Ilari Pätilä

Poster for Disney's Dinosaur, showing a prehistoric landscape dominated by giant sauropods reflected in the blue eyes of an Iguanodon. The film's title is written in a rough, weathered font with an amber hue.

A short thread with thoughts on Disney's Dinosaur, which I rewatched recently to commemorate the loss of Dinoland USA.

I always forget just how dark this movie is, inarguably the darkest in the entire Disney filmography. There is SO much death and suffering both on and off-screen, it's truly grim!

A pencil sketch of Palorchestes, a bizarre marsupial from Late Pleistocene Australia

A pencil sketch of a Palorchestes yawning, showing its teeth and scrunching up its bizarre floppy nose

Palorchestes has got to be one of the most absurd marsupials ever

What's not to love?

A scene set in an Eocene rainforest, circa 50 million years ago, in modern Wyoming. A Gastornis, with a gray plumage and an orange beak and blue eyes, is delighted to spot a Cyrilavis resting on their large beak. The Cyrilavis is white and gray with gray cockatiel-style cheek-spots

Gastornis/Diatryma meets one of their non-flightless neighbours, the stem-parrot Cyrilavis

Originally made as gift art for @kulindadromeus.bsky.social

A scene with assorted cranes and storks standing in reeds, against a blue backdrop. On the left, there is a Common Crane (Grus grus), looking right, to meet the eyes of a Saddle-billed Stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis), Gray Crowned-Crane (Balearica regulorum) and Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer). They all look pleased to see each other.

At the moment, the cranes that nest in Finland are wintering in Africa along the Nile in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. Looks like this particular one has some friends to meet there!

Yes, I know all these guys don't share ranges, no need to put that in the replies

Digital Drawing. A depiction of all 9 species of moa. They look as if they are floating in the air, moving towards a glowing point in the bottom left corner. In the background are some twisty-ish trees, all leaning to the left. There is a dark border around the whole piece. At the bottom are the skulls of all 9 species (they're probably not exactly to scale with one another). On the left and right of the skulls are pairs of kōwhai leaves. The rest of the border is filled with simple lines. All 9 species of moa are (left to right): Mantell's moa Bush moa Eastern moa (bald one with blue head) Heavy-footed moa (behind eastern moa) South Island giant moa (has blue on the neck) Stout-legged moa North island giant moa Crested moa Upland moa

Moa

The Megalosaurus statue at Crystal Palace park in London. It is a robust quadrupedal predator with a long, toothy skull and a hump on its back

The Andrewsarchus from Walking with Beasts. It is a robust quadrupedal predator with a long, toothy skull and a bit of a hump on its back

Older Andrewsarchus reconstructions look like the Crystal Palace Megalosaurus if it was a mammal

"What did YOU collect as an animal-loving child?" Image selection includes Zoobooks, Wildlife Explorer, Weird n Wild Creatures, Panini Wildlife Sticker Albums, Ranger Rick Magazine, Wildlife Factfile, Wildlife Treasury, EnchantedLearning.com Coloring Pages, Eyewitness Books, Rourke Dinosaur Library, Illustrated Animal Library, and National Geographic Magazine

Every year, this couple of Palaeoloxodon falconeri visit a communal site to mourn the dead. As a token, they leave stones for the cairns
Island life shrunk their bodies, but not their brains, which are in proportion to their body size match early humans. Who knows what was churning in their heads

After 20 Years, the Tetrapod Zoology Highlights — Tetrapod Zoology A look-back at some of my personal highlights from the two decades of Tetrapod Zoology…

In continuing celebration of TWENTY YEARS OF TETRAPOD ZOOLOGY, I've just published an article listing some of my personal highlights. The article is here if you want to check it first... tetzoo.com/blog/2026/1/... but I'm also going a build a thread, discussing and linking to my highlight articles.

Screenshot from Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age showing the head and neck of a giant stork.

Screenshot from Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age showing a long-legged bird standing on a rock. It is using one foot to hold down a piece of meat while also tearing at it with its beak.

Screenshot from Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age showing two flightless birds with long necks standing in a forest. The male on the left has a bright blue head and is much smaller than the female on the right.

Screenshot from Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age showing numerous large flightless birds feeding in a wetland.

Dinosaurs were nearly wiped out 66 million years ago, long before the start of the Quaternary ice age. However, #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge shows that the few surviving dinosaurs (birds) would go on to become highly successful. Let's meet the ice age dinosaurs featured in the series! 🪶🧪

The image in question is from the website of @australianwildlife.bsky.social , which has a whole host of amazing images of conservationists handling Aussie wildlife, gotta be my favourite genre of photography
www.australianwildlife.org/what-we-do/r...

A portrait of Teratornis merriami in coloured pencils against a blue backdrop.

A simple portrait of Teratornis merriami, done in coloured pencils

Grandfather Dimetrodon sitting on a chair at the river bank, holding a fishing rod, reeling in a paper on the ecology of Dimetrodon grandis. The Dimetrodon feels happy and content.

Just a Dimetrodon out fishing, not much else
He looks nice to hang around with, and it'd be nice to just relax for once

Go check out this video if you haven't already, it covers incredible paleoart by an incredible wildlife artist, and it's presented expertly

It's awesome!

