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Current Trends in Paleontology and Evolution
28
1. Introduction
Paleontology is a science that generates social attraction
like few other disciplines can do (Witton et al. 2014).
It is impossible to deny its media impact and the
support art has given to the growth of paleontology
as a living science, always at the vanguard, always correcting
ideas and providing new releases, in what it is now an
indivisible relationship. This interaction involves social,
cultural and economic aspects, since paleontology has become
an educational, cultural, touristic and economic resource. This
interest and potential signies a substantial nancial source with
a multimillionaire industry, centered in the editorial system but
extended to many other areas, which continuously produce all
sorts of representations with esthetic origins in paleoart.
The term paleoart was introduced in the late 1980s by the
natural history illustrator Mark Hallett (1986), who used it as
an informal word to describe his own work. Paleoart became
a catchy synonym to paleontological sculptures and paintings.
Since then, this term has been widely used both in academic
and informal media to refer to any artistic representation of a
prehistoric organism or environment. The scientic nature
of paleoart and its integrative educative potential provide the
Paleoart: term and conditions (a survey among
paleontologists)
Marco Ansón1*, Manuel Hernández Fernández2,3 y Pedro A. Saura Ramos1
Paleoarte es un término utilizado ampliamente en el mundo paleontológico. Este término puede encontrarse
en diferentes medios, empleándose para referirse a diferentes manifestaciones artísticas de temática
paleontológica. El paleoarte tiene una larga historia y ha ayudado a que la paleontología se convierta en una de
las ciencias más populares. La producción de estas obras implica que los paleoartistas deben poseer un elevado
nivel de habilidad artística y conocimientos paleontológicos. Por todo su valor cientíco, artístico y cultural,
el paleoarte y los paleoartistas deben ser reconocidos y valorados tanto en el campo de la paleontología
como en las bellas artes. En esta situación el paleoarte necesita una denición clara que lo distinga de otras
representaciones artísticas. Con ese objetivo en mente, hemos realizado una consulta a un conjunto de
paleontólogos, la cual nos ha ayudado a perlar tal denición. Se pueden considerar paleoarte todas aquellas
manifestaciones artísticas originales que pretenden reconstruir o representar formas de vida prehistóricas
acordes a los conocimientos y evidencias cientícas existentes en el momento de crear la obra.
Paleoarte: término y condiciones (un sondeo entre los paleontólogos)
Palabras clave: Paleontología, Arte, Reconstrucción, Teoría artística, cultura
Paleoart is a widely used term in the paleontological world. This word can be found in dierent media, used in
relation to dierent kinds of artistic manifestations of paleontological theme. Paleoart has a long history and
has helped paleontology to became one of the most popular sciences. The production of this artwork means
that paleoartists must have high skills in both disciplines, arts and paleontology. Due to its scientist, artistic and
cultural signicance, paleoart and paleoartists must be recognized and valued in both paleontology and ne
arts. In this situation paleoart needs a clear denition that distinguishes it from other artistic representations.
Taking this into account, we have consulted to a series of paleontologists, and this survey has allowed us to
outline such a denition. All the original artistic manifestations that pretend to reconstruct o depict prehistoric
life according to the current knowledge and scientic evidence at the moment of creating the artwork can be
considered paleoart.
Keywords: Paleontology, Art, Reconstruction, Art theory, culture
1Departamento de Dibujo II, Facultad de Bellas Artes, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Greco 2, Madrid 28040. *Email: paleomarco@yahoo.es
2Departamento de Paleontología, Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, José Antonio Novais 2, Madrid 28040
3Departamento de Cambio Medioambiental, Instituto de Geociencias (UCM, CSIC), José Antonio Novais 2, Madrid 28040
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XIII EJIP Conference Proceedings
29
Among modern paleoartists, paleontological research for an
accurate reconstruction has become a substantial part of their
work. Among them, Jay Matternes is a key gure as he pictured
the steps of the sequential methodology of reconstruction,
working as a visual display to justify the reconstruction (Bates,
1964). In this sense, some artists had published methodologies
and instructions for reconstructing the appearance of fossil
fauna (Scott, 1913; Paul, 1987; Antón and Sánchez, 2004).
Other artists, among which Gregory S. Paul and Mauricio Antón
stand out, have not just created images dening the species they
represent but have also made multiple scientic publications
focusing on their reconstruction (Paul, 1988a; Olshevsky, 1991;
Antón et al. 1998, 2009; Antón, 2007; Pérez González et al.
