Description: During the Late Triassic period (214 to 204 million years ago), in what would eventually become Heroldsberg, Germany, a group of long-necked giants worked their way across an ancient floodplain; due to their great weight, up to 4.4 tons, they began to sink into the mud, their panicked struggles to free themselves from this predicament only serving to pull them further down until exhaustion eventually set in and they passed away, trapped by their own massive bulk.
Description: In the Late Cretaceous the world was filled with giant predators, both on land and in the sea. While T. rex was stalking the land looking for its next kill, the seas were brimming with millions of sharp, pointed, teeth, just looking for something to sink themselves into. Some of the largest of those teeth belonged to the Mosasauridae superfamily, a group of mostly huge marine reptiles who’s remains have been found around the world. This group contains some 38 separate genera spanning from 101 to 66 million years ago, all of which shared some overarching traits; for instance, all of them possessed long lizard-like forms with paddle shaped front and back limbs and crescent shaped tails like those of sharks.
Description: In 1922, Roy Chapman Andrews led an expedition to explore the inner reaches of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The expedition was taken on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History in the hopes of finding fossil evidence of the early origins of humans, while no early human remains were found on the trip they did find numerous new species of extinct mammals and many new species of dinosaur. Included in these specimens was a small relative of Triceratops (the famous horned dinosaur discovered in North America in 1887), it was only about the size of a small sheep, measuring around 5.9 feet in length and was only an estimated 182 pounds in weight.
Description: In the Late Cretaceous (83.5 to 78 million years ago) on the sun soaked shores of the Western Interior Seaway, a large body of water that ran along the interior of the North American Continent, a colony of large flightless birds bask on the rock strewn coastline of what humans would later call Kansas. Much like modern loons their legs are sufficiently powerful tools that allow them to not only paddle on the surface of the water but dive beneath its surface to catch fish in their tooth-filled beak, but also like loons their legs were likely not well adapted for land. It is thought that they likely pushed themselves around on on their bellies similar to modern pinnipeds like seals and walruses.
Description: Identified in 1796 by naturalist Georges Cuvier, the Woolly Mammoth has become the symbol of what most people think of when they think of Ice Age animals. Its huge fur covered form feel strange and ancient, like some behemoth marching its way out of the frozen genetic memory of human kind to remind us of how far we have come. Mammuthus primigenius was big, with the largest recorded males measuring about 11.2 feet at the shoulder and weighing in at 6.6 tons. Females were smaller with shorter tusks, but both were relatively close to the size of modern African Elephants, though they were obviously much harrier and more robust in appearance.
Description: A land dwelling prehistoric relative of modern day crocodiles described scientifically in 1959, head to tail it measured some 23 feet in length and weighed over 1,000 pounds. It roamed what would eventually become known by humans as North Western Argentina, and it shared its environment with a wide variety of other creatures, such as early dinosaurs like Herrerasaurus and Eoraptor, as well as massive dicynodonts like Ischigualastia, Pound for pound it appears to have been the largest predator in the region it inhabited, but this weight and its likely cold-blooded metabolism likely slowed it down. Despite this it was more than fast enough to catch up with prey of that era.
Description: B. excelsus was first described by O.C. Marsh in 1879, for a century its name stood among the likes of Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops horridus as a quintessential example of what the world thinks of when they hear the word “Dinosaur.” Although there has been some confusion among the public as new studies come out and names have been changed and now changed back, and possibly changed again, the silhouette of Brontosaurus is still what people think of when they conjure up images of long necked giants knocking down trees in a prehistoric forest looking for plants to eat like some sort of giant reptilian cow. B. excelsus lived some 156.3 to 146.8 MYA during the Late Jurassic. It was roughly 72 feet in length and weighed around 17 tons.
Description: Triceratops horridus was a Late Cretaceous (68 – 66 million years ago) herbivore, the first of the horned ceratopsian dinosaurs to be discovered. It’s remains were originally found by Othniel Charles Marsh, in the spring of 1887. though he thought that the fossil cores that fit the animal’s brow belonged to a species of extinct Pliocene Bison. It wasn’t until 1889 that he realized his error and named the species Triceratops, meaning “Three Horned Face.” A fully grown Triceratops measured around 30 feet in length, weighing in at roughly 5.5 tons, It’s head made up around 5 feet of it’s total length with 3 feet of horns attached above each eye.
Description: Yi qi (pronounced yee chee, and meaning essentially “Strange Wing”). This pint-sized dinosaur was only about 380 grams in weight and was about the size of your average pigeon. Of course you would definitely notice a pigeon with wings like this little fella had. What makes Yi so interesting is what those wings were made of. Most dinosaurian wings were made of feathers just like you see today, Yi qi had wings that were made of leather-like skin membranes spread between it’s second and third fingers, with an extra bony strut protruding from the back of it’s wrist. While this configuration looks like that of a bat, the animals are not related except in the most distant way possible.
