Scientific Illustration

lostbeasts:

Rhoetosaurus.
Though the first few fragments of a skeleton were discovered in 1925, the rest of the skeleton was left unearthed until the 1970s. Despite the fact that it skull, hindlimbs and most of its tail are unknown, it remains one of the best known Jurassic sauropods in Australia.

lostbeasts:

Crassigyrinus.
This was a large, completely aquatic Carboniferous hunter, eating the fish and smaller amphibians it shared the water with. It had large teeth and a long sinuous body, with tiny limbs that were useless except for steering whilst swimming.

Also:

paleoillustration:

Ornithocheirus criorhynchus by John Sibbick

(via lostbeasts)

rhamphotheca:

Ancient ‘Killer Walrus’ Not So Deadly After All

by Megan Gannon

A “killer walrus” thought to have terrorized the North Pacific 15 million years ago may not have been such a savvy slayer after all, researchers say.

A new analysis of fossil evidence of the prehistoric beast shows it was more of a fish-eater than an apex predator with a bone-crushing bite.

Traces of the middle Miocene walrus, named Pelagiarctos thomasi, were first found in the 1980s in the Sharktooth Hill bone bed of California. A chunk of a robust jawbone and sharp pointed teeth, which resembled those of the bone-cracking hyena, led researchers to believe the walrus ripped apart birds and other marine mammals in addition to the fish that modern walruses eat today.

But a more complete lower jaw and teeth from the long-gone species were recently discovered in the Topanga Canyon Formation near Los Angeles. Researchers say the shape of the teeth from this new specimen suggest the walrus was unlikely adapted to regularly feed on large prey. Instead, they think it was a generalist predator, feasting on fish, invertebrates and the occasional warm-blooded snack…

(read more: Live Science)           

(images: Robert Boessenecker, PLOS ONE, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.005431)

(via lostbeasts)

thagomizers:

Hypacrosaurus altispinus (“near the highest lizard”)
Chordata/Reptilia/Ornithischia/Ornithopoda/Hadrosauridae/Euhadrosauria/Lambeosaurinae

• Late Cretaceous (75 - 67 Ma)
• 30 ft in length and 4,400 lb

Described in 1913
Location : North America
Diet : Herbivore

(via lostbeasts)

lostbeasts:

thagomizers:

Parasaurolophus walkeri (“near crested lizard”)
Chordata/Reptilia/Ornithischia/Hadrosauridae/Lambeosaurinae

• Late Cretaceous (76,5 - 73 Ma)
• 31 ft in length and 2.5 tons

Described in 1922
Location : North America
Diet : Herbivore

wuwuwh

cowlesscowboy:

Douglas Henderson

(via lostbeasts)

rhamphotheca:

Head comparison of 8 species of Psittacosaurus, a primitive ceratopsian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China, Mongolia and Russia

(pencil drawing by Nobua Tamura)

(via lostbeasts)

lostbeasts:

prehistorygirl:

geozoic:

Peter Schouten

Conchoraptor

www.studioschouten.com

That is seriously the single most beautiful reconstruction of any Oviraptorosaur I have ever seen.

aahh this is so cute!

lostbeasts:

The Paleocene Epoch.
This time period occurred directly after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, and was the beginning of the so-called “Age of Mammals”. The supercontinent Gondwana, formed by Australia, Africa, South America and Antarctica was starting to split apart. South America was an island continent, and Europe and Asia were connected to North America, leaving land bridges that enabled early mammals to spread throughout the world.

The global temperature was warmer than it is today, though the 9.5 million year duration of this epoch was much drier than those before and after. Because of these higher temperatures, thick forests grew across the continents, and modern plants, like cacti and palm trees, began to develop.

Because 80% of all life on earth had been destroyed, the mammals and birds remaining found it easy to flourish, evolving relatively quickly to adopt the niches that had been left vacant by the dinosaurs. As a result, a lot of species grew to huge sizes. Birds such as Gastornis evolved as a remarkable shadow of its ancestors, a post-Cretaceous theropod, becoming giant, flightless and predatory. It would have fed upon mammals such as the condylarths.