#non dinosaur prehistoric creatures

[kaiyves-backup]

A massive jawbone found by a father-daughter fossil-collecting duo on a beach in Somerset along the English coast belonged to a newfound species that’s likely the largest known marine reptile to swim in Earth’s oceans.

Scientists consider the blue whale, which grows up to 110 feet (33.5 meters) long, to be the largest known animal ever to exist on the planet. But it’s possible that the 202 million-year-old reptile, known as an ichthyosaur or “fish lizard,” may have rivaled it in size.

The ichthyosaur’s jawbone, or surangular, was a long, curved bone at the top of the lower jaw just behind the teeth, and it measured more than 6.5 feet (2 meters) long. Researchers believe the creature, named Ichthyotitan severnensis, or “giant fish lizard of the Severn” in Latin, was more than 82 feet (25 meters) long, or the length of two city buses.

Justin and Ruby Reynolds, who live in Braunton, England, recovered the first pieces of the jawbone in May 2020 as they looked for fossils on the beach at Blue Anchor, Somerset. Ruby, 11 at the time, spotted the first chunk of bone, and then she and her dad found additional pieces together.

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

i was rewatching the rite of spring segment from fantasia and i've got to wonder. Why Did We Draw Archaeopteryx Like That. i remember toys having that same, boomerang arm shaped pose too. it's like a monkey lizard more than a bird.

Ooh okay this is a fun one cause while it technically is an Archaeopteryx and is listed as such in the production draft, I don't think the design is based on Archaeopteryx at all!

To me, this "Archaeopteryx" almost exactly resembles something else, the fascinating historical phenomenon called Proavis.

Proavis, or Tetrapteryx as some four-winged interpretations were called, was a hypothetical prehistoric creature that was proposed in the early 20th century as a best guess at what the unknown ancestor of birds could have looked like. The illustration above was drawn in 1926 by Gerhard Heilmann, a Danish artist and amateur scientist who argued that birds evolved from non-dinosaurian archosaurs like Euparkeria. In his 1916 book Vor Nuvaerende Viden om Fuglenes Afstamning and the 1926 English translation The Origin of Birds, he presented Proavis as the imagined midpoint between a scaly ground-running archosaur and Archaeopteryx, which at the time held the title of The First Bird.

Other versions of the same hypothesis, like William Beebe's Tetrapteryx above, were published and discussed around the same time, but it was Heilmann's Proavis that gained immense popularity to the point that bird evolution was considered essentially "solved" for decades. It was also painted by Zdeněk Burian, one of the Old Greats of palaeoart, which kept the concept alive in dinosaur books for decades as well.

Of course further study has shown this hypothesis to be incorrect and that birds are instead members of Dinosauria (and honestly Heilmann either missed or ignored a lot of evidence for a dinosaurian origin of birds even in the 1910s), but the Proavis to me remains a beautiful and fascinating concept that represents scientists and artists striving to understand the prehistoric world and the passage of evolution, much like we still do today!

And of course, its popularity in the early 20th century put it at the perfect time for Fantasia's artists to take... let's say heavy inspiration from Heilmann's imaginary Proavis when depicting a creature that was intended to be Archaeopteryx the whole time! The pattern of feathers matches up almost exactly, although the larger leg wings might have been inspired by Beebe's Tetrapteryx as well:

So to get back to your original question that led to this whole deep dive, artists didn't actually Draw Archaeopteryx Like That except when they were mistakenly drawing something that wasn't Archaeopteryx at all! If you want to read more about the Proavis and Tetrapteryx I recommend this Tetrapod Zoology blog post by Darren Naish, he does into more depth about the history of the concept and some of the unusual evolutionary ideas that Heilmann used to arrive at this weird and cool imaginary creature!

[wc-confessions]

