Suciasaurus Rex: Reimagining Sucia Island 80 Million Years Ago

by Sarah Silverman-Pucci
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In May 2025, I went fossil hunting—not collecting, but viewing fossils—on an eco-tour with the Salish Sea School to Sucia Island Marine State Park. I’ve been dying to visit ever since I heard about the discovery of Washington State’s first dinosaur there in 2012!
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Sucia Island is one of the northernmost islands in the San Juan Island group in Washington State. It is a picturesque, uniquely shaped island with an array of hiking trails alongside swimming & boating.

Washington was underwater for much of the Mesozoic Era (252 to 66 million years ago). We have fossils of marine reptiles and pterosaurs, but no evidence of terrestrial dinosaurs from that time. That changed when paleontologists from the Burke Museum went to Sucia Island looking for ammonites. There, they discovered a portion of a theropod thigh bone.

​The fossil is approximately 80 million years old, dating to the Late Cretaceous Period. It belongs to a dinosaur nicknamed “Suciasaurus rex.” The most famous theropod is, of course, Tyrannosaurus rex, but the theropod group includes nearly all of the bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs. The rock in which the bone was found is part of the Nanaimo Formation, which extends northward to the tip of Vancouver Island.

Ammonite fossil in the rocks on Sucia Island

I was inspired to create a work of art that would illustrate this remarkable discovery while also capturing the beautiful landscape of Sucia Island. Through my research, I learned that pterosaurs and marine reptiles have also been found in rocks of the same formation, so I added them to my drawing. I wanted to imagine what the island and its surrounding waters might have looked like 80 million years ago.

I sketched out my composition and based my Suciasaurus on Suchomimus, a dinosaur with relatively long arms. In my drawing, it is walking along the shore and eating an ammonite, an extinct marine mollusk. I frequently incorporate above- and below-the-water views into my art, so I did so here as well. I also used the bright, saturated colors from photographs I took during my trip.
I brought the unfinished piece with me to work on while sitting at the 2025 Alki Art Festival in Seattle.

The images below show the progression of the painting.

Final Line Art

Working on the piece at Harborside Village

Starting to add paint

Adding color to the blue sky

Working on the piece at Alki coffee while in town for the Alki Art Festival

Building up layers on the rocks

Deepening the colors

I based the color of the Suciasaurus on the colors of a Great Blue Heron and added stripes. The red on the Traskasaurus is there because many ocean creatures have red coloring. Red is the first color of the spectrum to disappear as light penetrates water, so I thought it might provide the animal with camouflage.

Before taking off the tape

Adding the white acrylic highlights

I love dinosaurs, and I hope others do too. I know that just about every five-year-old does—but some of us never grow out of it!

Final piece, matted and framed!