Naturalhistory Pins and Buttons

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.

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.

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.

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.

Roughly 216 to 196 million years ago in Triassic New Mexico, close to a thousand dinosaurs died, their remains preserved as fossils that would later be discovered in 1947 by Edwin H. Colbert and his assistant George Whitaker on a site appropriately known as the Ghost Ranch. It’s extremely rare in paleontology that scientists are handed such a find, a buffet of death that allows them to piece together the biology of a specific species in such a complete manner.

A trilobite found in deposits near Saint Petersburg Russia. It first appeared on the fossil record about 500 million years ago, and died out around 390 million years ago, it was discovered around 1845. Sadly there isn’t as much specific info on this one, but there are more than 20,000 currently identified Trilobite species, and not all of them has as much info as others.

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.

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.”

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.

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).

Discovered in the Gobi desert, Velociraptor was roughly the size of a modern day Turkey, standing at just around 1.6 feet in height at the hip and measuring 6.8 feet in length, it likely only weighed around 33 pounds when fully grown. Like all members of the dromaeosauridae family it possessed a pair of specialized claws on the second inner toe of each foot. These claws were over-sized and were held off the ground by tendons that allowed them to retract when not in use, it’s thought they deployed this menacing weaponry as a means to pin struggling prey, much like modern day eagles and hawks do.

In the 1920s Captain Marshall Field funded two expeditions to South America which were undertaken by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois; these expeditions were launched under the hopes of finding fossils of mammals and other animals from the Cenozoic Era. In 1926, during the second expedition, a team was searching the Ituzaingo Formation in northern Argentina when they came across the remains of three animals thought to be never before discovered species of ancient marsupial. It was roughly 4.9 feet in length and weighed around 330 pounds and it lived during the Late Miocene to Pliocene, roughly 9 to 3 million years ago.

While being a member of the overall group that dinosaurs like Ankylosaurus was a part of, Sauropelta edwardsorum was a member of a different branch known as Nodosaurs. Unlike Ankylosaurs, Nodosaurs did not possess tail weapons, though they often displayed large shoulder spikes and still possesses a body covered in armor. Sauropelta could grow up to 17 feet in length and weighed around 2.2 tons, they lived during the Early Cretaceous period, around 108 million years ago.

Zuul was discovered on a dig in the Montana Badlands in 2014, during the excavation of what was thought to be Gorgosaurus, an early relative of Tyrannosaurus rex that stalked North America roughly 76.6 to 75.1 million years ago. While it was initially thought to be a specimen of another ankylosaur called Euplocephalus that had been known to science since 1897 known to live in the same area at the same time, research done at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada would later identify the specimen as belonging to an as yet unknown genus of armored dinosaur. The specimen was given the genus name of Zuul, after the horned monster dog from the classic 1984 film, Ghostbusters, and the species name of crurivastator meaning “Destroyer of Shins.”

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.

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.

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.

Baryonyx walkeri was theropod dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period in what is now Surrey, England. At nearly 30 feet in length and weighing in at around 1.9 tons it was a big animal, but despite its size fossil evidence of fish scales in its abdominal cavity suggest that rather than going after large prey items on land it most likely relied on fish for the bulk of its diet. This and other anatomical evidence actually made it the first theropod dinosaur ever known to have relied on a primarily ichthyophagous diet.

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.

Weighing in at around 7.9 tons and measuing up to around 40 feet in length, Tyrannosaurus rex was a carnivorous powerhouse. With teeth the size of your average banana and a jaw wrapped in powerful muscle, recent studies have estimated it was capable of exerting a bit force of around 12,000 pounds, making it easily capable of ripping the flesh and absolutely pulverizing the bones of any Cretaceous animal unlucky enough to cross it’s path.

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.

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.

Storm clouds roll in over a beach on the coast of Jurassic (152 million years ago) Tanzania. A single Kentrosaur wanders alone in search of food, it grows apprehensive as the thunder rolls over the horizon. Kentrosaurus weighed in at around 1.7 tons, reaching about 18 feet in length. Though it wasn’t the biggest member of the Stegosauridae family it made up for it by having an exaggerated set of weaponry, including spikes measuring almost 2.5 feet in length running from the tip of its tale to just behind its pelvis; couple that with a tale capable of an almost 90 mile per hour swing and it would have surely been an intimidating prospect for any predator to take on.

Nothosaurus mirabilis was a species of early marine reptile that lived during the Triassic, 240 to 210 million years ago. It measured around 16 to 23 feet in length and possessed a set of distinctive interlocking teeth, most likely a means to catch fish and other soft bodied prey. It has been theorized that one of their descendants or that of a related species may have evolved into the giant Pliosaurs that would eventually come to be in the Jurassic period.

First described in 1877 at the height of the “Bone Wars” by Othneil Charles Marsh, Allosaurus was one of the most successful and wide spread predators of the Late Jurassic Period (approximately 155-150 million years ago) with most of it’s remains being found the Morrison Formation in Western North America and related specimens having been found as far away as Portugal, and possibly as far off as Tanzania. Allosaurus was named from the Greek for “different lizard” because of a trait found in the central parts of it’s vertebrae which had a concave cup-like shape on the back end of it’s surface.

Discovered in 1903 by paleontologist Elmer S. Riggs in the Colorado River Valley, Brachiosaurus (it’s name meaning “Arm Lizard” because of it’s proportionately longer front limbs) roamed what would become North America during the Late Jurassic about 154 to 153 million years ago. With a length in the upper estimates of 69 feet and a possible 64 tons in weight it was a large animal, though it was not by far the largest the clade of sauropods would get.

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.

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.

Dilophosaurus wetherelli was well known thanks to it’s notable appearance in a certain blockbuster movie, but was not as well known to science until very recently. A new study has been published that revealed that the animal, once thought to possess a bite not suitable for holding onto large prey, not only reached sizes larger than previously thought, but it also possessed a very strong might with it’s jaw being revealed to be much more robust than previous studies had concluded. It also has been shown to have a much larger crest and that it’s crest and skeletal system had honeycombed airsacs that helped it regulate weight as well as air flow.

Around 66 million years ago, in Late Cretaceous South Dakota, an odd bird-like creature darted it’s way through the thick overgrowth of a humid, swampy, coastal plain near the coast of an inland sea that only only exists now in the form of trace elements of chemical signatures, rock strata, and the fossil remains of the animals that lived and died on its shores and below its waves.

The coolest wild felid nerdy t-shirt to wear

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.

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.

Megalograptus welchi was a member of a now extinct group of marine arthropods called Eurypterids, it lived during the Late Ordovician period around 449.5 to 443.8 million years ago. Compared to modern ocean dwelling arthropods, M. welchi was rather large, measuring around 1.2 meters in length, not including the large spiny appendages on the front of it's body; speaking of those spines, while it's pretty likely it used them to hunt for prey, science has yet to determine just how they were used or what type of prey it might have been hunting.

Plesiosaurus (or “Near to lizard,” a reference to it’s closeness to modern reptiles) was not a dinosaur but a marine reptile that swam in the oceans of the Early Jurassic Period, about 199.6 to 175.6 million years ago. It and other members of it’s family were often distinguished by their long necks with some later related species having necks longer than their bodies. It is thought that they used their necks to catch fish and other prey items by snaking their relatively small neck through the water to snag an unsuspecting meal, because the distance of their larger bodies would obscure their real size and not panic the prey as much, this might explain why later species had much longer necks.

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.