A Mysterious Visitor

At the southern eastern end of the shrinking Western Interior Seaway, two Dryptosaurus observe what looks like an oddly coloured and strangely proportioned member of their species, a fair amount larger than them with tiny arms, and pale colouration that doesn't camouflage well in their temperate rainforest home.

A long time ago, the North American continent was split into two pieces. To the west was Laramidia, a landmass which holds well-known sites such as Hell Creek and Dinosaur Park and was home to many familiar dinosaurs such as Triceratops and Edmontosaurus. To the east was Appalachia. This isolated landmass is much less well represented in the fossil record.

Eventually, the seaway that split the two halves shrank, and the landmasses connected. Undoubtedly, this would have allowed animals from both sides, who would have otherwise never interacted with each other, to meet.

Here I chose to depict the most famous Laramidian dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, having just crossed to the now really close Appalachian landmass. Exhausted, it lies down for a rest on the beach after having walked along the coast for a while. At the edge of the temperate rainforest nearby, a pair of Dryptosaurus watch closely. This dinosaur was a tyrannosauroid, a distant relative of the newly arrived Tyrannosaurus. It wasn't as large as its Laramidian cousin and had longer, more powerful arms with the trademark two fingers of tyrannosaurs, and a longer skull. I chose to depict this species with color similar to the redwood trees that surround them, helping them blend in with the forest. I chose to give the Tyrannosaurus coloration which would be more typical of an animal of floodplains, which is the type of habitat many fossils come from.

For dinosaurs, I use a skeletal reference to match proper proportions and positions.

For the other animals depicted, I took some creative liberties due to the poor fossil record. See if you can find what other animals are hidden in this image!

This picture took me roughly 7 months to make. It is my first real venture into digital art and was a bit of a learning experience. It was drawn on a Huion Kamvas 12 tablet, with the art program Krita.