Mark Witton
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markwitton.bsky.social
Mark Witton
@markwitton.bsky.social
13K followers 390 following 850 posts
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 www.patreon.com/markwitton
Posts Replies Media Videos
markwitton.bsky.social
No, computer, I'm not trying to turn on the "sticky keys" function. Something else is going on.
Brundle the bearded dragon taking an interest in my work by climbing on my keyboard.
February 9, 2026 at 4:51 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
And so begins the countdown to the frightnerman, doomsage, horrormeister. Thanks to @gizz47.bsky.social for this evening of terror, fear and blood. Blood? Blood.

Crimson, copper-smelling blood.

His blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.

And bits of sick.
February 6, 2026 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Mark Witton
wirobooks.bsky.social
The lineage of an elusive yet fascinating dinosaur is teased apart with thoughtfulness and rigor. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/s... @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social @markwitton.bsky.social #booksky
Spinosaur Tales: The Biology and Ecology of the Spinosaurs | Washington Independent Review of Books
The Independent is an important voice in the community of readers and writers dedicated to book reviews and writing about the world of books.
www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com
February 6, 2026 at 4:05 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
Finally, another fuzzy ornithischian: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... This is a big deal for dinosaur #paleoart, confirming some of what we've been doing for a while now, but also showing that we've probably underestimated how weird the integuments of these animals could be.
Cellular-level preservation of cutaneous spikes in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur - Nature Ecology & Evolution
A juvenile iguanodontian from the Lower Cretaceous of China preserves both spikes and scales in its skin that are different from integumentary structures in either non-avian dinosaurs or extant squama...
www.nature.com
February 6, 2026 at 2:43 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
Finally, I can break silence! I did a lot of creature design work for this show (collaborating, of course, with the production team) and think the animals are looking pretty good here! This was a lot of fun to work on - will be watching on Mar. 6!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ZB...
The Dinosaurs | Official Trailer | Netflix
YouTube video by Netflix
www.youtube.com
February 5, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Mark Witton
folkhorrorrevival.bsky.social
#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....
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.
February 4, 2026 at 11:58 AM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
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.
January 31, 2026 at 4:21 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
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.
January 30, 2026 at 12:53 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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...
January 27, 2026 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Mark Witton
davehone.bsky.social
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!
January 27, 2026 at 8:01 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
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.
January 26, 2026 at 3:04 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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...
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.
January 25, 2026 at 9:47 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
How paleoartists bring dinosaurs to life
open.spotify.com
January 23, 2026 at 1:25 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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!).
Screengrab of my print store webpage, where you can exchange money for ink printouts of my art on high-quality pulped wood.
January 23, 2026 at 12:28 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
January 21, 2026 at 3:17 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
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.
www.markwitton.co.uk
January 20, 2026 at 5:25 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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.
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.
January 16, 2026 at 4:06 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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
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.
January 16, 2026 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Mark Witton
mmarcosaurus.bsky.social
"Rethinking the strangest dinosaurs ever found"
With @markwitton.bsky.social
It's about Spinosaurus and its relatives (25min10s)
www.kpcw.org/podcast/cool...
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 ...
www.kpcw.org
January 15, 2026 at 9:24 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
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.
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.
January 14, 2026 at 9:37 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
All plesiosaurs today for #FossilFriday, in tribute to our departed friend Richard Forrest.
Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus scavenges a dead pterosaur A gloomy image of the elasmosaur Albertonectes foraging in the deep sea. "Plesiosaurus" macrocephalus, a species known only from a famous but poorly studied juvenile specimen, and its possible parent: a mature rhomaelosaurid. Elasmosaurid Thalassomedon surfaces to take a breath. This image shows what you may have actually seen from a boat while marine reptile watching, once we consider the physics of how plesiosaurs moved and floated.
January 9, 2026 at 11:32 AM
markwitton.bsky.social
Just learned that Richard Forrest, one of the pillars of British vert palaeo, has passed away unexpectedly. Richard was such a friendly, welcoming person, an expert on British marine reptiles, and the unofficial custodian of SVPCA. We spent many hours chatting in various pubs. He will be missed.
January 9, 2026 at 11:19 AM
markwitton.bsky.social
Book authors get their own breed of spam email. But some spammers are more competent than others.
January 6, 2026 at 3:07 PM
markwitton.bsky.social
First new #paleoart piece finished for 2026: a super modern, 100% accurate take on Mosasaurus and a plesiosaur.

In unrelated news, I had the spirit of the early 19th-century palaeoartist John Martin exorcised from my house over the weekend.

#paleontology #fossil #sciart #retropaleoart #art
A night scene of warring marine reptiles inspired by the palaeoart of the 19th-century painter John Martin. A full moon peers through a bank of cloud to illuminate two figures rising from a turbulent sea: a long-necked plesiosaur and the spiralling tail and body of a mosasaur (fun historofact: fossils of mosasaurs were among the first Mesozoic reptiles to be put on record, but they weren't restored in palaeoart until the 1850s, decades after other marine reptiles). They threaten and bellow at each other with whipping tongues and clawed flippers because John Martin. A rocky arch can be seen on the right, and a third reptile, its identity uncertain, arches from the water on the left. Go draw some Martineseque Mesozoic animals, folks, it's hellafun.
January 6, 2026 at 9:48 AM
markwitton.bsky.social
Current Caudipteryx #paleoart WIP, coinciding with how everyone in Britain felt when they left the house this morning.

#sciart #fossil #art #paleontology #ohmygodthere'saninchofsnowwe'reallgoingtodie
Screengrab of a Photoshop work window with a half-finished painting of the oviraptorosaur Caudipteryx, a bird-like dinosaur, going splay-legged on an icy lake.
January 5, 2026 at 6:03 PM