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Genus Leedsichthys
was a genus of gigantic pachycormid fish that lived in the oceans of the Mesozoic. Largely considered to be one of the largest bony fish to ever live, this behemoth could grow up to 32 feet long (some estimates put it at 53 feet). This giant fish although it had alot of teeth was probably a gentle filter feeder like extant basking sharks. leedsichthys had no recorded predator with specimens known to escape the Liopleurodon which was the top predator of the time, their large and powerful tail probably helped them out run and out maneuver the giant reptile.
Phylogeny
Animalia-Chordata-Actinopterygii-Pachycorminformes-Pachycormidae-Leedsichthys
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The Alaskan ceratopsian Pachyrhinosaurus as a Late Cretaceous musk ox analog, illustrated by Mark Witton. Accompanied by an enlightening essay on his blog, detailing his reasons for decking them out in a thick layer of protofeathers.
I saw this painting at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs and was going to upload it here. Then I remembered that David Orr (gallantcannibal) is already on Tumblr. It’s getting harder to bring new content to Tumblr, which is a good thing.
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The Brazilian Early Cretaceous pterosaur Tupandactylus imperator, illustrated by Elijah Shandseight
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Ichthyornis dispar by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.
Odontornithes: a monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America;.
Washington :Govt. print. off.,1880..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40333952 -
Ichthyornis dispar by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.
Odontornithes: a monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America;.
Washington :Govt. print. off.,1880..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40333972 -
Ichthyornis victor by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.
Ichthyornis victor is a synonym of Ichthyornis dispar. This reconstruction is be based on a composite set of bones mounted on plaster that were on display at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
See: Clarke, J.A. (2004). “Morphology, phylogenetic taxonomy, and systematics of Ichthyornis and Apatornis (Avialae: Ornithurae).” Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 286: 1-179. (pdf)
Odontornithes: a monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America;.
Washington :Govt. print. off.,1880..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40334004 -
Hesperornis regalis by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.
Odontornithes: a monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America;.
Washington :Govt. print. off.,1880..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40333948 -
Hesperornis regalis by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.
Odontornithes: a monograph on the extinct toothed birds of North America;.
Washington :Govt. print. off.,1880..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40333854 -
Dinodontosaurus
Mounted specimen on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
Reconstruction by Dmitry Bogdanov
When: Triassic (242 - 230 million years ago)
Where: Worldwide
What: Dinodontosaurus is a synapsid, or ‘mammal like reptile’. It was one of the most common large herbivorous animals in the mid Triassic. These beasts reached lengths of 8 feet (2.4 meters) and are estimated to have weighed hundres of pounds. They fall within the clade Dicynodontia, so named for their two large front teeth. A fossil find in Brazil of over 10 Dinodontosaurus, including juveniles, shows these animals lived in herds and cared for their young.
Synapsids were extremtly common in the Permian, but were hit hard by the end Permian extinction. Some groups, such as the Dicynodonts exemplified by Dinodontosaurus, however, made it though the extinction just fine. The extinction at the end of the Triassic period, however, was brutal to this clade, wiping out the vast majority of species. Some dicynodonts made it though this extinction, but the clade continued to dwindle throughout the rest of the Mesozoic, with the last dicynodont vanishing in the mid Cretaceous. In the synapsid family tree dicynodonts are fairly far up there, falling far closer to gorgonopsids than to the basal “pelycosaurs”.