2009; Ansón and Hernández Fernández, 2013), even suggesting
new hypothesis, like the defensive behavior of Triceratops
pictured by Mark Hallett (Wexo, 1987), or anticipating scientic
knowledge that can be subsequently veried by fossil evidence,
as the predatory behaviour of Tyrannosaurus on Triceratops
(Paul, 1988b; Erickson and Olson, 1996).
Nevertheless, in spite of the success of the term, today there
is a lack of a shared denition of paleoart, since no one has
suggested one that can be universally accepted or valid. Paleoart
as an art itself must be separated from other media related to
prehistoric and paleontological themes. In this context, Allen
Debus and Diane Debus use the term paleoimagery, which
addresses evolving ideas about prehistoric animal imagery in
its varied manifestations (science tool, cultural symbol, etc.)…
Conversely, these authors indicate that there are innumerable
forms of “paleoimagery” not qualifying as paleoart because
“paleoartists are (modern) artists who create original skeletal
reconstructions and/or restorations of prehistoric animals,
or restore fossil ora or invertebrates using acceptable and
recognized procedures” (Debus and Debus, 2011). Another
recent denition for the term has been elaborated by the Society
of Vertebrate Paleontology for its Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize:
“PaleoArt is broadly dened as the scientic or naturalistic
rendering of paleontological subject matter pertaining to
vertebrate fossils.” (Web1). The paleoart denition suggested
by the SVP cannot be accepted because it completely eliminates
from paleoart great artwork related to invertebrates and their
environments, such as those created by Édouard Riou and John
Sibbick.
In order to establish such a denition, we made a consultation
to members of the international paleontological community. The
objective of this poll was to consider the opinion of the scientists
in order to properly dene and evaluate paleoart today.
2. Matherials and Methods
A questionnaire was sent to 115 paleontologists and
naturalists related to paleontology of which 100 responded.
They were settled in eleven different countries: Argentina
(1 paleontologist), Brasil (1), Colombia (1), Turkey (1),
basic tools to understand the past through this kind of artistic
representations. That is why this word can be found on different
publications, books or exhibitions; great artists that portrait
organisms from the past are called paleoartists; there are books
about paleoart and their creators, even institutional paleoart
contests and awards.
It is undeniable the impact that fossils have had along the
history of human cultures (Oakley, 1975; Mayor, 2000; Sarris
and Narváez Padilla, 2009). Since we are a visual-oriented
species (Elgin, 2003), we need to be able to visualize and picture
in our minds the face and the body of those past creatures and
worlds that fascinate us. For this reason human beings are
constantly searching for answers to the enigmas of nature. From
the rst contacts with different fossils we have tried to give an
explanation, generating a visual model of the living animal.
These interpretations would create mythological icons like the
griffon (Mayor, 2000) and the cyclops (Abel, 1914). Therefore,
in order to understand paleoart it is necessary to have a look to
the historic restorations of the old masters.
The origin of paleoart lies within the origin of paleontology
as science. Since the very rst moment, modern paleontologists
needed to visualize the prehistorical bestiary that fossils
represented; and the rst attempt to make a correct reconstruction
of a fossil vertebrate came from George Cuvier (Rudwick,
1992). The success of paleoart was consolidated by Henry
de la Beche, who created Duria Antiquior in 1830, the rst
reconstruction of a paleoenvironment and the organisms that
lived there (Rudwick, 2008). In 1854, paleoart and vertebrate
paleontology made their entrance in popular culture through the
big-sized sculptures made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins
for the exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham. From this
moment on, an industry derived from these paleontological
representations was generated, full of consumers beyond the
publishing and academic media.
The quantum leap within paleoart discipline occurred in the
late nineteenth century with the art of the artist Charles R. Knight,
who understood fossils in terms of compared anatomy being
able to create a ne reconstruction of the animal appearance.
He also developed the methodology of reconstruction from
inside to outside, a sequential series of steps from the bones to
the external appearance of the animal (Antón, 2007). Previous
paleoartists were not able to represent correctly an extant animal,
much less an extinct one. Throughout the twentieth century
some other artists appeared on scene and became great masters
of paleoart, such as Rudolph Zallinger and Zdeněk Burian. The
production of great paleoart implied seeking for advice and
collaboration from scientists in such a way that this artwork
reects the scientic knowledge at the moment of its creation.
As a consequence paleoart representations have been changing
throughout paleontology history as a science, adapting itself to
new discoveries.
