A young male Inostrancevia Alexandri plays with a dragonfly after finishing his meal on a hot, lazy afternoon.

Some more paleoart! This time I decided to paint one of my favorite prehistoric animals. I. alexandri was a therapsid who lived during the late permian period 260-254 million years ago. (The permian period is right before the Triassic period and the dawn of the dinosaurs) This guy was a synapsid, which means he had a single temporal fenestra behind the eye. Basically, this guy was a relative of the species that would later evolve into mammals. I tried to give him some more mammalian features such as whiskers and whisks of "fur". These guys deserve more love in my opinion. They were awesome and fascinating animals. There's more to the prehistoric past than dinosaurs. (As much as I adore dinosaurs!) They were not the only amazing life forms to exists in the distant past. There were so many incredible and fascinating animals that need more love. I feel the permian period is under appreciated, this period had all kinds of fantastic animals! Including our distant reptilian ancestors. Synapsids ruled the permian period and gave rise to some truly bizarre and amazing animals including the Gorgonopsids, the family I. alexandri belongs to. Dimetrodon also lived during the early permian and is one of our distant ancestors! (relative of ancestors anyway, it was a synapsid and not a dinosaur)
I fell in love with this guy when I was a kid after watching Walking With Monsters: Life Before the Dinosaurs. I was fascinated with this amazing and strange animal. From that point on this guy has been one of my all time favorite prehistoric animals. He's my favorite paleozoic animal by far, and is second only to the theropod dinosaurs.
The only depiction's of I. alexandri I could find were of a simple profile image, killing other things, or dying during the Great Dying extinction event. I wanted to depict this incredible creature being itself, being an animal. Not a killing machine or a symbol of extinction, I wanted to show how these animals lived and what they might have done when they were not hunting. I'm not a fan of turning predatory animals into simple murderous monsters. Predatory animals are more than killers, they are complex and fascinating animals with their own lives, thoughts, and emotions. So here is a different depiction, a depiction of an individual young male not hunting or dying but living. Living and enjoying the hot afternoon by lazing around playing with a dragonfly in a dry lakebed.
I'm really happy with the outcome! Not entirely happy, I'm not completely satisfied with the background or the lighting or the rocks...but I did my best and I like it! I did a much better jobs and creating form and volume. Very happy with this piece!
Critique welcome!
© Denece the Sylcoe