#DrawDinovember2020

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 7 - Vegavis iaai

Listen. I know what you’re thinking. “But... Sarita, this is just a goose.”

Here is what’s special about this goose. First of all it’s not a goose, but a close relative. We don’t have a skull, but we do have a syrinx that shows it was capable of honking. But here’s the most special part: it lived in Antarctica... during the late Cretaceous.

This means it lived at the same time as ankylosaurs, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, dromaeosaurs, and tyrannosaurs: some of the most famous dinosaurs!

Among many other bird species from this era, Vegavis shows us that at this point birds were already in the diverse groups they are today. T. rex could have hunted waterfowl, small birds could have pecked at Spinosaurus’ teeth to clean them, the giant Quetzalcoatlus would have shared the skies with these small, agile dinosaurs.

Vegavis serves to remind us that we are very lucky to have this huge diverse group of dinosaurs still sharing this planet with us today.

So next time you get chased by an angry goose, remember that that angry goose’s ancestors probably had to chase raptors away from their nests... and those angry geese probably won. And just look at which lineage survived extinction...

[jef-jaxon]

#drawdinovemberday8 Moschops. Okay, it’s a therapsid, a member of synapsids like dimetroton, but is significant as it’s one of the first mammal-like animals living around 260 million years ago. It’s thick head is believed to have been used for head butting. To me its name would be a cute one for a modern day pet, nick name ‘Chops’. #drawdinovember2020 #moschops #therapsid #synapsid #headbutt #thickskull #paleoart #artistsoninstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CHVe3ljjKWf/?igshid=f287zwtybkpr

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 8 - Geosternbergia sternbergi

Since I did Pterodactylus, I wanted to also include a Pteranodon, as those two pterosaurs seem to be the only ones the average layperson knows about. However, Geosternbergia has a cooler crest, in my opinion, and it’s close enough (it could be considered to either be a species of Pteranodon, or its direct ancestor.)

Geosternbergia was one of the largest pterosaurs. On all fours, an adult male could have stood as tall as a human, and in flight could have had a wingspan of up to 19.7 ft! They were extremely sexually dimorphic, with the males being twice as large as the females, and with bigger crests.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 25 - Massospondylus carinatus

Massospondylus was an early sauropodomorph, and one of the first dinosaurs to be named, in 1854!

Early sauropodomorphs were bipedal, and some may have even been omnivorous. Not quite as tall as it’s sauropod descendants, Massospondylus was still pretty big, at about 13 to 20 feet long it would have been able to stretch its long neck into the trees of the Southern African desert. It had a long, sharp thumb claw on each arm that could have been used for combat, to strip bark from trees, or even to dig.

Since 1976, at least 10 Massospondylus egg clutches have been found, with up to 34 eggs per clutch. Some fossilized embryos of these little sauropods were able to be extracted and examined, and had short, stubby proportions, big heads, and large eyes. Based on hatchling footprints near a nest site and the forelimb anatomy of the embryos, it was determined that hatchlings would have walked on all fours until they could support themselves on their hind legs. These remain the oldest dinosaur embryos ever found.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 30 - Spinosaurus aegyptiacus

Our final entry for Archovember is Spinosaurus! Spinosaurus got a lot of attention this year after some exciting discoveries were released.

But first, to give some background: Spinosaurus was discovered in 1912 in Egypt, and then described in 1915. Of the remains found, there were pieces of jaw, teeth, some vertebrae, ribs, neural spines, and the gastralia. At this time Spinosaurus was usually depicted as a typical theropod, long-legged with a short snout, due to there being no limbs and the rest of its skull discovered. This original specimen was lost during WWI, when the British bombed the museum it was stored in. Nothing remains of this original specimen but detailed drawings and descriptions, and two photographs that were donated in 1995.

Since the 90s, more fragmentary remains were uncovered throughout Africa, including more pieces of skull and, in 2008 (but published in 2014), a more complete skeleton that showed the hind limbs were much shorter than we’d thought.