Current Trends in Paleontology and Evolution
30
difcult to be unaware of any paleoart artwork, either past
or present, because at any moment of our life we may have
come upon a piece of paleoart reproduced, for example, in
museums or editorial publications. In fact, it is impossible
to say that a paleontologist has ever seen a paleoart artwork
because their mind is full of images depicting prehistoric
life. The purpose of this question is to value how accepted
and recognized are the creators of these artworks, which are
so important for paleontology.
5. Do you think accuracy in paleoart is growing in time? This
question examines the preeminence of scientic progress in
the eld of paleoart from its beginnings to the present.
6. Do you consider essential that paleoillustration or
paleosculpture must be scientically accurate to be
considered paleoart? This is a key question to dene paleoart.
In our opinion, from the rst representations of prehistoric
organisms, in order to create an icon of them paleoartists
have always attempted to reconstruct an accurate appearance
of these beings. Therefore, this question was intended to
contrast this notion within a ample sample of paleontologists.
7. Did you doodle, draw or model any extinct creature at any
Portugal (2), Mexico (5), France (6), Italy (6), U.S.A. (7) and
Spain (70). The poll consisted in eight questions, the last one
being optional response:
1. Do you think that paleoart is necessary to communicate
paleontology to the public? This question tried to value
paleontologists´ opinion about the current symbiosis
between arts and paleontology as well as the necessity of art
as a vehicle for the transmission of ideas and information to
general public.
2. Do you think paleoart is necessary to share knowledge
between scientists? Here we tried to value paleoart capability
to transmit hypotheses and communicate ideas among
paleontologists and other scientists.
3. Do you think paleontology has been inseparable of art in
the last two centuries? It attempted to establish scientists’
consideration on the symbiotic and positive relationship
between art and paleontology during its last two centuries
as a science.
4. Do you know any paleoartist and his artwork? Who? (3
maximum). This question expected to lay out the artists’
recognition as individuals to the paleontologists. It is very
Figure 1. Results of the survey: a) Do
you think that paleoart is necessary to
communicate paleontology to the public?;
b) Do you think paleoart is necessary to share
knowledge between scientists?; c) Do you
think paleontology has been inseparable
of art in the last two centuries?; d) Do you
know any paleoartist and his artwork?; e) Do
you think accuracy in paleoart is growing
in time?; f) Do you consider essential that
paleoillustration or paleosculpure must
be scientically accurate to be considered
paleoart?; g) Did you doodle, draw or
model any extinct creature at any point of
your childhood?; h) Prehistoric life groups
pictured in childhood. NA means Not
Answered.
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XIII EJIP Conference Proceedings
31
since the XIX century would have been clearly difcult and
would have developed in a different way if art would not have
supported paleontology. In our opinion, this makes impossible
for us to deny the relationship between paleontology and art.
Besides, paleoart has been undeniably used as a research
methodology, for example, to estimate weight approximations
through scale models (Christiansen, 1997; Paul, 1997) or in
relation to size proportions (Antón, 2007). Nevertheless, despite
of the commented evidences, our results prove that a fair part
of the participants in the survey do not recognize the work that
paleoart has realized in favor of their science.
Paleontologists who know different paleoartists as creators
of different artwork rose up to 96% (Figure 1d). In this question
it was allowed to name different artists (a maximum of 3
professionals) and some referential artwork. It is remarkable the
fact that Mauricio Antón has been referenced by 60% of the total
of polled people, even if they were not from Spain or their eld
of study was not vertebrate paleontology. With this question we
have veried how different paleontologists assess the artists
with whom they collaborate or who are from their own country.
Maybe this explains a local recognition of the artists who are not
so popular internationally (Table 1). It is also signicant the fact
that several classical masters within paleoart have not received
as much recognition as probably they should; these are the cases
of Zdeněk Burian, Charles R Knight and Rudolph Zallinger,
mentioned only by 11-6 % of the respondents. Among modern
paleoartists with international prestige but low recognition in our
survey are John Sibbick (4 %) and Jay Matternes (2 %). These
results appear to indicate a general low level of knowledge of
the history of paleoart and its main representatives.