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Description: Yutyrannus huali was a basal member of the Tyrannosauroid clade, specifically part of the Proceratosauridae family group with other small bodied crested dinosaurs like Guanlong and Sinotyrannus. Yutyrannus was large for it’s group but still much smaller than later, more advanced members of it’s clade, like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Despite this, at roughly 30 feet it is still currently the largest dinosaur yet found with direct evidence of feathers. It’s name is in fact derived from the Mandarin word for feather, yǔ (羽), and the Greek word for tyrant. The species name huali is taken from Mandarin for beautiful, making it’s overall name mean something close to “beautiful feathered tyrant.”
Description: Last year a study was published answering some questions about what T.rex’s exterior soft tissue looked like. Traditional reconstructions have shown the Tyrant Lizard with scaly skin, the new study suggests that this is most likely the case based on numerous small examples of what appear to be scale impressions on different places on the body of a fully grown specimen. The research shows evidence of scales on the chest, stomach, neck, tail, and pelvis.
Description: T.rex was a massive animal, measuring around 40 feet in length and roughly 12 feet in height, weighing in at around 6 to 9 tons. It had teeth as big or bigger than most bananas with a bite force equal to around 8,000 lbs of force. When it bit into it’s prey it would often crush bone. Though it had relatively small arms for it’s stature, scientists have estimated that each arm was capable of 3.5 times the strength of a human arm of the same length, they were heavily muscled and had a limited range of movement, which some think may have aided the animal in holding on to prey or during mating.
Description: Coelodonta antiquitatis, otherwise known as the woolly rhinoceros, was a large member of the Rhino family that inhabited Europe and Northern Asia from the Late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene. Like many Ice Age megafauna, the Woolly Rhino was covered in thick fur and fat reserves, unlike it’s mostly hairless modern day relatives. The average adult rhino weighed in at around 4000-6000lbs and measured somewhere around 9-12 feet in length. Ice Age cave paintings show evidence of interactions with early humans, which is a possible reason for their eventual extinction.
Description: A species of trilobite from the Upper Ordovician, about 445 million years ago, it was discovered in 1838 by an American geologist and paleontologist named James Hall, in the Beecher’s Trilobite Bed in Rome, New York. These specimens were particularly well preserved with even soft body parts preserved in iron pyrite (fools gold). The fossilisation was so good that scientists were able to study their legs, gills, antennae, digestive system, and even some eggs. As a result of this exquisite preservation, this species is often referenced as the standard for scientific text describing trilobite anatomy. Triarthus was a small animal, on’y about 2 inches in length, but that is pretty average among most species of trilobite.
Description: Also known as the Marsupial Lion, it was the largest known mammalian predator roaming Australia from 1.6 million to 46,000 years ago. Despite it’s common name, Thylacoleo wasn’t closely related to lions or cats at all, but was a member of the order Diprotodontia, which includes modern day kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, and wombats (it’s closest living relative). Thylacoleo lived at a time when Australia was packed with huge animals, such as 20 foot lizards, 10 foot tall kangaroos and multi-ton wombats. To combat this it grew big, reaching 287 pounds with muscular forearms and jaws like bolt cutters.
Description: n what would eventually become the Gobi Desert in Southwestern Mongolia, a creature with claws 3 times the length of the average human forearm. These massive scythe-like appendages were attached to a very odd looking member of the dinosaur family, a large theropod with an unusual gait, long neck, and a large potbelly built. This animal was most likely an herbivore, despite the vicious looking nature of it’s forelimbs, but being a big animal with short legs it’s likely that it developed big claws partly as a means to defend itself against big predators like Tarbosaurus bataar, a relative of T.rex that stalked Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous (70 million years ago).
Description: Possibly one of the most recognizable dinosaurs, Stegosaurus was named in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh during the “Bone Wars,” becoming the flagship genus of the entire Stegosaur group. The name Stegosaurus means “roofed” or “covered lizard,” as Marsh initially thought the back plates formed a roof-like shell over the animal’s back. There are 3 species currently described: S. ungulatus, S. sulcatus, and S. stenops (stenops being the longest species yet discovered at 29.5 feet).
Description: Named for the enormous neural spines running along it’s back to form what most have theorized to be a large sail or possibly a hump-like structure, Spinosaurus was first uncovered by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in 1912 while he was in Western Egypt in the Bahariya Formation. The fragmented remains looked to be from a very large and unusual theropod, possibly one bigger than the famous Tyrannosaurus Rex, which had been discovered less than 10 years prior. Unfortunately the museum holding those remains was destroyed in a bombing run during World War II, but detailed drawings of the fragments did survive along with photos of the display.