Here's a rapid fire list of non-Warriors xenofiction novels WC fans can read. Will say I haven't read all of these, and in that case, I will not leave a comment. Obligatory Wings of Fire, Guardians of Ga'hoole, Redwall, and Watership Down recommendation. Honorable mentions go to other Erin Hunter series - Seekers, Survivors, Bravelands, and Bamboo Kingdom. Varjak Paw series by S.F. Said. Two books. Geared toward a younger audience like Warriors. I can vouch this as one of my favorites. I can see it being an acquired taste, especially for someone older, though. Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams. One book. Personally, I'd only recommend this book if you're super interested in learning about the inspiration for Warriors. Otherwise, its themes have aged like milk and the story isn't all too special. I will say the plot gets pretty decent and horrifying at the halfway point. The Deadlands series by Skye Melki-Wegner. Three books. I have completed the first and a read a little of the second. Geared towards a younger audience like Warriors. You can tell that the audience is younger due to the dialogue and characters. Descriptions are good and I'd imagine thrilling for the target demographic. In fact, I'd describe the books, that I've read so far, as thrilling in general. However, the "Jurassic Park meets Wings of Fire" comparison is a lie. Wings of Fire is accurate but this series has nothing to do with the Jurassic Park movies or books besides dinosaurs. It'd be closer to say "The Land Before Time meets Wings of Fire." I would definitely recommend it if you're looking for Warriors with dinosaurs. Silverwing series by Kenneth Oppel. I've only read a little of the first book, so I don't have much to talk about. I will tell you that a graphic novel has recently released! Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies. One book. About deer. No comment. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. One book. Horses. No comment. Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker. One book. Utahraptors. No comment. A Black Fox Running by Brian Carter. One book. Foxes. No comment. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. One book. Mice. No comment. Foxcraft series by Inbali Iserles. Three books. Foxes. No comment. The Tygrine Cat series by Inbali Iserles. Two books. Cats. No comment. The Books of the Named series by Clare Bell, more commonly known as Ratha's Creature or the Ratha series. Five books. Prehistoric Dinaelurus nimravids. No comment. I think I've listed enough in this ask, but I'll drop this xenofiction list https://www.tumblr.com/the-owl-tree/745956715298799616/xenofiction-reading-recommendation-list?source=share in case anyone wants more.

.

[swan2swan]

Dominion haters will fume like "If they were treating this dinosaur situation realistically with regards to environmental impact, they would be treating them like a proper invasive species, because the populations would have flourished from ten to ten thousand in four years! See, by every animal asexually reproducing with ten offspring every year, and the fact that nothing would kill them, we would reach numbers that would DEVASTATE the environment! Especially because the biggest creatures would reach full size within months of their birth!"

And I'm here just...

Guys. Elephants grow to full size over fifteen years.

Even if the accelerated growth gene Wu programmed into his animals resulted in fast-growing populations, they'd still probably take a year or two to reach adulthood and/or breeding age. Bumpy took a month or two to reach her peak, and she still turned out a runt, and she was a freak who was running at about 500% speed. And "rapid growth rate" is a whole different can of worms to study.

But...yes, it's boring, but that's not how invasive species work. I'm begging people to study the timelines of these things. I just looked into the python infestation in Florida, and they were basically introduced in the 1930s. The nineteen thirties. Almost a century ago. Then they were confirmed to be breeding in the wild in the nineties. Sixty years later. They weren't banned until 2012. They're an invasive species that's devastated the Everglades, but it took them decades to reach that point.

Pablo Escobar's hippos? Forty years.

But then you look at the Spotted Lanternfly and the Emerald Ash Borer. Insects. The Ash Borer came over in 2002, and it took a decade or so to mess up my neighborhood's ash tree population. The Lanternfly arrived in the 2010s. By the 2020s, it's Public Enemy Number One. Insect epidemics take a decade to latch on and do their thing. That's fast.

That's why the locust plot worked in Dominion. Because bringing back a prehistoric insect that can't be hunted by falcons or mantises or spiders or carnivorous non-avian dinosaurs is going to have FAR more rapid consequences than a dozen elephant-sized herbivores who wandered off a farm. Even a bunch of ostriches three times the size of ostriches.

If you take things seriously...you have to take it seriously in every aspect.

[maniculum]

scorpion in the 'buch der natur' by konrad von megenberg, alsace, c. 1440 (Stuttgart, Landesbibl., Cod. med. et phys. 2° 14, fol. 243v). interesting detail: the german text starts with the typical description of the scorpion as a snake with a pretty woman's face. over this passage, somebody added in latin: "non est ita" = "it's not like that". lmaoo. a paradigm shift. to ME

[Image ID: an arthropod with some odd tripartite mouthparts, a sort of neck raising its head from a beetle-like body, eight legs that end in pincers, a row of nodules along its back, and a fishhook-like tail. It is shown in an outdoor scene that makes it look gigantic.]

(Sorry for the delay on this. I've had deadlines keeping me busy, but they're done now and I'm trying to catch up on various things that fell by the wayside.)

Some remarkable stuff here. I absolutely love someone writing "it's not like that" over the description, and I really have to wonder (not that an answer is likely forthcoming) about the context. On one hand, the idea that someone is just straight-up (correctly) disputing the claim that a scorpion is a serpent with a woman's face is pretty funny. On the other hand, I also like the idea that this comment is meant to be juxtaposed with the illustration: "hey, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the giant rampaging monster you've drawn here does not have a woman's face. it's not like that."