The acknowledgment of the work of paleoartists is variable
within paleontology. Some species have been dedicated to
renowned paleoartists: Sellacoxa pauli Carpenter and Ishida,
2010 and Cryptovolans pauli Czerkas et al. 2002 to Greg Paul;
point of your childhood? It comes from the book Dinosaur
Art, where White (2012) stated his interest on “an straw poll
amongst vertebrate paleontologists, particularly those who
study dinosaurs, would reveal that many doodled (however
badly) prehistoric animals as a child”. This question helps to
understand the necessity of visualization of the organism and
the ontogeny of this necessity.
8. Finally, in relation to the previous question, we also
asked about which taxa were represented by these young
paleontologists to be.
3. Results and discussion
Paleontologists clearly consider paleoart as a key element
in the visual transmission of paleontological knowledge (Figure
1a). Evidences of extinct organisms preserved only as fossils
need to be interpreted and reconstructed in order to bring
animals back to life for all publics. Additionally, with a 82%
of positive result versus a negative 17%, the general opinion is
to embrace paleoart as a good communication channel among
scientists (Figure 1b), which is conrmed by the artistic support
that many paleontology books and papers include.
The approval of the historic relationship between
paleontology and art has been proved complicated for the
survey respondents (Figure 1c). While 62 % of them accept
the bond between paleontology and art along its history as
a science, 33% do not recognize it and 5% refuse to answer.
Beyond the clear separation between art and science, both
are deeply intertwined (White, 2012). From the very moment
in which Cuvier’s artwork started to include restorations of
fossil organisms, it is impossible to separate the growing of
paleontology from associated art (Debus and Debus, 2011). If it
were not for the artistic interpretation of fossils from past worlds,
people’s ability to assimilate their signicance would have been
diminished. Therefore, the progress that paleontology has made
Table 1. List of the paleoartists mentioned by the survey respondents. Number of mentions in brackets.
1 Mauricio Antón (60) 18 Karen Carr (3) 35 Jacek Major (1)
2 Raúl Martín (22) 19 Mark Hallett (2) 36 Matthew Martyniuk (1)
3 Oscar Sanisidro (21) 20 Scott Hartman (2) 37 Matilde Muzquiz (1)
4 Zdeněk Burian (11) 21 A. & A. Kennis (2) 38 Enrique Navarro (1)
5 Charles R Knight (10) 22 Je Martz (2) 39 Guillermo Navalon (1)
6 Rudolph Zallinger (6) 23 Jay Matternes (2) 40 Bob Nicholls (1)
7 Davide Bonadona (5) 24 Andrey Atuchin (1) 41 Antonio Peñas (1)
8 John Conway (5) 25 Rob Bakker (1) 42 Graham Rosewarne (1)
9 Douglas Henderson (5) 26 Aldo Castañeda (1) 43 Nima Sassani (1)
10 Greg Paul (5) 27 Sergio de la Rosa (1) 44 Humberto Serrano (1)
11 Marco Ansón (4) 28 Pewter De Scott (1) 45 William Stout (1)
12 Alain Beneteau (4) 29 Danielle Dufault (1) 46 Emiliano Trocco (1)
13 Julius Csotonyi (4) 30 Felipe Elías (1) 47 Terryl Whitlatch (1)
14 John Sibbick (4) 31 Francesc Gascó (1) 48 Emily Willoughby (1)
15 Luis Rey (4) 32 James Gurney (1) 49 Mark Witton (1)
16 B. Waterhouse Hawkins (3) 33 René Hernández (1) 50 Xen Yu (1)
17 John Gurche (3) 34 Julio Lacerda (1)
Current Trends in Paleontology and Evolution
32
82% of the surveyed paleontologists drew different fossil
organisms in their childhood (Figure 1g). Although some
paleontologists with an important career did not draw extinct
organisms during their childhood, it appears that from the very
rst moments of one individual’s artistic manifestation and
during the beginning of their fascination for prehistory there is
already a necessity to sublimate our visions and ideas about the
prehistoric world. Not surprisingly, the most pictured group was
dinosaurs and associated Mesozoic fauna, having been drawn by
71% of the participants (Figure 1h).
According to the results of our survey, we must generate a
denition that faces different problems of paleoart at the moment.
Nowadays there is an increasing difculty to recognize the
pieces of paleoart within the larger eld of paleoimagery. Being
concise, paleoartists must be able to reproduce the anatomy
of extant organisms accurately, which provides them with the
knowledge required for the reconstruction and representation
of extinct species. Nevertheless, we nd ourselves facing today
a saturation of images created by different artists that in many
cases do not represent accurately the organism they claim to
portrait. For this sort of images, Andrea Cau (Web 2) formulated
the term ‘paleoartism’, referring to those representations of
extinct organisms that are not supported by fossil evidences and
scientic data. This problem is increased when museums and
academic institutions commission paleoart production to artists
who are not able to realize reconstructions and produce paleoart.
