David Peters (born 1954) is an American

paleoartist Paleoart (also spelled palaeoart, paleo-art, or paleo art) is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depiction ...

notable for his fringe views of prehistoric animals, particularly

pterosaurs Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to ...

, which he promotes via his blog ''The Pterosaur Heresies'' and website ''ReptileEvolution.com''.

Activities in paleontology

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. In 2003, Peters presented an abstract at the

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world. Mission and Activities SVP has about 2,300 members inter ...

annual meeting where he claimed that the pterosaur '' Jeholopterus'' was

hematophagic Hematophagy (sometimes spelled haematophagy or hematophagia) is the practice by certain animals of feeding on blood (from the Greek words αἷμα ' "blood" and φαγεῖν ' "to eat"). Since blood is a fluid tissue rich in nutritious pro ...

. By the mid 2000s conflicts between Peters and academic paleontologists meant that appearances at conferences were less frequent and publication in scientific journals more difficult. Peters started ''The Pterosaur Heresies''

WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...

blog in 2011. Peters does not usually examine fossils in person like most paleontologists, but instead uses

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

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. SharovipteryxA4

Response by paleontologists

Reception to Peters' ideas by academic paleontologists has been universally negative. Christopher Bennett 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 it being based on low resolution photographs, noting in one instance where Peters had interpreted the presence of a baby pterosaur that was entirely based on marks made during fossil preparation and irregularities in the rock surface, and another where Peters had interpreted a frill based on a rock surface that had been smoothed and painted. Brian Andres recalled that Peters had interpreted marks made when he had prepared a fossil as being of biological significance. Darren Naish wrote extensive rebuttals to Peters' work in 2012 and 2020. Concern has been raised about Peters work misleading non-experts.

In popular culture

Director Sid Bennett stated in an interview that the flying creatures in ''

The Dinosaur Project ''The Dinosaur Project'' is a 2012 British found footage science fiction thriller drama adventure film edited by Ben Lester, produced by Moonlighting Films, Kent Films, LoveFilm, Anton Capital Entertainment, Dinosaur Productions and Nick Hill ...

'' were inspired by Peters' interpretations of ''Jeholopterus''.

Bibliography

As author and artist: * ''Giants of Land, Sea & Air, Past & Present'' (1986) * ''A Gallery of Dinosaurs & Other Early Reptiles'' (1989) * ''From the Beginning: the Story of Human Evolution'' (1991) * ''Strange Creatures'' (1992) As artist: * Don Lessem's ''Raptors! The Nastiest Dinosaurs'' (1996) * Don Lessem's ''Supergiants! The Biggest Dinosaurs'' (1997)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, David American artists 1954 births Living people Paleoartists Pseudoscience