oviraptoriformes

paraves


misc. dinosauria

hallucinations

Latest Additions
Jinfengopteryx

At the very back of many dinosaur books I had when I was a kid, there was usually a brief one or two-page section discussing Mesozoic era birds. Flapping and scurrying around the dinosaurs, prehistoric birds were not as charismatic as the more well-known Mesozoic flyers, the pterosaurs, which is why they usually got the short shrift in children's books and popular media. The discovery that birdhood extended to more popular dinos like "raptors" helped spark my interest in drawing those animals; when I noticed that most illustrations of the newly birdified dinosaurs did not match what the scientists were saying about them or even what the fossils feathers showed, I started attempts to draw scientifically accurate and up-to-date alternatives. Nowadays, prehistoric birds make up the majority of my online art gallery here.

A few notes on terminology: "Bird" on this site refers to any member of Aves, as defined by Charig in 1985. This is my personally preferred, publushed definition, which is also the earliest 'modern-style' (phylogenetic) definition of the group. Charig defined Aves as "the clade that is demarcated from its antecedents by the appearance of the evolutionary novelty ‘feathers’." Technically, birds are dinosaurs in classification systems based on strict genealogy, because birds descended from members of the group Dinosauria. I tend to think that the traditional ranked classifications are useful for illustrating biological diversity, and can compliment the newer genealogical methods, so I use ranks like 'Class Aves' on this site, though most technical papers no longer use this terminology.

The gallery itself is divided into four sections, for different categories of animals. Pterosauria are the pterodactyls and kin, including the namesake of Azhdarcho.com. Oviraptoriforms are the oviraptors and segnosaurs, while Paraves includes more advanced birds and dromaeosaurs ("raptors"). Misc. Dinosauria is a grab-bag for all dinosaurs I haven't drawn enough of to warrant a separate category.

References:
Charig, A.J. (1985). "Analysis of the several problems associated with Archaeopteryx." Pp. 21–31 in Hecht, M.K., Ostrom, J.H., Viohl, G., and Wellnhofer, P. (eds.). The Beginnings of Birds. Freunde des Jura-Museums, Eichstätt. Journal of Paleonology, 17: 989-1013.