Science Art: Mimodactylus in life, 2019.

Scientific illustration of a pterosaur, a flying dinosaur-like animal called Mimodactylus. It has broad, white, black-rimmed wings and is soaring above a sandy islet in a bright blue lagoon of prehistoric Afro-Arabia.
Scientific illustration of a pterosaur, a flying dinosaur-like animal called Mimodactylus. It has broad, white, black-rimmed wings and is soaring above a sandy islet in a bright blue lagoon of prehistoric Afro-Arabia.

This is a painting of Mimodactylus libanensis soaring over what Nature (where it was first published) called “Afro-Arabia,” a continent that existed many millions of years ago. Fossils of this flying creature were discovered in what is now Lebanon. The name Mimodactylus seems like it might have something to do with wings or fingers (dactyls) being the same as something (mimic, mimeograph) or maybe like a Norse giant (Mimir). But no – it’s from MIM, the acronym for the Mineral Museum where the specimen was stored.

The artwork was done by Julius T. Csotonyi, and I found it on Wikimedia Commons.