{"id":10767,"date":"2014-08-22T16:17:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T15:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/?p=10767"},"modified":"2014-08-22T16:18:03","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T15:18:03","slug":"under-the-covers-nature-revealed-21-august-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/2014\/08\/22\/under-the-covers-nature-revealed-21-august-2014","title":{"rendered":"Under the covers (Nature revealed) – 21 August 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week’s blog sees a stunning painting from John Sibbick imagining the Early Jurassic basal mammals,\u00a0\u00a0Morganucodon<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Kuehneotherium<\/i>, hunting their prey.\u00a0Nature’s<\/a>\u00a0Art Director Kelly Krause talks us through the front cover choice with a little help from some rather Jurassic themed cake.<\/p>\n

Caption:
\n<\/strong>
\nJohn Sibbick\u2019s painting imagines the iconic Early Jurassic basal mammals,\u00a0Morganucodon<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Kuehneotherium<\/i>, hunting their favoured prey on the small island that they shared in what is now Glamorgan, southern Wales. The\u00a0very earliest mammals<\/a>, living in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic around 200 million years ago, were small and are often presumed to have been generalized insectivores.\u00a0Now a close study of\u00a0Morganucodon<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Kuehneotherium<\/i>\u00a0shows that niche partitioning and dietary specialization were well under way even at that early date. Analysis of tooth wear and jaw biomechanics shows that whereas\u00a0Morganucodon<\/i>\u00a0had powerful jaws, capable of crushing hard prey such as beetles,Kuehneotherium<\/i>\u00a0was adapted for snapping at softer prey, such as the scorpion flies illustrated here. Cover: www.johnsibbick.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"21<\/a>

Dietary specialization among the earliest stem mammals.<\/p><\/div>\n

From the Art Desk:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Art Director, Kelly Krause, explains:<\/p>\n

“Renowned artist John Sibbick created this gorgeous illustration for author Pam Gill, working closely with the research team to bring their paper to life. In contrast to many of our covers, this one is in a classic natural history style, and is an actual painting rather than a computer generated image. It makes a nice change of pace, and proves that there will always be a place for timeless art styles and visualisation techniques.<\/p>\n

“As an added bonus, Gill kindly shared with me this photo of the cover in cake form, baked by Sibbick and his wife for Gill’s birthday.”<\/p>\n

For additional behind the scenes commentary each week, check out the\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0Art Team’s \u00a0Nature Graphics Tumblr<\/a>\u00a0and the previous\u00a0Under the Covers<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0The electronic properties of\u00a0single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This week’s front cover in cake form. A winner! (Image and cake courtesy of John Sibbick.)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s blog sees a stunning painting from John Sibbick imagining the Early Jurassic basal mammals,\u00a0\u00a0Morganucodon\u00a0and\u00a0Kuehneotherium, hunting their prey.\u00a0Nature\u2019s\u00a0Art Director Kelly Krause talks us through the front cover choice with a little help from some rather Jurassic themed cake.  Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,27,161,167,19],"tags":[165,171,163],"class_list":["post-10767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communities-happenings","category-events","category-featured","category-nature-covers","category-nature-graphics","category-science-communication-and-outreach","tag-art","tag-graphics","tag-nature-covers-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39023"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}