PaleostreamCon 2024

Towards the end of this past April, I had the pleasure of tuning in to PaleostreamCon 2024, an online convention centered around the Paleostream Discord community. For those not in the know, “Paleostream” is a regular online event where community members get together online to create paleoart together. This regular event is spearheaded by Joschua Knüppe (author/illustrator of Europasaurus), whose creation process forms the bulk of the visual part of the livestream, though other people’s submissions are shared as they are completed. I don’t mention Paleostream on this blog as often as I could (perhaps owing to the fact that for some reason Discord tends to overwhelm me like a grandparent trying to use a smartphone), though I did cover the Dino Nerds For Black Lives event that the community came together for a few years ago. PaleostreamCon, however, operates a bit more like an online TetZooCon or Permian Fest, with multiple speakers delivering talks on their areas of expertise.

This year’s lineup had all sorts of interesting people and topics, including… wait, who’s that in the Paleo-media Roundtable Discussion? Why, it’s little old me! I was incredibly flattered when Joschua invited to join this discussion. I don’t consider myself half as interesting as my fellow speakers, but here I am, anyway! The other members of my panel included Joschua himself, Paleocene creator Mike Keesey, and Iacovos Le Du, author of the novel Banjo & Swift. (Max Bellomio and Cameron Clow were also scheduled to join us, but were sadly unable to attend.) I think our chat went pretty well, which I will embed below. I suppose this is my sign to get a better microphone, because I sound obnoxiously loud and tinny compared to the other speakers, so here’s hoping you don’t hate me by the end of it!

As you can see from the speaker list above, though, the roundtable discussion came halfway through a much larger program. I’ll embed those here, too, but in case it somehow crashes the page, I’ll also share a link to the PaleostreamCon 2024 playlist on Joschua Knuppe’s YouTube channel. I’ll keep my descriptions brief, as I think each of these are worth watching for yourself.

First up was Michael Chiappone, who discussed “Geology for paleoartists”. He encouraged a more rigorous and robust approach to thinking about the landscape in which paleoartists set their scenes, paying particular attention to depositional environments and their implications.

I found myself most excited for Julianne Kiely’s talk on restoring Bennettitales (also known as cycadeoids [not to be confused with true cycads]), as I have become increasingly aware of my “plant blindness” as time goes on, and have felt a keen desire to increase my knowledge of both paleo and modern botany. I found myself fascinated by Julianne’s process, especially the almost puzzle-like way in which she pieced individual parts together.

Rene Dederichs gave a talk on the Triassic ichthyosaur Cymbospondylus, touching on its complicated taxonomic history, its body shape, and discussing a specimen which approaches the size range of famous super-giant ichthyosaurs like Shonisaurus!

Tess Gallagher discussed the surprisingly detailed knowledge we now possess of the various types of scales Diplodocus possessed on different parts of its body, knowledge that is doubtless to be a dream come true for the paleoartists off all stripes!

Albert Chen, better known to many people in the paleosphere by his handle “Albertonykus”, gave a talk on “The dinosaurs that survived”, AKA modern birds. Of particular interest was his description of his own personal research on the Cretaceous bird Asteriornis, an early member of the bird group that would eventually lead to ducks and chickens, proving that at least some modern bird groups had already begun to diversify before the End Cretaceous extinction event.

Hady George presented on the under-appreciated but fantastically preserved lagerstatten (or “site of exceptional preservation”) in Lebanon. As a sucker for local and historical paleontology, I particularly enjoyed part where Hady discussed the history of fossil collection in the area, as well as local people and institutions (such as the Memory of Time museum) involved in studying the Lebanese paleontological record.

Finishing off the days events was the queen of mosasaurs, Amelia Zietlow (who I also saw at Permian Fest 2023). The primary focus of her talk, and the focus of her current research, was the taxonomy of the main groups within the wider clade of mosasaurids. Of particular interest to me was the strong possibility that each of the three main groups of mosasaurs may have evolved an exclusively marine lifestyle more or less independently of each other! The details are fascinating, and well worth the watch.

A more typical Paleostream session followed for those who wished to remain after the talks, as well as some group gaming time, though I had to bow out at that point, and did not get to participate. A couple shorter, more casual talks were also given during the two break periods by Petite Paleoartist / Sauriazoicillus and Tim Versteeg, who otherwise helped to wrangle much if not most of the technical aspects of the event, enabling Joschua to focus on more of an M.C. role, so major kudos should be reserved for her as well.

I had a great time tuning in to PaleostreamCon 2024, and I once again thank Joschua Knüppe for considering me for the roundtable event. I look forward to next year, and I can’t wait to see what this community gets up to in the meantime! For other convention-type events I’ve attended, see my posts about Fossilmania XL, TetZooCon 2023, and Permian Fest 2023.