Abstract Geologist Yves Milon, the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of Rennes, hired the painter Mathurin Méheut in 1941 to produce a large mural decoration for the new Geological Institute. This resulted in a little known 130 m 2 artwork that includes a Mesozoic triptych, the genesis of which is described here. The work was executed during the World War II, when Milon's illegal activities in several English intelligence services-led Resistance movements possibly prevented him from supervising the artist's work and which led to some anatomical inaccuracies. This decoration has survived several threats and constitutes a unique example of a large decorative palaeontological artwork in France. It has a special place in the history of dinosaur reconstructions as the choice of a decorative painting style is far from the usual forms of natural history illustration.

Abstract The papers in this volume concentrate on the terminal Palaeozoic and Mesozoic non-marine formations of Thailand and Laos. Similar formations are also known from other countries in mainland SE Asia, such as Malaysia (where several non-marine plant-bearing formations of Jurassic to Cretaceous age are known: Lee et al. 2004), Vietnam and Cambodia (where red beds similar to those of the Khorat Group of Thailand are widespread: Workman 1977; Fontaine & Workman 1978). However, the non-marine Late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic fossils of Thailand and Laos have received much more attention than those of neighbouring countries, from which little has been reported. What we know of the Late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic ecosystems of SE Asia is therefore very largely based on the Thai and Lao records. The study of these Late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic non-marine assemblages began in the 1890s when French geologists took part in expeditions to the Lao principalities that served both a scientific and a political purpose (the latter being clearly predominant, as the more or less avowed aim was to bring that area under French influence). Counillon's 1896 report of a dicynodont skull from the vicinity of Luang Prabang thus is a landmark in the history of vertebrate palaeontology in SE Asia

Abstract Vertebrate footprints have been discovered in recent years from seven Mesozoic formations of Thailand and Laos dating from the Late Triassic (Kuchinari Group) and the Early Cretaceous (Khorat Group). The sites are reviewed here in chronological order. The ichnological record reflects fairly well the broad picture of the evolution of continental vertebrates in Asia known from the skeletal record. Norian basal archosaurs are replaced by Rhaetian dinosaurs although both footprint morphotypes look different from the contemporaneous European and North American forms. Two successive ornithopod radiations can be observed in the Early Cretaceous, with primitive small tetradactyl Hypsilophodon -like dinosaurs in the Earliest Cretaceous followed by advanced iguanodontoids with tridactyl fleshy footprints in the Aptian. Late Early Cretaceous dinosaur footprints from NE Thailand, however, do not validate previous hypotheses on the geographical distribution of Cretaceous ornithopod tracks in Asia. The ichnological record also reveals a hitherto unsuspected high diversity of theropods in the early Cretaceous with many different morphotypes.