Animated fossils are helping scientists rediscover extinct species

Who can forget Steven Spielberg’s first Jurassic Park movie in 1993? How eagerly did we anticipate that bellowing T-Rex? Or gasp at the sheer scale of the brachiosaurus as it lumbered into view? Never before had animation been so lifelike and believable. I was hooked—this is what I wanted to do.
An animator’s role is to design the movement of a creature or character. For 15 years I worked in visual effects for films where this was a useful skill—if a director wanted his hero to be attacked by a four-headed, six-legged dragon, I could use my knowledge of anatomy from existing creatures and my understanding of physics to design its movement. When I transferred to academia, it was not immediately apparent where this skill could be used in a research practice.Then I realised it could be useful in recreating extinct species. Without the actual animal to study, artists have to bridge the gap between bones and the creature’s fully fleshed appearance. Paleoartists—illustrators of extinct species have been doing this since the first fossils were found.
However, where a paleoartist is concerned with the look of the creature, I wanted to focus on its movement, combining existing knowledge and skills with detailed research into current palaeontological discoveries to create as accurate an animation of that species as possible. By focusing on the science—something professional animators rarely have time to do—and building it from a skeleton, I could acquire a deeper understanding of the creature and the way it moved.