Also, I know the scale is often not meant to be representative in these illustrations, but wow that's a big scorpion. We're back to prehistoric vibes, but this time our scorpion looks more like an actual dinosaur than any other thing I can think of. I suppose that's just my only referent for an armored creature of that size. It looks like it's a serious challenge for 4-6 mid-level adventurers.

No idea what's going on with those mouthparts, also. They need to be acknowledged, but I don't know what to say about them.

Anyway, points:

Small Scuttling Beaſtie? ½, definitely looks like it scuttles but is not small in the least

Pincers? eight on the ends of its legs rather than as a separate pair of limbs, but sure, ✓

Exoskeleton or Shell? ✓

Visible Stinger? ✓

Limbs? 8

As for vibes, I am enjoying this one. I don't want it to be near me, but it has a certain majesty when observed from a distance. Like this:

Yeah, we're still on the dinosaur comparison. 4 / 5.

And that means that this is officially the Best Scorpion So Far, coming in at a total score of:

8.3 / 10

Our bestiary illustrator was so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. (They absolutely should.)

[maisiesbike]

Wanted to start promoting my Jurassic world fanfiction so…is anyone interested in a found family adventure and character trauma? Anyone interested in Maisie and her gay panic for a girl that wanted to murder her? In the Nublar Six accepting Maisie as Part of their cult? In Non Binary Ben? In dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures roaming the country and the people that now have to defend themselves?

Just curious.

Little mood board here

[statecryptids]

Been crazy busy the last two weeks painting plywood dinosaurs for Dino Weekend at my trolley museum. Finally got to see them on display along the tracks this weekend.

I’ve always loved visiting parks with full-size dinosaur animatronics or statues. The goofier the better. So it’s honestly super cool that I got to create my own little roadside dinosaur park.

I painted each side of the dinosaur with a different design so they’d look different going out on the trolley line vs coming back.

The creatures are:

Dilophosaurus, which may have been the dinosaur that created the Eubrontes fossil tracks found throughout the Connecticut Valley.

Anchisaurus, an early sauropodomorph whose bones were found in East Windsor, CT. They are believed to be the first scientifically-studied dinosaur bones found in North America.

Camarasaurus, because I wanted to include a sauropod that isn’t as well known. This standee is 16 feet tall, so I had to paint it on its side.

Also Triceratops and Stegosaurus, ‘cause you gotta have the classics

Planning on adding more for next year. I’d really like to do more East Coast dinosaurs like Dryptosaurus, Hadrosaurus, and Podokesaurus. And some non-dinosaur prehistoric creatures like Carnufex, Postosuchus, Quetzalcoatlus, Dimetrodon, Arizonasaurus, and Estemmenosuchus.

[kingoftieland]

Just added another super cool fossil to the collection! This genuine Plesiosaur tooth was found in Morocco and dates all the way back to the Cretaceous period. It’s also quite a large specimen, measuring almost 2.5” in length!

Plesiosaurs are often mistaken for dinosaurs, however these prehistoric creatures are actually part of a separate group known as "marine reptiles." They first evolved in the Triassic (208.5 MYA) and thrived until the massive KT extinction event caused by the Chicxulub asteroid. This took place at the end of the Cretaceous, and was the same extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs (66 MYA). 💥🌊

[sagasolejma]

You have a favorite dinosaur but do you have a favorite non dinosaur prehistoric creature

ANOMALOCARIS SWEEP

[connectparanormal]

Is Nessie a Water Dinosaur?

The concept that the Loch Ness Monster, sometimes known as "Nessie," may be a living example of an aquatic dinosaur has captivated both the general public and some sections of the scientific community. This theory mainly claims that Nessie could be a plesiosaur, a kind of marine reptile that existed in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods of the Mesozoic Era. Plesiosaurs shared many characteristics with various descriptions and purported sightings of Nessie, including long necks, broad bodies, and flippers. This theory's proponents contend that Loch Ness's significant depth and vast underwater cave networks could serve as an appropriate home for a creature that has eluded current detection techniques. They propose that plesiosaurs or other comparable prehistoric species could survive in such an environment with a small breeding population. Furthermore, reports of a long-necked creature gliding across the waters of the loch appear to match the morphological characteristics of plesiosaurs.

