Peter Trusler

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Peter Trusler (born 1954) [1] is an Australian artist known for his work on wildlife art, as well as for his scientifically rigorous reconstructions of prehistoric fauna. [2]

Contents

Trusler's artwork is featured in numerous books and scientific publications, and several of Trusler's pieces are held in the National Library of Australia. His reconstructions have been featured on the cover of two issues of the Journal of Palaeontology (in 2009 and 2013). In 1993 his work appeared on the cover of Time Magazine , and he has produced three Australia Post stamp series. His paintings have also appeared in scientific exhibitions, including displays at the Melbourne Museum and the "Wildlife of Gondwana" exhibition at the Monash Science Centre in Melbourne, Australia. [3]

Trusler has contributed to much original research within the field of palaeontology, both due to his work in illustrating fossil specimens and through reconstructions of extinct organisms. He is the namesake for the extinct monotreme Teinolophos trusleri , discovered on the Victorian coast in December 2000, a significant find for which he illustrated the holotype specimen. [4]

Biography

Trusler was born in Yallourn, Victoria. He studied oil painting with the Ballarat artist Jessie Merritt and graduated with a science degree from Monash University. He was a foundation member of the Wildlife Art Society of Australia. [5]

He has a longstanding collaboration with palaeontologists such as Tom Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich, and more recently Guy Narbonne, having created numerous original artistic reconstructions of extinct animals. Through this collaboration, he has made scientific contributions to much recent research within the field of palaeontology.

In 2010 he wrote on the importance of illustration to science:

"In circumstances where I have the opportunity to compare a well presented, old lithographic drawing of a specimen with an equivalent photograph, I have found that, contrary to popular opinion, the drawing can be superior ... [A] drawing is a complex synthesis of information, which embodies a hierarchy of decisions. It contains a system of weighted emphases that can filter out extraneous or irrelevant information. Drawings deal with surfaces, form and content and matters of understanding, for they are time intensive. Drawings are expressions that embody research and development. They are never bland, factual presentations, no matter how simple or realistic they may appear. The specimen's image has been considered, and not shot!" (The Artist and the Scientists, 2010)

He is currently[ when? ] pursuing his PhD through Monash University.

Bibliography

His palaeontological artwork has been featured within the following books:

His artwork has also appeared on the cover of these books:

Trusler has also illustrated guidebooks of Australian birds:

Trusler has only illustrated a series of Australian Stamps:

Scientific Publications

A partial list of scientific papers to which Trusler has contributed:

Early Cretaceous mammals

Ediacaran fauna

Australia Post stamp series

Trusler's work can be found in three different series of stamps celebrating prehistoric faunas and issued by Australia Post. The best-known of these was in 1993, depicting several Australian dinosaurs and pterosaurs. More recently, in 2007, he illustrated the "Creatures of the slime" stamp series documenting the Neoproterozoic Ediacaran fauna first discovered in Australia, and the "Australian Megafauna" series released in October 2008, which portrays a variety of giant extinct marsupials and reptiles. [6]

Awards

A Eureka Prize was awarded in 1993 to authors Tom Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich for the book "Wildlife of Gondwana", illustrated by Trusler.

Related Research Articles

<i>Ausia fenestrata</i> Genus of marine filter feeders

Ausia fenestrata is a curious Ediacaran period fossil represented by only one specimen 5 cm long from the Nama Group, a Vendian to Cambrian group of stratigraphic sequences deposited in the Nama foreland basin in central and southern Namibia. It has similarity to Burykhia from Ediacaran (Vendian) siliciclastic sediments exposed on the Syuzma River of Arkhangelsk Oblast, northwest Russia. This fossil is of the form of an elongate bag-like sandstone cast tapering to a cone on one end. The surface of the fossil is covered with oval depressions ("windows") regularly spaced over the surface in the manner of concentric/parallel rows. The taxonomic identity of Ausia is unresolved.

<i>Charnia</i> Genus of frond-like lifeforms

Charnia is a genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture. The genus Charnia was named for Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found. Charnia is significant because it was the first Precambrian fossil to be recognized as such.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ornithorhynchidae</span> Family of monotremes

The Ornithorhynchidae are one of the two extant families in the order Monotremata, and contain the platypus and its extinct relatives. The other family is the Tachyglossidae, or echidnas. Within the Ornithorhynchidae are the genera Monotrematum, Obdurodon, and Ornithorhynchus:

Teinolophos is a prehistoric species of monotreme, or egg-laying mammal, from the Teinolophidae. It is known from four specimens, each consisting of a partial lower jawbone collected from the Wonthaggi Formation at Flat Rocks, Victoria, Australia. It lived during the late Barremian age of the Lower Cretaceous.

<i>Qantassaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Qantassaurus is a genus of basal two-legged, plant-eating elasmarian ornithischian dinosaur that lived in Australia about 125-112 million years ago, when the continent was still partly south of the Antarctic Circle. It was described by Patricia Vickers-Rich and her husband Tom Rich in 1999 after a find near Inverloch, and named after Qantas, the Australian airline.