For many years Spinosaurus was assumed to be semi-aquatic, but there wasn’t much to prove this other than its teeth and jaws being adapted for eating fish. Until April 2020. As the 2008 skeleton continued to be excavated, scientists discovered a tail. This Spinosaurus’ sail seemed to continue down the length of its body, giving it a paddle-shaped, yet highly flexible tail!

With fish-eating jaws, short but powerful hind legs, and a newt-like paddle tail, it was clear that Spinosaurus would have likely spent all or most of its time in the water. It was definitely a much stranger animal than we could have imagined, and I hope for many more discoveries to be revealed!

The one in this drawing has come out to sun itself and is perhaps guarding a nest. I imagine it to have had a lifestyle like a loon; doing most everything in the water except nesting, looking absolutely ridiculous trying to get around on land, and looking ridiculously graceful in the water.

And thus ends Archovember! I hope you enjoyed my renditions of popular and lesser known dinosaurs, pterosaurs, pseudosuchians, and other archosauromorphs. And thank you to those who participated as well! I hope you enjoyed learning about these amazing creatures as much as I did. I already have my list made up for next year. 😅

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 12 - Incisivosaurus gauthieri

The oddly toothed little nerd of the dinosaurs, Incisivosaurus is a small, primitive Oviraptorosaur.

Incisivosaurus’ well-preserved skull displays rodent-like buck teeth, which display wear that indicates a herbivorous, or omnivorous diet.

We also have two specimens of Incisivosaurus with preserved feather impressions! A younger specimen with shorter primary (“wing”) feathers, and an older specimen with both primary and secondary feathers, as long as their tail feathers! This may show that the arm feathers grew larger with age and younger oviraptorosaurs would not have needed them. However, it is also argued that the younger specimen may have been in the process of molting when it died, and that’s why the feathers seem smaller and fluffier!

[saritawolff]

Just for fun, I made some size charts of all the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, pseudosuchians, and other archosauromorphs I’ve drawn for Dinovember both this year and last year. I did not realize I’ve drawn so many dinosaurs. 😬

(Please keep in mind this is not meant to be scientific; I merely eyeballed other size charts and made my estimates from there as I’m terrible with numbers)

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 21 - Kaprosuchus saharicus

Here he is. The Beast, the Myth, the Legend. The Boar Croc.

Kaprosuchus is actually known only from a skull, but its skull is very interesting, with large tusk-like, interlocking teeth, small horns at the back of its skull, and forward-facing eyes. Since we do not know what the rest of its body looked like, I based it off of its close relative Mahajangasuchus.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 19 - Austroraptor cabazai

Yes, I did in fact remember to include a raptor this year. 😅

Austroraptor is one of the largest dromeosaurs known, and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, standing about as tall as a human and about 16 feet from head to tail. It had some unique proportions, with shorter arms than the average dromeosaur, and conical rather than serrated teeth. It’s suggested that, due to its long legs, Austroraptor was a pursuit predator, chasing down small, fast animals in Cretaceous Argentina.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 1!

I chose Dilophosaurus wetherilli for my day 1 dinosaur. While Spinosaurus probably got the most attention this year (and is on this year’s Archovember list, so more on that later) there was also some exciting information released about Dilophosaurus as well, so I figured I should probably include this guy!

Poor Dilophosaurus has been through a lot, including getting probably the worst pop culture misinterpretation of all “Jurassic Park” dinosaurs. Yes, the one in the movie was supposed to be a baby, and may have been constructed from spitting cobra and frilled lizard DNA, but the image of Dilophosaurus as a small, frilled, short-nosed, venom-spitting creature is usually what the average person thinks of when you say “Dilophosaurus.” However, Dilophosaurus was the apex predator of its time and environment, standing 2 meters tall, and 20 feet from head to tail, with a long, slender jaw and large bony crest on its head. But even being such a popular dinosaur, scientists have not been able to study it closely due to its fossils not being well kept. Until this year, not much information on dilophosaurus’ skull had been closely studied or released to the public. But in July an in-depth study was finally published on Dilophosaurus, showing that it had air pockets within its crest, and the bone may have only served as the foundation for a larger soft-tissue crest, meaning Dilophosaurus’ crest could have been even bigger and we really can’t know how big it was for sure yet! Think hornbill or cassowary (which was the inspiration for this depiction, if it’s not obvious.)

