Hesperornithines and more # 1 (Patreon)

I've been meaning for ages to start drawing hesperornithines/hesperornithiforms, and here's a start. I should add that the boldly patterned bird at right is the extant Egyptian plover Pluvianus, which is needed for the charadriiform montages and cladograms. It's not a hesperornithine...

Anyway, the hesperornithine at left (the larger one) is Hesperornis, and the smaller one is Baptornis. Both birds were reconstructed by adding soft tissue and plumage to reconstructed skeletons (so, the proportions are accurate). A few aspects required extra thought. 

My take on the tail is that these birds quite likely had large, relatively broad, even superficially anhinga-like tails (as also reconstructed by Matt Martyniuk for his illustrations). The legs have been reconstructed as per Matt's arguments as well; that is, with almost everything except the tarsometatarsus and toes being continuous with the body wall. The nature of the toe joints in Hesperornis indicates that the grebe-like pose here is plausible - I've illustrated the toes as lobed. In contrast, the nature of the toes in Baptornis suggests webbing instead of lobes - I was a bit confused as to what to do with the hallux (there are a few reconstructions that show a totipalmate foot where the hallux is connected by a large web to digit II) but ended up depicting it as being medially directed such that it's invisible in the view here. A multi-part beak is depicted rather than the continuous rhamphotheca more normally shown, and I opted to keep the nostril relative posterior. The colour schemes are speculative and inspired by grebes and other extant diving birds. Whether the (highly reduced) wings of these birds were visible is a good question. I decided in the end to depict short, small wings that may or may not have a role in swimming.

I plan to do another 4 or 5 hesperornithines eventually, all of which will be composited together.

An interesting group that I really need to write about at TetZoo. These illustrations are for The Big Book but they'll be used at TetZoo eventually.