sloth unleashed

paleoillustration:

Titanoboa cerrejonensis by James Gurney | Oil 2009 35.56 x 45.72 cm (14” x 18”) Private collection.

“With a subject he could neither see nor photograph, Gurney constructed a small maquette scene from oven-hardened clay, rocks, and sticks in a Chinese food takeout container. Challenged by the the snake’s extraordinary length, he decided to show the titanoboa rising half out of the water in a death match with a crocodilian, a giant forebear of the modern crocodile. “The main purpose of my piece is to try to imagine what would otherwise just be a fairly ordinary fossil—to go from that to imagining a very dramatic moment in the life of this creature and to take us in a time machine to see what it really might have looked like,” says Gurney”. Full article.

(via scientificillustration)