1990s-style saurians: the winner!

The decision was, as ever, a very difficult one, but in the end I just had to plump for Jessica R's Archaeopteryx. It was a perfect fit for the brief, and I loved Jessica's explanation, particularly as she flipped my advice for entrants on its head:

"...You said that naked maniraptorans would be pretty obvious so I decided to throw you for a loop with a feathered maniraptoran...Archaeopteryx with pebbly head and wings with hands, dry cracked earth underfoot, and a single cycad."

It's well observed too (even without colour), getting a number of Urvogel tropes just so; the ground-dashing roadrunner incarnation became increasingly prevalent in the '80s and '90s* (as opposed to the previously ubiquitous arboreal version), and the 'palaeobotany is for losers' approach to foliage is strongly reminiscent of a lot of early '90s art. The earlier issues of Dinosaurs! certainly gave me the impression that the poor beasts lived in a permanently parched, arid environment. Like Tatooine, only with Triceratops roving around in place of distinguished, bearded, bitter Shakespearean actors.

Well done Jessica! Please send a message to the LITC Facebook page to claim your, er, prize (or if you can't do that, leave a comment below and we'll work something out). Proost!

*Having arguably been popularised by Ostrom - John McLoughlin was also ahead of the curve, as he often was. In fact, McLoughlin's 1979 Archaeopteryx rather resembles Jessica's...