Similarly, many popular icons we may have of extinct
species were generated from seminal representations by great
paleoartists, whose work has become reiteratively reinterpreted.
For example, the rst scientic reconstruction of Phorusrhacos
by Charles Knight included a feather crest (Lucas, 1901).
Burian’s later illustrations of this animal were based on Knight’s
original and gave it a white and black color pattern (Spinar,
1972). From Knight’s original and Burian’s derivative work,
tens of representations of Phorusrhacos and related genera
have been created, most of them based on the esthetic of these
representations, which became a canonical form of the animal.
Two types of paleoartists can be differentiated according to
their approach to the representation of extinct organisms: the
researching reconstructors and the creative ones. Researchig
reconstructors are those paleoartists who reconstruct the animal
through different phases, which start directly from a deep
research of the fossils, Creative paleoartists are those who
use as a reference previous accurate reconstructions already
made by another artists or by themselves. Thanks to their
anatomical knowledge, they are able to create new correct
representations of prehistoric organisms without the need to
realize a reconstruction from scratch, which saves a substantial
amount of time, as commented by Raúl Martín (White, 2012).
Obviously, researcher paleoartists are also creative paleoartists.
Taking this into account, the value of researcher paleoartists is
very high within the world of paleoart.
Ludodactylus sibbicki Frey et al. 2003 to John Sibbick; and
Torvosaurus gurneyi Hendricks and Mateus, 2014 to James
Gurney. On the other hand, plagiarism of paleoart pieces has
become very usual in our society (Witton et al. 2014), which
is only possible because of the combination of an increasing
mercantilism of paleoart and a widespread ignorance of the
paleoartists (past and present) as individuals and their works.
Therefore, it seems crucial to increase the knowledge of the
public, particularly among paleontologists, about the paleoart
community and its members.
87% of the people who took the poll recognized the rise of
accuracy in paleoart productions (Figure 1e). It is impossible
not to acknowledge a rise of the accuracy and quality of paleoart
artworks along its own history. In fact, since the beginning of
the artistic restorations of prehistoric fauna, fossil discoveries
came one after another and knowledge associated to them has
been growing in time. This does not mean the rst paleoartists
were not accurate in their reconstructions, but they had to use
their genius from the information they had, much less compared
to the information nowadays. At the same time, they were
limited by the thinking and ideas of that moment. Therefore,
Paleoart can be considered an artistic manifestation of strict
contemporaneity.
78% of answers stated the importance of scientic accuracy
in paleoart, versus 20% denying it (Figure 1f). It seems
contradictory that some scientists, who are those who must
work to keep the scientic accuracy, have answered negatively
to this question. For paleontologists should be mandatory that
the artists, with their own sources and vision, were able to be
precise and accurate when reconstructing an extinct organism.
When the history of paleoart is taken into account, the target
of artists and paleontologists has always been reconstructing
the appearance of extinct organisms and the environments they
lived in. When paleoartists create a piece of artwork, they are
suggesting in a visual way the last hypotheses and scientic
trends, synthetizing all the knowledge up-to-date. Paleoart must
be accurate to represent extinct vertebrates and this can only
be attained through the support of scientic knowledge. Since
paleoartists have a commitment with the public when producing
their artwork, their portraits of extinct taxa must include
accurate reconstructions, beyond the artists’ personal style.
This is why, in order to generate paleoart, the artists must make
an effort to include in their artwork all the available scientic
evidence. When researchers and institutions commission works
to professional paleoartists and work with them side by side,
paleoartists can fulll such aspiration. Nevertheless, there are
still institutions and authors that use their status as scientists
to justify art with low accuracy and quality produced by non-
paleoartist illustrators. When art loses the level of accuracy that
should be transmitted to the public, the scientic content that it
supports will lose quality.
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XIII EJIP Conference Proceedings
33
In spite of the fact that old artwork is based on out-dated
hyphotheses, this denition would include the artwork of old
great masters of paleoart, whose mistakes were conditioned by
the thought and knowledge of the moment. In this way paleoart
contemporary esthetics keeps adapting in accordance to the
contemporaneity of the scientic knowledge and thought.
Our denition excludes different kinds of paleoimagery
that are not qualifying as paleoart. This could be because they
are not scientically accurate, are out of date at the moment of
generating the artwork or have no artistic as well as scientic
value.
