#zupaysaurus

It's been a long time since I've done paleoart in my old style: a mix of fiber-pen illustration and digital painting. This is the first time using a graphic tablet for the painting part (yes, all my digital work, including vector art, was done with a mouse and keyboard).

Today’s animal of the day is Zupaysaurus rougieri!

Image credit: Gabriel N. U.

This medium-sized theropod dinosaur lived in what is now Argentina during the Late Triassic period. It was first discovered by paleontologist Santiago Reuil in May of 1997 while on an expedition to the Los Colorados Formation in northwestern Argentina. While Reuil was the one to first discover the fossils, the expedition was being led by a different paleontologist named Guillermo Rougier, and when the dinosaurs would eventually be described by some different paleontologists in 2003, Rougier would receive the honor of being the namesake for Zupaysaurus’ species name. The genus name of Zupaysaurus comes from the ancient Incan god Supay, who was the god of death and ruler of the Incan underworld.

Image credit: cisiopurple on DeviantArt

During the Triassic, dinosaurs had yet to reach the truly massive sizes of those that would appear later during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. However, Zupaysaurus was among the largest of the Triassic theropods. Though this Most size estimates put it at around 13 ft long, though some other paleontologists argue that it could be anywhere from 14 to 20 ft in length. These predator dinosaurs would have chased down their prey using their long powerful hind legs and then grabbed them up using their long arms tipped with sharp claws. They also had fairly long necks and a little notch in their top jaws, which would also allow them to snatch up fast-moving prey using their mouths. Originally, Zupaysaurus was believed to have a pair of crests on top of its head, similar to those found on Dilophosaurus, which were theorized to have been used for display. However, more recent analysis has show that those two “crests” were actually the dinosaur’s lacrimal bones and that it didn't actually have a crest. It did have a ridge on top of its skull, which may have been brightly colored in order to attract mates just like how the crests were thought to do.

Image credit: sr_LeoTrex

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Today I finished a small job representing Zupaysaurus rougieri, a carnivorous dinosaur that lived about 200 million years ago in Argentina.