Peter Schouten


Peter Mark Schouten, AM, is an Australian artist and illustrator of publications in the field of zoology and palaeontology. David Attenborough termed his skills as "rare and precious" and among the world's best.
mother and juvenile by Peter Schouten
His works are characterized by naturalism and faithfulness to detail, whereby Schouten incorporates his own ideas and assumptions in the reconstruction of extinct creatures and thus gives them an individual touch.
His early works deal mainly with the fauna of his home continent Australia, the first book in which his illustrations emerge throughout, Prehistoric Animals of Australia, also addresses this topic. During his work as an illustrator and co-author, he worked with several scientists, including Tim Flannery and John Long.
Schouten became known internationally for his portrayal of Homo floresiensis, which was published in 2004 as the first scientific reconstruction of this species of Hominid.
His work has been honoured in the epithet of a new species of Wakaleo, which was announced in 2017 prior to it formal publication. Schouten immediately began to work on an illustration of Wakaleo schouteni''.

Works

Schouten's work as illustrator includes,