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Description
More of my Mesozoic Life art can be seen in my DA "Paleo & Sci Illo" gallery:

[link]

Hesperornis was the second Mesozoic "bird" genus discovered in the 19th Century. O.C. Marsh showed off the first specimens from the Smokey Hills Chalk to Thomas Huxley when the later visited him at Yale. The monograph describing H. regalis became infamous when it resulted in congressional hearings that attacked the U.S. Geologial Survey for supporting "evolutionist" notions such as "birds with teeth".

Hesperornis was a highly specialized diving predator. It had reduced its forelimbs and highly adjusted its hindlimbs for propulsion. It had both a beak and teeth. It was as adapted to aquatic life as are modern penguins. The existence of such a divergent form in the Upper Cretaceous indicates that the evolutionary history of birds and bird-like dinosaurs is far "bushier" than had been assumed.

I decided to punch up this picture by showing a slice of life (and death) in the Niobrara Sea. It was chalk full (pun intended) of marine predators such as plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. For scale the Hesperornis is a tall as an emperor penguin (1.75 M).

art & text (c) John P. Alexander

Description
More of my Mesozoic Life art can be seen in my DA "Paleo & Sci Illo" gallery:

[link]

Hesperornis was the second Mesozoic "bird" genus discovered in the 19th Century. O.C. Marsh showed off the first specimens from the Smokey Hills Chalk to Thomas Huxley when the later visited him at Yale. The monograph describing H. regalis became infamous when it resulted in congressional hearings that attacked the U.S. Geologial Survey for supporting "evolutionist" notions such as "birds with teeth".

Hesperornis was a highly specialized diving predator. It had reduced its forelimbs and highly adjusted its hindlimbs for propulsion. It had both a beak and teeth. It was as adapted to aquatic life as are modern penguins. The existence of such a divergent form in the Upper Cretaceous indicates that the evolutionary history of birds and bird-like dinosaurs is far "bushier" than had been assumed.

I decided to punch up this picture by showing a slice of life (and death) in the Niobrara Sea. It was chalk full (pun intended) of marine predators such as plesiosaurs and mosasaurs. For scale the Hesperornis is a tall as an emperor penguin (1.75 M).

art & text (c) John P. Alexander