<i>Fulgurotherium</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Fulgurotherium is a dubious genus of ornithischian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) Griman Creek Formation. It lived in what is now Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rangea</span> Fossil taxon

Rangea is a frond-like Ediacaran fossil with six-fold radial symmetry. It is the type genus of the rangeomorphs.

<i>Paracyclotosaurus</i> Extinct genus of amphibians

Paracyclotosaurus is an extinct genus of temnospondyl amphibian, which would have appeared similar to today's salamander – but much larger, measuring up to 2.45 m (8.0 ft) long and weighing between 159 and 365 kg. It lived in the Middle Triassic period, about 235 million years ago, and fossils have been found in Australia, India, and South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australosphenida</span> Subclass of mammals

The Australosphenida are a clade of mammals, containing mammals with tribosphenic molars, known from the Jurassic to Mid-Cretaceous of Gondwana. They are thought to have acquired their tribosphenic molars independently from those of Tribosphenida. Fossils of australosphenidans have been found from the Jurassic of Madagascar and Argentina, and Cretaceous of Australia and Argentina. Monotremes have also been considered a part of this group in some studies, but this is disputed.

<i>Praecambridium</i> Extinct genus of trilobites

Praecambridium sigillum is an extinct organism that superficially resembles a segmented trilobite-like arthropod. It was originally described as being a trilobite-like arthropod, though the majority of experts now place it within the Proarticulata as a close relative of the much larger Yorgia. It is from the Late Ediacaran deposit of Ediacara Hills, Australia, about 555 million years ago. On average, P. sigillum had at least 5 pairs of segments, with each unit becoming progressively larger as they approach the cephalon-like head.

Ausktribosphenidae is an extinct family of australosphenidan mammals from the Early Cretaceous of Australia and mid Cretaceous of South America.

<i>Ernietta</i> Extinct genus of invertebrates

Ernietta is an extinct genus of Ediacaran organisms with an infaunal lifestyle. Fossil preservations and modeling indicate this organism was sessile and “sack”-shaped. It survived partly buried in substrate, with an upturned bell-shaped frill exposed above the sediment-water interface. Ernietta have been recovered from present-day Namibia, and are a part of the Ediacaran biota, a late Proterozoic radiation of multicellular organisms. They are among the earliest complex multicellular organisms and are known from the late Ediacaran. Ernietta plateauensis remains the sole species of the genus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monotreme</span> Order of egg-laying mammals

Monotremes are prototherian mammals of the order Monotremata. They are one of the three groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria), and marsupials (Metatheria). Monotremes are typified by structural differences in their brains, jaws, digestive tract, reproductive tract, and other body parts, compared to the more common mammalian types. In addition, they lay eggs rather than bearing live young, but, like all mammals, the female monotremes nurse their young with milk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Vickers-Rich</span> Australian palaeontologist and ornithologist

Patricia Arlene Vickers-Rich, also known as Patricia Rich, is an Australian Professor of Palaeontology and Palaeobiology, who researches the environmental changes that have impacted Australia and how this shaped the evolution of Australia’s fauna and flora.

Podolimirus is an extinct monotypic genus of unclassified proarticulates. It presents a single species, Podolimirus mirus. It was found in strata of the late Ediacaran, at the beginning of the Cambrian. It is one of the last proarticulates. The first fossils of this genus and species were found in the Ukraine along the Dneister River close by to the deposits in the Vendian Sequence in 1983.

<i>Zolotytsia</i> Unidentified animal which is a probable cnidarian

Zolotytsia is an extinct genus of fossil animals from the late Ediacaran period (Vendian) which contains only one known species, Z. biserialis. Specimens of this species have been found in Russia, Ukraine and India.

Teinolophidae is an extinct family of small, carnivorous mammals that were the earliest known monotremes and were endemic to what would become Australia. Two genera are known: Teinolophos, and possibly also Stirtodon.

Petalostoma kuibis is a species of enigmatic fossil organism from the Ediacaran period, possibly a member of the Petalonamae, of Namibia, Dabris Formation, Farm Aar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pseudorhizostomites</span> Alleged fossil of unknown origin

Pseudorhizostomites howchini is a enigmatic member of the Ediacaran Biota which was originally been thought to have been a jellyfish of some kind. P. howchini is now though to either have been a pseudofossil, a gas escape structure or perhaps the result of a rangeomorph holdfast being pulled by currents or, if any of these possibilities are not true, some other force from the sediments which enclosed the fossil.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Olsen (2001), p.221.
  2. ↑ Trusler, P., Vickers-Rich, P., and Rich, T.H. Where Art and Science Meet. (2011) American Scientist 99 (5): 410-411.
  3. ↑ "The Wildlife of Gondwana, Monash Science Centre Exhibitions". Archived from the original on 9 October 2008. Retrieved 30 October 2008. - accessed online 31-10-2008
  4. ↑ "Dinosaur Dreaming, 2001 Research report, Monash Science Centre". Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 30 October 2008. , accessed online 31-10-2008
  5. ↑ Olsen (2001), p.169.
  6. ↑ www.auspost.com.au http://www.auspost.com.au/BCP/0,1467,CH4636%257EMO19,00.html . Retrieved 31 October 2008.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

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