Anyway, I think dilophosaurus is a really interesting dinosaur, even more so than it’s pop-culture depiction, and even though it’s not quite as exciting as Spinosaurus, it still earned it’s own spotlight in 2020.

(Side note, sorry about the wall of text; I won’t do this for every entry but I would like to be at least a little educational this time around 😅)

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 5 - Pinacosaurus grangeri

I chose Pinacosaurus as this year’s ankylosaurid because every single front-facing depiction of them has made me both laugh and squeal with glee. Pinacosaurus’ were absolutely WIDE LADS. They were like walking round tables but with spikes. You wanna just sit on one cross legged while it ambles around... but that would probably hurt. Anyway.

Pinacosaurus was a medium-sized ankylosaur, longer and wider than it was tall, and would have only been able to reach up to about the hip of an average human. They seemed to travel in herds, roaming from oasis to oasis in the deserts of Mongolia and China, living alongside small predators like Velociraptor. There have been no large predators from this area discovered, so it is unknown what would have, or could have, preyed on this absolute unit.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 29 - Desmatosuchus spurensis

One of the strangest pseudosuchians, Desmatosuchus was large (over 4.5 meters long), armored, and had a shovel-like snout. It was like if a crocodile tried to be an ankylosaur, a pig, and an armadillo all at once. Not only did they have armored scutes running down their back, they also had spines running down the sides of their neck into their shoulders. Desmatosuchus are the only aetosaurs known to have possessed spines like these. It is likely they travelled in herds or family groups, as their fossils are abundant and usually found grouped together. While their armor would have protected their necks, they were still probably preyed upon heavily by predators like Postosuchus, who also travelled in groups.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 17 - Tianyulong confuciusi

This tiny heterodontosaur (a type of ornithischian like ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, ornithopods, and stegosaurs) was found in 2010 with a crest of long, rigid, filamentous structures down its neck, back, and tail, similar to feathers or quills! This, along with filaments found on other ornithischians like Kulindadromeus and Psittacosaurus, suggests that feathers or feather-like structures were not just unique to Coelurosaurs.

Possibly due to its tusks, Tianyulong is usually drawn pretty ugly, but I’m quite fond of the very round and fluffy model from the American Museum of Natural History. So I went the sassy-but-cute-little-porcupine route.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 23 - Pentaceratops sternbergi

Pentaceratops was a large ceratopsian. At around 6 meters long, with the skull alone being between 2.3 and 2.16 meters long, it was a force to be reckoned with. While Triceratops was still the bigger animal, Pentaceratops had a larger frill. Mostly found in New Mexico, but reaching up to Colorado, we have over a dozen specimens of Pentaceratops, so it’s anatomy is one of the most well understood of the ceratopsians.

(Also, I don’t know why I keep using snakes as palettes for ceratopsians, but this design is loosely based on the cave-dwelling rat snake which is quite possibly the most beautiful snake I’ve ever seen.)

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 22 - Olorotitan arharensis

When thinking of giant dinosaurs, we often think of sauropods, but there were quite a few hadrosaurs who could give them a run for their money, and Olorotitan was one of them. On all fours, it would have stood 4 meters tall, and reared up on its hind legs, it would have dwarfed a Tyrannosaurus rex.

But luckily, T. rex didn’t have to deal with Olorotitan, as Olorotitan lived in eastern Russia. In fact, this area seemed to be overrun with hadrosaur species, and there haven’t been any predators discovered that would have been able to prey on them.

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 18 - Teraterpeton hrynewichorum

These guys were /weird/. With a long, possibly-beaked, head and a sprawled lizard-like body, Teraterpeton’s name translates to “wonderful creeping thing.”

Teraterpeton is so weird that I got stuck for a very long time trying to figure out what to color it. No one really knows what niche it filled, though it seems to have been highly specialized for /something/. I ended up looking into where it was found, Nova Scotia, and at the time it was alive the area was a desert. I then looked up Canadian desert animals, and decided a badger fit Teraterpeton’s body plan the closest, so I used an American badger as my starting point. So, here we are, with a strange, beaked badger thing.