4. Conclusions
Beyond its artistic value, paleoart has also scientic
importance, due to its function in visualization of the subjects
of study as living forms, the help that provides in taking
some paleobiological data, and its role in the proposal of new
hypotheses.
Taking this into account, paleoart must show to the public
the most accurate reconstruction of the appearance of organisms
and environments of the past that is possible. Since they will turn
into the public mental representation about that organism, these
iconic representations should encapsulate all anatomic, ecologic
and ethologic concepts derived from the scientic study of data
related to such organisms or environments. We have made a
denition of paleoart that summarizes all these issues. At the
same time, our denition protects paleoartists’ creations by not
considering plagiarism as paleoart.
We hope that this denition of paleoart will help to
improve the public recognition within ne arts and science of
this discipline and the true paleoartists who practice it, and to
separate them clearly from the non-academic paleoimagery.
Acknowledgments
We thank to all the paleontologist that made possible this work
by answering our survey. Israel M. Sánchez, Francesc Gascó
and Mauricio Antón are acknowledged for their bibliographic
recommendations and for sharing their paleoartistic knowledge.
Finally, we also thank Judit Sáez for her help and collaboration
with the text.
References
Abel O (1914) Die Tiere der Vorwelr. Teubner, Berlin, 87 pp.
Ansón M and Hernández Fernández M (2013) Artistic
reconstruction of the appearance of Prosantorhinus Heissig,
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Antón M (2007) El secreto de los fósiles. Editorial Aguilar,
Madrid, 360 pp.
Antón M, García-Perea R and Turner A (1998) Reconstructed
facial appearance of the sabretoothed felid Smilodon.
In any case, one thing is to take as a reference an animal
that has been already reconstructed by a paleoartist, and a
very different one to openly copy another artist’s image.
As commented previously, plagiarism within the world of
paleoartistic creations has become a serious problem for the
present and future of this discipline (Witton et al. 2014). Copies
generated for both commercial demand and the academic
world, are sometimes produced by low-skilled artists or those
limited by tight deadlines, which obtain their benet from the
previous research and artistic work of paleoartists. Bad-quality
plagiarisms copied from paleoartists’ artwork may be found
even in museums. This results in paleoart despise, as well as
indicates a disdain of the content and scientic accuracy of any
exhibition or publication that includes such bad practices.
At the moment, the amount of resources to produce artwork,
either an illustration or a sculpture, has increased noticeably, with
a remarkable rise of the digital media. We can say that 3D digital
modeling will be key in the future of paleoart, since it does not
only allow us to realize a momentary rendering, a capture in the
life of the depicted organisms, but it also allows us to realize
animations. Subsequently, this technique makes us able to
reconstruct the locomotion and behavior of animals (Antón, 2007).
Two of the resources at their peaks are photo-manipulation and
photo-collage, used in different ways by renowned paleoartists,
like Mauricio Antón and Julius T. Csotonyi. Although paleoartist
Raúl Martín separates these from digital painting, since he does
not consider them as such (White, 2012), they can be fairly used
in the artistic interpretation of the external appearance of extinct
animals. However, a problematic situation happens when photo-
collage is used directly to reconstruct animals, deconstructing
and deforming extant animals to reach the body proportions of
extinct taxa. The problem of this technique is that, if there is not
a previous work of osteological and miological reconstruction, it
is extremely difcult to get a reconstruction that is anatomically
and morphologically correct. When we transplant directly
the many subtle and distinctive aspects in the life appearance
of an animal, what we are creating is the very same animal,
recognizable although deformed. In our opinion, extant species
must be a reference, not a direct translation of the image of the
extinct animal itself. The paleoartist must reconstruct extinct
organisms without succumbing to the temptation of directly
transplanting information from any extant species.
The lack of recognition of paleoart by some scientists and the
malpractices described previously are worrying issues. These
are obstacles paleoart need to get over in the future.
Taking into consideration the results of our survey and the
history of this discipline, we dene paleoart as any original
artistic manifestation that attempt to reconstruct o depict
prehistoric life according to the current knowledge and scientic
evidence at the moment of creating the artwork. As such, this
artwork must show a high level of artistic skill and knowledge in
anatomy, ecology and ethology.
Current Trends in Paleontology and Evolution
34
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Paul GS (1987) The science and art of restoring the life
appearance of dinosaurs and their relatives: a rigorous how-
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