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Diapsida: The Cladogram

Version 1.11 · 20 March 2016

Attention: This post will be updated should someone here correct a mistake I made. Please consider reblogging from the original post to get the latest update.

After one exhausting week and tons of feedback from paleonerds and graphic designers, the cladograms are finally here! These cladograms explain the relationships between notable genera within the group Diapsida which encompasses all modern reptiles including birds.

The PDF version is available by donation here, and merchandises such as posters and stickers will be made available as soon as the accuracy of data is fully confirmed. Bookmark the link to my store or stay in touch with me to find out more.

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v1.11 is out and I believe it’s more or less compliant with the latest findings~

Deinonychus is the original dinosaur that was incorrectly named “velociraptor” in the Jurassic Park movies.

The Velociraptor is in reality not bigger than a turkey.

Deinonychus is much larger and more popular among artists and dinosaur-fans, alongside with the T-Rex.

It was quick and agile, probably lived in small packs, and some studies suggests that Deinonychus had the biggest brain (in relation to its body) of all theropods and therefore was very intelligent - they probably hunted their prey with a certain level of organization.

Drawing Deinonychus is very fun! But as we all know, finding any good references of dinosaurs is not easy.

So I’ll give you a brief and quick guide in what to keep in mind when drawing a deinonychus - with as realistic anatomy as possible.

Now, we can use an existing animal as a rough reference for the Deinonychus - BIRDS

Dinosaurs in general IS NOT REPTILES.

DINOSAURS= BIRDS.

The dinosaurs has two thing in their anatomy that you can only find in birds:

The Wish bone’s purpose is to make the arms being able to move like wings. And since dinosaurs where the ancestors of today’s birds, they all had an anatomy almost identical to birds as we know them today.

So, in order to learn ourselves how to draw a natural looking dinosaur, we have to stop seeing them as reptiles and start seeing them as bird-like creatures.

The Deinonychus probably had feathers, however, for now we will stick with the naked Jurassic Park-version in order to understand it’s anatomy. Please observe how the arms are held like a bird has it’s wings.

Here’s a easy example of how you connect the neck with the body. Remember that theropods like velociraptor and deinonychus had very slim and slender bodies. Not wide and rough like a t-rex or carnotaurus.

Deinonychus has four toes, one small, two medium and then of course the well known claw.

Even if some dinosaurs have legs like the right ecample, raptors like Deinonychus looks more like the one to the left.

Two simple steps in how you draw the head in profile. Notixe that the back of the head is actually the neck.

Another thing dinosaurs have in common with birds, is that they have “Eye Bones”.

The size of the “Eye-bones” determines the size of the eye-lob. So archeologists can actually see what size the eyes was on the species.

VERY COMMON MISTAKE

ALL land-living predators (and birds) have the eyes facing forwards, only herbivores have their eyes placed at the sides of the head.

And here’s some last sketches to show the dimensions of the Deinonychus head.

I will be using Scott Hartman’s skeletal as a reference. (The Greg S. Paul one you posted is a little outdated) Something to note is the skull is less robust and the hands are a bit bigger.

Another thing that’s important to note is that while the JP raptors were in fact based more on Deinonychus than Velociraptor (which was even smaller), they were still much bigger than the actual animal. 

Better candidates for JP sized raptors would be Utahraptor, Achillobator, and Dakotaraptor. All of which were discovered post-Jurassic Park (Utahraptor was actually described the same yeah the Jurassic Park movie was released).

Deinonychus doesn’t hold the record for most intelligent known dinosaur, that actually goes to Corvids (crows, ravens, etc.), but if we are talking non-Avian dinosaurs, our best bet would be Troodontids. That’s not to say that other “raptors” like Deinonychus weren’t intelligent in the dinosaur world too!

That leads to my other point; that dinosaurs are still reptiles. We just don’t think they are coldblooded anymore like lizards and crocodiles. In fact, birds are considered dinosaurs now (rather than simply decedents), and therefore considered reptiles as well since we now classify things differently than before. (Common ancestry rather than common traits.) A cool way to think about it is that the closest living relative to crocodilians are birds, rather than other reptiles like snakes and lizards.

Your reconstructions follow the skeletal pretty nicely (no hand pronation, yay!), but I noticed that you seem to shrinkwrap (a common mistake seen in reconstructing prehistoric animals). The fenestrae (holes in the skull) should not be visible on the animal, and the pubic bone should not be sticking out like that (that sort of construction is left over from when we thought dinosaurs were more lizard-like, iirc).

Here I just traced over Scott’s skeletal for a quick example of what I mean. You always want to add more flesh than the skeletal gives you. Make it look as much like a modern/plausible animal as you can!

With the feathering:

I also noticed you put the dewclaw (smallest toe) on the wrong side of the foot. It should be on the same side as the sickle claw (the inner side of the foot). Not on the outter side of the foot.

Emily Willoughby has plenty of nice paleoart of Deinonychus that showcase the animal pretty well! I recommend checking her work out if you want good examples of Deinonychus (and other dinosaur) reconstructions!

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