gets done around here: the pets guide our fingers when using computers. The truth, finally, is out. With @gizz47.bsky.social

Home | MarkWitton.co.uk Palaeontological artist, consultant and author The online home of Dr. Mark P. Witton, including details of my books, scientific articles and a gallery of my palaeoart.

I've been tinkering with my website today, uploading the first new images in many, many years and making some nips and tucks here and there. There's now tons more #paleoart to see, including lots of new stuff you might have missed. Check it out at www.markwitton.co.uk

Yeah, why isn't the house always social media ready? Sheesh.

Framed print of Peter Scott's painting of snow geese in California: a flock of geese landing next to a lake in front of happy, puffy clouds.

Peter Scott's pencil signature on the print. Real Peter Scott!!!!

The entrance to Chez Witton-Maclean, where framed prints of John Conway's titanosaurs (left), Katrina van Grouw's great hornbill (right) and Peter Scott's snow geese welcome you to our home. Ammonites and bird models sit atop the shoe tidy. Shoes sit within the tidy, ironically in haphazard fashion.

Just took delivery of a signed Peter Scott snow geese print from 1939. It joins van Grouw and Conway to make our hallway a small natural history art gallery. Starting to wish we had more walls. With @gizz47.bsky.social.

Thanks for the heads up. This is entirely without permission and thus illegal. I'll let the publishers know.

Three giant ichthyosaurs emerge from the water in front of a hazy, cloudy sky. The left animal has the arms of a large squid emerging from its mouth, and the right has surfaced far enough to show its front left flopper. The central animal looms above us, eclipsing the sun with its enormous snout. Two pterosaurs fly past the closest specimen, dwarfed by the emergent swimmer like pigeons circling a cathedral spire.

SPPOOOSSSHHH... PHHHFFFFFFF... SSSSSSHHHHHHHH...

To paraphrase Bob Ross, you have to make the noises when looking at #paleoart, otherwise it doesn't work.

2018 illustration of giant Triassic ichthyosaurs Shonisaurus, surfacing in waters that once covered Nevada. #art #fossil #paleontology #sciart

Rethinking the strangest dinosaurs ever found Spinosaurus is one of the most famous and least understood dinosaurs of all time. New research and reconstructions reveal how fragmentary fossils, lost specimens and evolving science have shaped what ...

"Rethinking the strangest dinosaurs ever found"
With @markwitton.bsky.social
It's about Spinosaurus and its relatives (25min10s)
www.kpcw.org/podcast/cool...

An image created back in the mists of time, when the Earth was new... 2006. It shows what was once thought to be a growth series of the crested Cretaceous pterosaur Tupuxuara (all animals shown to scale, with hatchling at the bottom, juvenile on the right, subadult at top, and old adult in the centre). Later work showed this growth series to be incorrect, with the "old adult" pertaining - as was originally suspected - to a different genus (Thalassodromeus). This was not my first digital painting, but it was the first painting I did for a client, and the one that first put my art and name in the press.

Spending the week on commissions for museums and realised that - now we're in 2026 - I've been creating #paleoart for other scientists and researchers for 20 years (actual anniversary is July). Here's my first "professional" gig: thalassodromid ontogeny for Dave Martill and @tetzoo.bsky.social.

It's probably difficult to draw modern takes on fossil reptiles in this style. Part of the method here is pretending that we don't know much about their appearance or even their basic proportions.