What was the first life restoration of a sauropod? February 2, 2026
Way back in 2010, when I was young and stupid, I wrote as follows in my History Of Sauropod Studies book-chapter (Taylor 2010:368–370):
Ballou (1897) included, as one of his six figures, the first published life restoration of a sauropod, executed by Knight under the direction of Cope (Fig. 5a). This illustration, subsequently republished by Osborn & Mook (1921, fig. 127), depicted four Amphicoelias individuals in a lake, two of them entirely submerged and two with only their heads above the water. The skins were shown with a bold mottled pattern like that of some lizards, which would not be seen again in a sauropod restoration for the best part of a century
And here is that illustration:
I blithely repeated this assertion on the in-progress Barosaurus-mount manuscript. When I mentioned this manuscript in a Dinosaur Mailing Group thread, Tyler Greenfield helpfully pointed out that I’d missed something!
Two publications in 1892 included life restorations of sauropods.
One is Henry Neville Hutchinson’s book Extinct monsters: A popular account of some of the larger forms of ancient animal life, first published in September 1892. His Plate IV (between pages 68 and 69) shows a Brontosaurus:
My initial thought that this may be by Joseph Smit, since the book’s title page says “With illustrations by J. Smit and others”, but that the poorly preserved signature at bottom left doesn’t look like it spells his name. However, Mary Kirkaldy sent me a helpful comparison of this poorly reproduced signature with several others which are definitely Smit’s, and it checks out:
The other 1892 publication with a sauropod life-restoration is James Erwin Culver’s seven-page article “Some Extinct Giants” from issue 1(5) of The Californian Illustrated Magazine. This must have been published before Hutchinson’s book, because the date-range for Volume 1 of this magazine is October 1891 to May 1892.
I’ll quote from page 505 because it’s just so cute:
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