Nevertheless, there are substantial scientific obstacles to the plesiosaur theory. First and foremost, it is thought that plesiosaurs and other non-avian dinosaurs were extinct 66 million years ago. It is exceedingly unlikely that a population could have endured drastic climatic changes and massive extinctions while remaining undetected for such a long time. Furthermore, Loch Ness formed approximately 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Before this time, ice encased the region, making it an unlikely refuge for a colony of extinct sea reptiles. To prevent genetic bottlenecks and guarantee long-term survival, the loch's ecology would also need to sustain a sizable breeding population. This would require a habitat that could support these animals as well as a consistent food source, both of which are at odds with our current understanding of Loch Ness's biology and ecology. Since most aquatic reptiles, like plesiosaurs, breathed air, frequent surface sightings would be necessary, yet reliable reports of such sightings are scarce.

The plesiosaur theory continues to be a persistent and widely accepted part of Nessie mythology in spite of these scientific challenges. Long-standing interest in dinosaurs and the possibility of finding relics from past eras in uncharted regions of the earth appeal to it. Anecdotal evidence, folklore, and a desire for mystery sustain conjecture and fascination with the Loch Ness Monster, whether it's a plesiosaur or some other unidentified entity. Even though most scientists agree that plesiosaurs did not survive into modern times, the fascination with the unknown keeps these notions alive in the popular consciousness.

[kaiyves-backup]

Long-time readers of my blog may remember (and sadly they’ll have to just remember for the time being because my account is still suspended) that the Harvard Museum of Natural History is the source of two long-running memes: the Selfielacanth…

…and…

GIANT GROUND SLOTH! GIANT GROUND SLOTH! GIANT GROUND SLOTH!

I went back today and I am happy to inform you both exhibits are still there and have not changed in 8-11 years.

I am also thigh-high to a giant moa.

Blue dragon sea slug plushies that unfortunately have more of a sea lion body type than the real slugs? A++ for concept but C- for accuracy. (There’s an embroidery pattern for an equally cute but more accurate one on Esty here, but unfortunately you can’t just buy the toy itself from the seller, only a pattern.)

[mediasaurs]

TRM Round 1: Night at the Museum (Rexy) vs. The Lost World (1925)

Night at the Museum (Rexy) – Based on the real T. rex fossil at the American Museum of Natural History, Rexy proves to be far more animated than night security guard Larry Daley had expected. Fortunately, Rexy is more fun-loving than dangerous and is happy to play fetch with one of his own ribs.

The Lost World (1925) – Based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World centers around…well, a lost world where non-avian dinosaurs still exist. As one would expect, a crew of explorers decide to go there and get themselves into peril. A Tyrannosaurus is among the many dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures featured in the film, and it’s seen fighting with a Pteranodon, a Brachiosaurus, and a dubious ceratopsian.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Every Friday the 13th is Prehistoric Creature Day, where you're supposed to take your prehistoric creatures out to dinner (usually dinosaur toys). What prehistoric creatures would you like to have dinner with? How about if it's limited to non-dinosaurs? And which, since it's October, would you have a spooooky dinner with?

- Literally all of them, how could I pick

- Spooky dinner though I need to have with Therizinosaurus and Deinocheirus specifically

[cedarspiced]

hiya! i'm cedar! i'm a 22 y/o grey-ace fagdyke creature living in the PNW.

buy me a kofi?

my free/cheap anthro bases

gazafunds.com

sudanfunds.com

some things about me:

ΘΔ grackle-cat griffin, sable, cat, deinonychus, coydog, painted dog

i use it/they pronouns

i'm ADHD and autistic

i'm a physically disabled cane & wheelchair user with long covid, POTS, and several other fun conditions

i'm polyam and partnered with @bovinebimbobussy <3

i'm a huge paleoenthusiast and while i do have a soft spot for Mesozoic dinosaurs, i'm also a big fan of all the other prehistoric critters and plants. opabinia my beloved

i'm a furry and reblog furry art & fursuit pics sometimes, so if u don't wanna see that, please block those tags!

i also do reblog unreality stuff from time to time and I often forget to tag it, so if that's something that could bother you, please be forewarned.

i also reblog some nsfw text posts, so please be aware of that!

rent lowering gunshots:

kink belongs at pride and always has

masks & vaccines are awesome and slow the spread of disease

black lives matter and always have

free palestine. death to israel & to the USA.

if you say you're trans, you're trans. end of. there's no other requirements.

sex is a spectrum, not a binary. also, intersex people belong in the queer community.