Description: A member of the icthyosaur order, Stenopterygius was a marine reptile from the Early Jurassic period (183-179 million years ago). At around 10 to 13 feet in length, it was similar in size and body shape to it’s better known relative Icthyosaurus, of which the first skeleton was discovered by fossil hunter, Mary Anning. Despite similarities, Stenopterygius had a smaller skull and more narrow flippers than it’s more famous relative, but the fossil finds of this animal are perhaps even more amazing than that of any other icthyosaur.
Description: Roughly 76 to 75 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, large herds of an animal now known as Lambeosaurus congregated around the shallow rivers that ran through what is now Alberta, Canada. These beasts could be up to 31 feet long, and weigh up to 3 and a quarter tons, they would mostly walk on all fours, switching to two when speed was required, their huge tails stiffly hanging in the air behind them, making up nearly half of their length. On their heads, they sported large, flamboyant crests, the males likely sporting ones larger and more complex than those of the females.
Description: Shringasaurus (it’s name coming from the sanskrit word “śṛṅga” for “horn” and greek for “lizard”) was a member of a group called Allokotosaurs, a group of reptiles that were related but not part of the cladistic grouping of Archosaurs, the group that includes crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and modern birds. It has also been called a stem-archosaur as it appears to be part of an earlier lineage that split before the evolution of true archosaurs. It was about 9.8 to 13.1 feet in length and was distinguished by it’s long neck and superaorbital brow horns (similar to those of some ceratopsian dinosaurs. It’s teeth indicate that it was an herbivore, possibly using it’s long neck to reach higher foliage than other competing animals.
Description: Psittacosaurus was an early Ceratopsian, a member of the same group as Triceratops, and Styracosaurus. While they lacked the crests of their larger relatives they possessed tall skulls and powerful beaks, Ptittacosaurus (meaning “parrot lizard”) gets it’s name from it’s parrot-like beak structure. Fossils also have been found with preserved bristle-like filaments on the fail section, most likely used for display. Though it was small, only about 6.5 feet in length and weighing in at around 44 pounds, we know a lot about them. Psittacosaurus has the largest number of described species at around 9 or 10, many of those species possess specialized beak structures that possibly aided them in different ecological niches.
Description: At up to 20 feet Pteranodon had one of the largest wingspans of any flying animal in the fossil record. From around 86 to 84.5 million years ago it flew along the coastal shores of an Cretaceous seaway that once split the North American continent. The first specimens were discovered in 1870 by Othniel Charles Marsh in the chalk deposits of Western Kansas. Marsh initially thought his discovery was a part of the Pterodactylus genus of pterosaurs found in Europe, over time with more complete finds he realized that it was indeed part of a new genus separate from those previously found, but the common name stuck for most people and the name Pterodactyl is still used today in movies, poorly informed books and other media.
Description: In 1978 a jawbone was found in southeastern Australia belonging to a giant amphibian; this in itself was not unusual as amphibians have been found throughout huge swathes of the fossil record, some getting to be downright gigantic among the particular order that this beast belonged to, known as the Temnospondyls. These creatures were some of the first complex vertebrates to venture on land, doing so as far back as the Carboniferous period and thriving in locations across the Earth throughout the Permian, and into the age of the dinosaurs.
Description: Oviraptor was a small predatory dinosaur that lived in the Gobi Desert during the Late Cretaceous (around 75 million years ago). It was about 3 feet tall and 5 feet in length, and very lightly built, probably only weighing around 55 to 79 pounds, much like it’s modern bird relatives. Studies of earlier relatives suggest that they not only had feathers but had large display feathers on their tails that were likely used to woo potential mates. The discovery of Oviraptor embryos has allowed scientists to get a better idea of the biology of these animals and of dinosaur egg laying behavior, as well as their development.
Description: With a skull 10 inches thick surrounded by rounded spikes it’s thought that Pachycephalosaurs used its bulbous dome as a weapon against predators and rivals, much like modern bighorn sheep. There is evidence for and against this, damage to a fossil skull fragment suggests trauma was inflicted directly at the top of the skull, but structural analysis seems to rule out skull to skull bash-fests as it looks like solid bone didn’t cushion against damage as well as you might think. Bighorn sheep can headbutt each other like they do because their horns are actually hollow providing an air cushion for it’s brain, helping to prevent concussions.
