Buffetaut, E. 2007. The spinosaurid dinosaur Baryonyx (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Early Cretaceous of Portugal. Geological Magazine 144. 1021-1025. Concavenator: an incredible allosauroid with a weird sail (or hump)... and proto-feathers?, September 2010 Lastly, a word on some of the compositions. I already mentioned the remarkable portraits, but there are also some nice dead-on frontal views, partial views that purposefully leave out heads and faces, while yet others highlight the long, lithe shapes of some creatures by curving their bodies in a near-circular shape. There are some moody pieces of dinosaurs caught in the rain (especially by, appropriately enough, Rainbolt) while Stokkermans's Bajadasaurus is almost all sky, showing that dinosaurs do not have to be the centrepiece to make impressive palaeoart. And 2021 isn’t over yet. Will more Wealden-themed dinosaur news appear before the year is through? Stay tuned….

Alberti, M., Fürsich, F. T. & Andersen, N. 2019. First steps in reconstructing Early Jurassic sea water temperatures in the Andean Basin of northern Chile based on stable isotope analyses of oyster and brachiopod shells. Journal of Palaeogeography 8: 33. Korte, C., Hesselbo, S. P., Ullmann, C. V., Dietl, G., Ruhl, M., Schweigert, G. & Thibault, N. 2015. Jurassic climate mode governed by ocean gateway. Nature Communications 6 (10015).A stereotype that’s still perpetuated is that the Mesozoic was monotonously hot, stable, and hence perfect for reptile evolution and perpetuation. It’s true that parts of the Mesozoic were hot and stable. But it’s absolutely not right to think that this was true of the whole of Mesozoic time. Geological and isotopic data shows that temperate ( O’Brien et al. 2017, Alberti et al. 2019), cool and even cold conditions were present during parts of the Jurassic and Cretaceous; in fact, sea surface temperatures were close to freezing during parts of the Early Jurassic ( Korte et al. 2015). Marine reptile groups like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs were swimming in these seas. The fossil record also shows that plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs were in polar waters at times when these regions were cool and seasonally dark. Some of these animals were insulated by blubber and it seems that endothermy was present in all of the main groups (Motani 2005, 2010, Martineau et al. 2010, Harrell et al. 2016, Wintrich et al. 2017, Fleischle et al. 2018). Finally, thanks as ever to my co-organisers and assistants – John, Jenny, Hel, Georgia, the staff at King’s College – and in particular to Chris Manias for access to the venue. Huge thanks to all the speakers, presenters, those with stalls, and of course to all the attendees. Another substantial success, and here’s to the TENTH event next year! Samathi, A., Sander, P. M. & Chanthasit, P. 2021. A spinosaurid from Thailand (Sao Khua Formation, Early Cretaceous) and a reassessment of Camarillasaurus cirugedae from the Early Cretaceous of Spain. Historical Biology doi: 10.1080/08912963.2021.1874372 Mateus, O., Araújo, R., Natário, C. & Castanhinha, R. 2011. A new specimen of the theropod dinosaur Baryonyx from the early Cretaceous of Portugal and taxonomic validity of Suchosaurus. Zootaxa 2827, 54-68. The other spinosaurids. What of other spinosaurids, and what of the larger picture? In general, we found support for the idea that Spinosauridae contains the two clades Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae. Like a few other authors, however, we didn’t always get this result, since baryonychines were sometimes recovered as a paraphyletic grade to spinosaurines. Other authors have reported this result in the past ( Evers et al. 2015, Sales & Schultze 2017). Among other interesting things, we recovered Vallibonavenatrix from Spain – described as a spinosaurine – as either a baryonychine or as outside the baryonychine + spinosaurine clade, while Camarillasaurus from Spain was found to be a spinosaurine ( Barker et al. 2021). The Brazilian Irritator jumped around within Spinosaurinae, suggesting that data is needed on its postcranial skeleton (we coded only for the holotype skull) before we can better pin it down.