We are NOMINATED‼️

This gonna be the LAST CHANCE for anime adaptation, and I believe we have the power to make it happen!

Please VOTE for Dinosaur Sanctuary from the link below▼
anime-japan.jp/activities/a...

I'll show you how to vote in the replay below.

An extinct condor from the open & semi-open ecosystems of eastern Brazil in the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene - part of a diversified guild of scavenging #birds that suffered severe #extinction when South America's rich #megafauna was decimated by Homo sapiens www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

⭑ PALEOFAUNA ⭑ of ⭑ NEW ⭑ CALEDONIA⭑ 🧵

#paleoart

Digital Drawing. A depiction of an upland moa (Megalapteryx didinus) based on the type specimen. The head and right foot are represented as mummified remains while the rest of the body is drawn more like a life appearance, in the style of a monochromatic sketch.

Moa Remains

Scenes from the #SVP2025 #2025SVP #paleoart workshop. We had terrific talks from @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social, @tetzoo.bsky.social, @palaeojules.bsky.social and @bobnichollsart.bsky.social, as well as fantastic discussion from attendees. Thanks to everyone who contributed, I hope you all enjoyed it!

Results from the #paleostream!
Dodo, Oneirosaurus, Thikarisuchus and Bakiribu

Small single-celled organism bathed in rays of light, evocative of the Pale Blue Dot photograph

The first of a paleoart series I'm calling "Perspectives," which aims to highlight the evolution of life on Earth with a variety of different creatures and styles.

This one is "Pale First Dot," depicting good ol' LUCA, the last universal common ancestor.

#sciart #paleoart #paleontology

Torstain keikalla tavataan!
Sen mitä olen julkaisemistasi klipeistä nähnyt, tulossa on hyvää settiä.

I’m at the annual paleontology conference. Here’s how people today have described their work:

“I basically study swamp monsters”
“I’m a dinosaur orthodontist”
“Dead bird bird watcher”

#2025SVP

Prehistoric Planet Smilodon populator.

Prehistoric Planet Gigantopithecus.

Prehistoric Planet Megaloceros as seen from a cave interior.

Prehistoric Planet giant adjutant stork.

Years of work and collab with an incredible team at #BBCStudios #AppleTV @framestore.bsky.social ... involving so many camera operators, writers, producers, effects people, artists and others, #PrehistoricPlanetaIceAge is out on #AppleTV Nov 26th. A definitive vision of Ice Age wildlife worldwide.

Illustration I did of a roaring and/or yawning T. rex with a judgmental rex onlooker in the background. (done for Beasts of the Mesozoic T. rex figure)

T. rex was formally named 120 years ago today. Hell yeah king happy birthday!

#art

A simple landscape illustration with a grey-green ocean, a dark grey rocky islet partly covered by orange lichen and a light grey overcast sky. On and around the islet are seabirds of several species, most pictured realistically in colour. The largest bird is a now-extinct great auk, depicted as a semi-translucent white ghost figure.

#SciArtSeptember 1: Islet

Somewhere in the waves of Barents Sea, a rocky islet acts as a perch for seabirds. Puffins, guillemots, razorbills and skuas are still here, though threatened by heating oceans and spreading disease. With them sits a lonely ghost of a great auk that once roamed these seas.

Two juvenile giant moa (Dinornis robustus) run energetically along a beach, creating some splashes as they go. Small waves roll in behind them.

Young Dinornis at the Beach 🏖️

A nine panel comic called "Bird abilities I wish I had." In panel 1, labeled flying, a woman in a red tshirt and blue jeans soars through the air with 2 mourning doves. In panel 2, labeled singing complex songs, the woman sings with a magnolia warbler. In panel 3, labeled carving wood with my face, the woman has carved a hole in a tree and is covered in wood chips, while a pileated woodpecker pecks on a tree behind her. In panel 4, labeled eating shrimp to become pink, the woman has turned pink and is standing next to two flamingos. In panel 5, labeled storing food in a gular pouch, the woman has a throat pouch with an apple and a fish in it, and two pelicans fly by. In panel 6, labeled not needing winter legwear, the woman is bundled up but has bare legs and is standing in a snowy landscape next to a mallard duck. In panel 7, labeled being a symbol of peace, the woman looks peaceful and is wearing a shirt with a peace sign, and there's a mourning dove on her hand. In panel 8, labeled being an omen, the woman is in a spooky tree next to a crow or raven and a crescent moon. In panel 8, labeled stealing chips with no criminal repercussions, the woman and a herring gull are flying through the air carrying chip bags in their mouth while someone on the ground says "hey!".

Bird abilities I wish I had.
Buy my new book here: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rosem...

A guinea pig shaped and sized semi-arboreal insectivorous stem-perissodactyl with the ability to echolocate (probably)

Truly one of the mammals of all time

Joanna has made incredible paleoart before, but this is just jawdropping
It looks as alive as a photograph of a lion in the Serengeti today, only fluffier and better suited to the harsh mammoth steppe
If you don't follow her work yet, do it now