Description: Megaloceros giganteus otherwise known as the Irish Elk, one of the largest deer species in the fossil record. Measuring 6.9 feet, with the largest antlers of any deer species, measuring 12 feet in width. Despite it’s name it was not exclusively native to Ireland, nor was it actually an elk. Most of the best and most complete specimens were found in Ireland, with some of the antlers winding up on the walls in medieval castles. Megaloceros lived during the Middle pleistocene to the early holocene 0.781 – 0.008 million years ago.
Description: In 1598 Dutch sailors landed on the shores of Maritius looking for supplies during an expedition to Indonesia, while on the island they encountered a large, odd looking, flightless bird. According to the surviving translations of that first account the birds were somewhat tasteless, leading to their discoverers initially calling them Walghvogel (Dutch for “tastelss” or “sickly” “bird”). The origin of the name Dodo is somewhat nebulous, but it’s possible that it may have it’s routes in the word Dodaars, meaning “fat-arse” or “knot-arse.”
Description: Dunkleosteus was a 19.7 foot super-predator that used a lethal combination of suction and a wicked bite to cut through everything unlucky enough to cross it’s path, armor or no. Like many fish living today, D.terrelli most likely would swim close to unsuspecting prey and suck water into it’s mouth along with it’s victim. Instead of teeth, Dunkleosteus possessed a set of bony plates that were an extension of it’s own dermal armor. These places were self sharpening and would shear through most other armored fish with little trouble and was aided by a four-bar linkage mechanism that allowed it to open and close it’s jaws on the top and bottom at incredibly high speeds.
Description: During the Late Permian period (around 260 to 254 million years ago) Inostracevia and the rest of it’s family group, Gorgonopsidae were some of the largest predators on the planet, they roamed what is now Northern Russia, stalking their prey with a smiled full of sabers. Gorgonopsids were part of a group called therapsids, a group of animals that include mammals and their ancestors. They were a group that also shared common traits with reptiles but weren’t quite part of either modern group.
Description: Roughly 259.8 to 254.1 million years ago during the Late Permian era in what would eventually become South Africa, deserts sands blew across an arid landscape. Meanwhile, to escape the oppressive heat and avoid predation a tiny synapsid called Diictodon (the name meaning “two weasel toothed”) used it’s stubby legs, sharp claws, and peculiar tusks to dig into their earth, constructing relatively large (for their size) corkscrew-shaped burrows, designed to protect and give them an easy route up and down.
Description: Dimetrodon was part of a group known as known as mammal-like reptiles or stem-mammals. While they share many traits with modern reptiles and modern mammals they are neither, but are part of the overall group called Synapsids that includes all modern mammals (even humans like you). While it is often associated with dinosaurs in popular media these sail-backed quadripeds are much older than that group and are most closely related to us than they are to dinosaurs. Dimetrodon main defining traits include a very distinctive sail supported by extensive neural spins, as well as a set of differentiating teeth that were clearly evolved to different uses, something we and most modern mammals share.
Description: Iguanodon bernissartensis was a roughly 3 ton herbivorous dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous (126-125 million years ago). Initially discovered in England, Iguanodon was one of the first dinosaurs identified by science it’s remains have been found across Europe, North America, and Africa. Iguanodon’s most defining feature a pair of spike-like claws on it’s front limbs, roughly where the thumb would be on a human hand. When this was originally found it was thought to be a horn and early reconstructions, such as those at the Crystal Palace Park in London were based on very incomplete fossils, portraying the animal as a giant slow, moving lizard with a horn on the tip of it’s nose.
Description: A new final illustration for my prehistoric series which I may now be calling “Ancient Life.” This here is Dilophosaurus wetherilli, the twin-crested lizard made famous by the first Jurassic Park movie. Unlike it’s movie counterpart, the actual animal was not not quire the small fry that relied on a big frilly threat display and venomous spit to take down it’s prey. Dilophosaurus was about 23 feet long and weighed in at about 880 lbs, which wasn’t huge compared to the carnivorous cousins that would come after it, it was still pretty big and had a long skinny frame that was built for speed. It’s most distinctive feature, it’s dual crest, was most likely used for species identification and attracting mates.
Description: Deinonychus remains were first discovered by Barnum Brown in 1931 near Billings, Montana; however, because it’s remains were encased in Lime and thus difficult to prepare Brown payed more attention to the remains of a large plant eater that was found nearby. It wasn’t until many decades later that John Ostrom recognized that the remains Brown had discovered belonged to an animal he had described in 1969 as Deinonychus antirrhopus. Deinonychus was a member of a group called Dromaeosaurids, who were defined by being swift moving predators with stiff tails, sharp sickle-like claws on their feet, they came in many sizes, from as small as a 2 feet in length to animals like Utahraptor reaching lengths of up to 36 feet.
