Charlie's Shield Lizard

Scutellosaurus was a small lizard possessing dermal scutes. Many illustrations of Scutellosaurus are similar to one another for many reasons. These reasons include the small size of the animal and the prominent use of an almost sheet-like layer of dermal scutes lining the back of the animal. These scutes feature heavily in many illustrations, in fact. As one of the defining features of Scutellosaurus' lineage the scutes are important enough that this distinctive feature of the animal is acceptably pronounced in illustration. Statuary is not different at all. The statues of Charlie McGurdy are life sized and the artist strives for realism as far as is possible with fossil taxa. The Scutellosaurus piece is bipedal and well defined; however, it also appears to suffer from the common dinosaur restoration problem of extremely tight skin. Regardless, the statue is well constructed and reasonably accurate, as far as we can be in recreating the fossil animals of the past.