In December 2005, National Geographic magazine ran a story with gripping  computer-generated graphics of extinct marine reptiles, such as the nothosaur above. The story was six years in the making. © National Geographic

While weaving through the crowds of paleontologists at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas today I had one of those “blast from the past” moments. It happened when I ran into Robin O’Keefe, an expert on plesiosaurs, a group of ocean-going reptiles that look a lot like the Loch Ness monster. I hadn’t seen Robin in six years or so, and seeing him reminded me of the long chain of events that led to the creation of National Geographic’s Sea Monsters IMAX movie that is now playing in theaters.

It all started way back in 1999 when the magazine decided it wanted to do a story on marine reptiles, the sea monsters that ruled the ocean while the dinosaurs ruled the land during the Mesozoic era (248 to 65 million years ago). This happened largely because we had just run a series of dinosaur stories and I felt that it was time to get other life forms into our paleontology mix. I convinced the Editor-in-Chief that we should break tradition and prepare all the artwork using state-of-the art computer graphics. This would be the first time that the magazine did not use paint to recreate prehistoric creatures. One argument I used was that after the success of Jurassic Park in bringing dinosaurs to life our audience might be enjoy seeing sea monsters in as realistic a way as possible, as if a natural history photographer had gone out and photographed them alive. The other argument was that computer graphics-generated animals would allow us to repurpose the animals for other media, including television, movies, the web, and books.

One of the first things we did was search our records to see what scientists National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration had funded to do research on life in the oceans during the Mesozoic era. Quite a few names came up, including Olivier Rieppel, Betsy Nichols, Hans-Dieter Sues, Ryosuke Motani, Zulma Gasparini, and Robin O’Keefe. Our researchers, photo editors, and writers descended on these folks like a swarm of bees to get the project off to a good start and didn’t let up until our magazine article was finally printed as a cover story in December of 2005.

Right: In the speaker's preparation room at the SVP meeting in Austin, Robin O'Keefe points to a CT image of the gut contents of a plesiosaur that contains the remains of a juvenile icthyosaur, a dolphin-like marine reptile. Evidence of marine reptiles preying on other marine reptiles is extremely rare. Photo by author.

Robin had the distinction of being one of the first scientists we roped into helping us recreate digital models of the marine reptiles we selected. He and I flew to a computer graphics studio in Utah to check progress on the project. He spent a day or two helping the computer graphics guys input limits to the range of motion of limbs, spines, necks, and tails. Little did we know at that time how much work it was going to be before we had images we could print in National Geographic. It was arduous for everyone involved, but I have to say, looking back, that it was a great experience. The article was well-received and many of the art pieces won awards, including the difficult-to-win Lanzendorf Prize for paleo art from the Soceity of Vertebrate Paleontology. And it is also rewarding to see that those sea monster models that Robin and I worked on in Utah, even though they underwent many technical evolutions, have now fulfilled their full mission by appearing in the National Geographic Society’s full suite of media offerings, which includes print, television, the web, books, and now, seven years after the original concept was initiated, an IMAX film.

Did you see the movie? I’d love to hear your comments.

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