TMA and TME are just terms used to describe a group most affected by a certain type of discrimination (in this case, transmisogyny). no, TME does not automatically mean transmasc. it also includes all cis perisex people and non-transfem intersex folks. (what do TME/TMA mean?)

thought crimes aren't real and having paraphilias doesn't automatically make you an Evil Bad Person

callout posts are only ever harmful. yes even if they really did do that thing they're being accused of.

the tr*nsandroph*bia movement is just Mens' Rights Movement: Transgender Edition. yes, transmascs are oppressed. that is purely because we are transgender. not because we are transgender & masc.

asexual and aromantic people belong in the queer community. yes, even the cishet ones.

vote-scolding people who have already made up their mind about an election is only going to make everyone more upset at each other, and calling people bots or russian psy-ops for having a different political opinion is uh. Not Cool. to put it politely (a.k.a. that behavior is rooted in primarily USamerican racism and xenophobia.) sometimes people just have different takes based on different lived experiences!

tagging explanations, sideblogs, other socials, and fursona refs under the cut :3

my tags:

#cedar speaks - my personal posting tag

#my face - self explanatory

#my art - also self explanatory

#no id - posts with no image description

#partial id - posts with some images described, but not all. alternatively, posts that have an ID that only describes part of the image (e.g. a post with a picture of an orange cat wearing a blue t-shirt that's captioned 'i love his little shirt' but the image is just described as 'a small animal'.)

#described - posts that have all images fully described

my sideblogs:

@sableteeth - therian/alterhuman sideblog @cedarspiced-artchive - all of my art gets reblogged to here

@morrowinds - all things elder scrolls

@slime-squishes - mined craft :]

@zooplanet - planet zoo, though i've been thinking about making it a sims sideblog as well

@the-fog-chamber - echo vn stuff

@fagmoans - horny blog. dni unless you're 18+

other socials (not really active on em, but jic this site goes tits-up):

instagram

cohost

bluesky

furaffinity

my fursonas:

Cedar (my namesake <3)

art by marlomogensen, with minor edits & background by me

[more detailed IDs for these coming soon, please be patient!]

Nyx (my truesona)

art by yours truly!

[space-blue]

2 episodes in Prehistoric Planet season 2, and I must say, the animation is incredible. Top notch. Every animal feels heavy and real...

But if Favreau and his philosophy of 'grey and drab = real' could actually fuck off to go ruin another genre of cinema and leave dinos and animals at large alone, that'd be great!!

Every dino is some shade of grey or brown. Dashes of reddish-rust colour aren't noticeable or enough. Have you seen... birds? Have you seen... lizards? They're not all sand coloured you know?? Not every baby needs to have a quail pattern and colour palette either.

We know things like some raptors having *iridescent* plumage.

When we applied our method to the melanosomes of Anchiornis, the results were striking. Our statistical predictions indicated that the feathers that covered much of the creature's body were mostly gray. The long feathers on the animal's arms and legs, in contrast, were unpigmented by melanosomes and thus white, except for the melanosome-laden tips, which we predicted were black. (Modern birds often have black-tipped wing feathers. The melanin, in addition to coloring the feathers, also fortifies them against battering winds. Perhaps Anchiornis benefited from this strengthening property of melanin, too.) Most surprising, the feathers on the crown of the head contained impressions of round melanosomes—the “meatballs”—that would have given Anchiornis a ruddy crest. All told, this combination of colors made for a spectacularly flamboyant creature.

It was not long before we discovered evidence of iridescence in an actual dinosaur—a crow-size creature from China with wings on all four limbs. Dubbed Microraptor, it was a primitive cousin to Jurassic Park's Velociraptor. The movie depicted Velociraptor with scaly skin, but scientists now know that both these dinosaurs were, in fact, covered in feathers. In Microraptor, the preserved feathers contain long, sausage-shaped melanosomes arranged to bend light in eye-catching ways. Its plumage thus would have been black, with the same shiny sheen as a crow's. Microraptor is not the only extinct creature now known to have had that rainbow shimmer. Jennifer Peteya of Oberlin College and Ghent's Shawkey have described shimmering iridescence in an enantiornithine bird, called Bohaiornis, and a Jurassic theropod with a big, fan-shaped tail, named Caihong.

Source

Let the artists be creative too, come on. Watching the show saddens me at times when a new dino comes in looking so alive but the exact same grey muddled mix of non-colour.

[paleopinesofficial]

since non-dinosaurs prehistoric creatures are clearly on the table for you guys, do you think there is any chance we'll be seeing some ancient amphibians at some point? diplocaulus and prionosuchus would really suit the game's style!

Ooo thank you for the suggestion! While we're not currently working on adding any more dinos (or non dinos) to the game, this is a great suggestion if we get the opportunity!