American paleoartist and pseudopaleontologist known for his fringe views of prehistoric animals
David Peters (born 1954)[1] is an American artist and paleoartist notable for his fringe views regarding prehistoric animals, particularly pterosaurs, and phylogeny which he promotes via his blog The Pterosaur Heresies and website ReptileEvolution.com.
Peters has no formal qualifications in paleontology. During the 1990s and early 2000s Peters was a regular figure at conferences and well-known in the field.[2] In 2003, Peters presented an abstract at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting, during which he claimed that the pterosaur Jeholopterus was hematophagic.[3] By the mid-2000s, conflicts between Peters and academic paleontologists meant that his appearances at conferences were less frequent and publication in scientific journals more difficult.[2] Peters started The Pterosaur HeresiesWordPress blog in 2011.[4] Peters does not usually personally examine fossils as do most paleontologists, but instead uses Photoshop on images of fossils. Peters contends that by using image manipulation, specifically a process he refers to as "Digital Graphic Segregation", he can see meaningful details in the fossils that paleontologists do not.[2]
Reception to Peters' ideas by academic paleontologists has been universally negative. Dr. S. Christopher Bennett, Professor of Biological Sciences and Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at Fort Hays State University, described Peters' reconstructions of pterosaurs as "outrageously bizarre like Dr. Seuss's imaginary animals" and described his methodology as flawed and non-reproducible due to its being based on low-resolution photographs, noting in one instance that Peters had interpreted the presence of a baby pterosaur entirely based on marks made during fossil preparation and irregularities in the rock surface, and another in which Peters had interpreted a frill based on a rock surface that had been smoothed and painted.[5] Brian Andres, a geologist at the University of South Florida who specializes in "Pterosaur Systematics," recalled that Peters had interpreted marks made when he had prepared a fossil as being of biological significance.[2]Darren Naish wrote extensive rebuttals to Peters' work in 2012[6][7] and 2020.[8] Concern has been raised about Peters' work misleading non-experts.[7]
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