Hutt, S. & Newbery, P. 2004. An exceptional theropod vertebra from the Wessex Formation (Lower Cretaceous) Isle of Wight, England. Proceedings of the Isle of Wight Natural History & Archaeology Society 20, 61-76.Wintrich, T., Hayashi, S., Houssaye, A., Nakajima, Y., Sander P. M. 2017. Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan and survival of end-Triassic extinctions. Science Advances 3: e1701144. On Eurocentricism and going beyond it. For all this talk of newness and paradigm shifts, one aspect of Mesozoic marine reptile research that makes the subject both eternally frustrating and fascinating is the historical 17th to 19th century angle that ties the topic to the geological locations of western Europe. Will we ever stop talking about the Dorset coast and Mary Anning, the Solnhofen Limestone, Monte San Giorgio in Switzerland, the German Posidonia Shale, Holzmaden and the Oxford Clay of the English midlands?

Beautiful, Big, Bold Dinosaur Books: of Molina-Pérez and Larramendi’s Theropods, Rey’s Extreme Dinosaurs 2, and Parker et al.’s Saurian What happened at the end of day 1, after the drinks reception? I have no idea but I remember waking up in a taxi at some point during the night. Mesozoic Artshowcases twenty of the best artists working in this field, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines, from traditional painting to cutting-edge digital technology. Some provide the artwork for new scientific papers that demand high-end paleoart as part of their presentation to the world at large; they also work for the likes of National Geographicand provide art to museums around the world to illustrate their displays. Other artists are the new rising stars of paleoart in an ever-growing, ever-diversifying field. Carpenter, K., Sanders, F., Reed, B., Reed, J. & Larson P. 2010. Plesiosaur swimming as interpreted from skeletal analysis and experimental results. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 113/2, 1-34. Bakker, R. T. 1993. Plesiosaur extinction cycles - events that mark the beginning, middle and end of the Cretaceous. In Caldwell, W. G. E. & Kauffman, E. G. (eds) Evolution of the Western Interior Basin. Geological Association of Canada, Special Paper 39, 641-664.

About the contributors

As artist Terryl Whitlach also highlights in her foreword, it is heartening to see that illustrators aim to depict extinct life not as monsters, but as living, breathing creatures adapted to their natural environment. Artists seem to have internalised the lessons and encouragement from, amongst others, Witton's The Palaeoartist's Handbook regarding soft-tissue anatomy and depicted behaviours. Gone are the days of shrink-wrapped dinosaurs; instead we get to see well-rounded creatures with muscles, bulges, lips, and plenty of feathers or other integumentary coverings. Particularly noteworthy in this context is Jed Taylor's series of four Dromaeosaurid portraits. Gone, too, are the wide-mouthed carnivores chomping down on hapless herbivores. Only a few artists depict bloody predator-prey interactions, in keeping with the fact that animals are doing something else most of the time. Thus we get a sunbathing Therizinosaurus (Midiaou Diallo), a Scutellosaurus rolling in a muddy pool (Conway), and a very memorable closed-mouth vocalisation by T. rex (Witton) which would look fantastic in a frame. At the outset of the Mesozoic, all of Earth’s continents were joined together into the supercontinent of Pangea ( see the map of the Early Triassic). By the close of the era, Pangea had fragmented into multiple landmasses. The fragmentation began with continental rifting during the Late Triassic. This separated Pangea into the continents of Laurasia and Gondwana. By the Middle Jurassic these landmasses had begun further fragmentation. At that time much of Pangea lay between 60° N and 60° S, and at the Equator the widening Tethys Sea cut between Gondwana and Laurasia. When rifting had sufficiently progressed, oceanic spreading centres formed between the landmasses. During the Middle Jurassic, North America began pulling apart from Eurasia and Gondwana. By the Late Jurassic, Africa had started to split off from South America, and Australia and Antarctica had separated from India ( see the map of the Late Jurassic). Near the close of the Cretaceous, Madagascar separated from Africa, and South America drifted northwestward ( see the map of the Late Cretaceous).