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Rinchenia, an oviraptorosaur (”egg thief lizard”) from the Cretaceous period with an impressive head-helmet.

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Apologies for the lapse in regular posts...  I’ve been occupied with traveling and various other Real Life activities.  In return for your patience, please enjoy these two depictions of the famous woolly mammoth.

The first is an early 19th century interpretation of the first complete woolly mammoth skeleton discovered, called the Adams mammoth, which is quite amusingly inaccurate.

The second is a cave drawing from Les Combarelles, a cave in France inhabited by Cro-Magnon people 13,000 years ago, which is quite amazingly naturalistic.

Mankind, like nature, is full of surprises.

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Zanabazar, a dinosaur from the Cretaceous that was discovered in Mongolia.  It was named after the first spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, Zanabazar, who has a much longer Wikipedia article than the dinosaur, and probably rightly so.

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Conodont, a group of eel-like vertebrates about which little is known.  For many years, the only specimens of conodonts were tooth-like microfossils, called “elements” rather than “teeth” as they differed greatly from other known teeth, as you can see by the examples on the left.

Also here’s another amusing picture, which depicts about as much as we know about conodonts:

It’s got great eyes.

Also these things were around like FOREVER, appearing during the Cambrian and not going extinct until the end of the Triassic.  I wonder how many other animals have remained around for so long...  (I guess they’ve got nothing on sponges though, those things are never going away.)

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Carodnia, an ungulate from South America, heavily built and about the size of a tapir.  From the Paleocene and Eocene.

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Mixosaurus, the most common genus of ichthyosaur during the Triassic period.  It appears to be a transitional form between earlier eel-like ichthyosaurs and the later dolphin-like ones.

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Quagga, a subspecies of zebra with brown and white stripes only on the front portion of its body.  Went extinct in the wild in 1878, and the last captive animal died five years later.  The quagga was also the first extinct animal to have its DNA analyzed, and selective breeding of a closely-related extant species has led to some similar-looking zebras, like those in this photo:

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Gerrothorax, an amphibian with a flat body and very strangely shaped head.  It also retained its gills as an adult, like the axolotl.  Apparently it lifted its head to catch prey rather than dropping its jaw, leading to comparisons to toilet seats – which just seems rude.  I mean, you really couldn’t think of any other hinged lidded container that opens in this way?  From the Triassic.

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Dorcatherium, an adorable little mouse-deer from the Miocene and Pliocene.  So pleasingly plump and spotted.

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Beipiaosaurus, a feathered dinosaur from the early Cretaceous with some crazy-looking claws.  The first fossil was found by a Chinese peasant in 1996, and it is named after the city nearest its discovery, Beipiao.

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Rodhocetus, an important transitional fossil in the evolution of whales, with short limbs and long webbed hands and feet.  Lived during the Eocene.

Its body proportions and manner of swimming – mostly at the surface of the water, with alternating strokes of its hind feet – were deduced in 2003 via principle components analysis and comparison to the extant semi-aquatic Russian desman.  This is interesting because (1) PCA is a cool-ass statistical technique for exploratory data analysis, and (2) Russian desmans are WEIRD:

Despite being semi-aquatic, the Russian desman is actually a mole and thus mostly blind; it lives only in parts of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan; and it lives in non-family groups of two to five animals with communication and social structures that are complex and largely unstudied.

Not to diminish the awesomeness of Rodhocetus and the evolution of whales, but Russian desmans seem pretty awesome too.

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Plectronoceras, the earliest known shelled cephalopod and possibly the last common ancestor of all cephalopods (which includes today’s octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus).  It’s also an amazing molluscan wizard and my favorite animal ever.  From the late Cambrian.

(image credit)

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Cavenderichthys talbragarensis (top), whose Latin name alone takes up about 1/3 of its Wikipedia article, and its friend Uarbryichthys (bottom).  From the Jurassic.

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Hallopus, originally thought to be a dinosaur, but in reality probably a crocodilian.  It seems to have stood much more erectly than current crocodiles though; something about its posture here reminds me of a rather lanky dog.  From the late Jurassic.

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Belemnoid, a type of cephalopod that roamed the oceans from the Devonian till their extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.  They were similar to today’s squid or cuttlefish (except with ten arms and no tentacles, rather than eight arms and two tentacles... because you needed to know).

Normally only the bullet-shaped back of the internal shell is found fossilized; these were known as thunderstones because they were believed to be the result of lightning strikes.

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Callobatrachus, a prehistoric frog from the early Cretaceous.  Apparently good frog specimens are hard to come by in the fossil record, so this guy has been quite illuminating in the study of their evolution.

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Alxasaurus, one of a type of dinosaur called therizinosaurs.  It displayed several typical characteristics such as the long neck, short tail, and large hand claws.  Also its name starts with one of my nicknames for my boyfriend (hi Alx!).  From the Cretaceous.