Got to see what a Megatylopus looked like today, life-sized, and wow, it’s big. Twice as big as I usually see it, as a matter of fact.

Megatylopus original painting, and artist. One is life sized, the other is not.

After spending about 6 weeks on a painting of Oklahoma’s Miocene-era giganto camel Megatylopus for Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History’s Collecting Oklahoma Centennial exhibit, I was very happy to see the original artwork digitally and beautifully enlarged onto canvas, and have it look really really good. Every brush stroke is juicy, the colors are perfect, and that camel has a look in its eye that’s just down-home personable. What a thrill. Plus, it’s HUGE. As SNOMNH Media Specialist Mike McCarty said to me (with a nod to John Candy), “It blowed up real good”.

SNOMNH Vertebrate Paleontologist Kyle Davies gives us the true scale of the beastie, and banishes it to the barnyard all at the same time.

Collecting Oklahoma is shaping up to be an exciting show. It opens in June, so y’all start planning your trips out here!