Cretaceous Baitball

This was a bit of a blast from the past. Italian paleo-buddy of mine, Fabio Manucci, posted this on his blog (http://jurassicitalyblog.splinder.com/post/23974632/volti-della-paleoart-interviste-i-parte) the other day as part of an interview I did for him a while back.

It's been ages since I've seen this artwork; I did it about six years ago (I think!) then sold it soon after.

This was largely inspired by my favourite episode of awesome BBC series, Blue Planet. 'Open Ocean' features several scenes of baitballs under attack by various predators and I just figured it would be kind of cool to transpose that to the Cretaceous Inland Seaway. A trio of the huge predatory fish Xiphactinus and a sword-nosed Protosphyraena are charging the baitball, breaking it up. In the background, three elasmosaurs get in on the action. The prehistoric 'penguins' are the flightless toothed bird Hesperornis.