#saurornitholestes

[cypressure]

flocking 9/20/24 -- Opabinia, Barosaurus, Titanites, Saurornitholestes

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Saurornitholestes cracking open a big snail by slamming it against the skull of a Stegoceras, a good anvil when a rock is not around.

[tertain-the-original]

Did my first flocking last night!!! I had a lot of fun, look forward to next time :)

Opabinia, Barosaurus, Titanites, and Saurornitholestes!

[primordialprose]

A few highlights from 2020 - 2021, sketchy portraits of animals from the Black Creek Group. Largely outdated, but some may still see use.

[ppaleoartistgallery]

#Paleostream 21/09/2024

here's yesterday's #Paleostream flocking sketches (the one i hosted :P)

yesterday we drew Opabinia, Barosaurus, Titanites, and Saurornitholestes

these are late because i took a long sleep right after stream finished lol

[t00thpasteface]

saurornitholestes and baryonyx patrol the brackish delta waters near the port settlement of twinheart

[hunkmunkulous]

lil Saurornitholestes sketch

[whump-galaxy]

If you're still taking stuff about extinct/prehistoric animals, I am a Very Undecisive Person and can never choose just One favourite - they're all So Good! - HOWEVER I have at least been able to narrow down my favourite non-avian dinosaurs to four genera.

From smallest to largest, they are: Microraptor, Changyuraptor, Saurornitholestes, and Dakotaraptor (admittedly a dubious taxon 😢). Am I a sucker for dromaeosaurids? Absolutely.

Hope things get better for you soon!

I will never judge someone for being indecisive about favorite cool animals!!

These dudes got the apple bottom jeans, boots with the feathers!

And these dudes have places to BE!!!

And thank you very much! I’m trying to be calm about it but I’ve got awhile to go before I have definitive answers.

I really appreciate everyone who has sent me dinosaurs and ancient animals for fun! It has made me feel so much better!

[si-nequal-is]

Saurornitholestes attacks Caenagnathus

[hasellia]

My Raptor Collection.

[biirdtator]

airport sketches. i went to DC to see family this week and i got to see the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian. these are some of them that i saw. i’m more proud of some of them than others, but eh, i’m tired

the doodles on the right are from my sister lmao

[apsaravis]

Saurornitholestes and Basilemys

Slowly going through my backlog, this one's from 2021

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Results from the (partly) pachycephalosaur #paleostream

Avisaurus (with Platytholus), Saurornitholestes (with Stegoceras skull), Tylocephale, Texacephale (Deinosuchus in the background)

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

Just saw ur vulture post. Could a dinosaur have a crown like a chicken? If so, which ones are most likely to have this feature?

I feel like chicken combs are one of those things that's so normal to us because we're familiar with chickens that we don't appreciate how wacky looking it is, like this animal's entire face gets turned into a massive billboard of red skin flaps.

As far as I'm aware there's no underlying bone structure that correlates to chickens' combs, so if an extinct dinosaur did have one we wouldn't see it in the fossil record unless it was exceptionally well preserved. That being said, there are a few guidelines that can help make some generally arm-wavey guesses about what may or may not have had them!

For predator species I'd say large brightly coloured billboards on the face are fairly unlikely since across most land vertebrates predators tend to prioritise stealth and blending in. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that more carrion-eating vultures have adornment because they don't need to stay hidden from their food, cause it's, y'know. dead.

Dromaeosaurs are generally though to be predators, although like most predators they probably incorporated scavenging into their feeding patterns and we don't know whether there were any species that specialised as carrion eaters! I have drawn dromaeosaurs with combs or crests before, and I definitely don't think it's an impossible suggestion, but I think it's most reasonable to give them muted colours like with this Saurornitholestes:

I would guess that smaller omnivorous or herbivorous maniraptorans like oviraptorosaurs or small ground birds are more likely candidates to have flashy skin on their faces, although large oviraptorosaurs with bony crests probably didn't also have a comb on top of that.

Something like Avimimus, which was a small oviraptorosaur that likely lived in groups according to a bonebed of at least ten individuals together. Something like a colourful comb or wattles on these guys could be used for social signalling or species recognition:

As far as I'm aware there's next to no skin data for small ornithischians like heterodontosaurids and ornithopods aside from the funky Kulindadromeus scales, but being small, mostly herbivorous, probably quite social animals I can see an evolutionary benefit to bright signalling structures! Alongside oviraptorosaurs, I think small ornithischians like Manidens here are probably the best non-avian analogue to modern ground fowl that have these kinda of wacky skin structures:

So overall. Yeah I think there's potential that Mesozoic dinosaurs could have had a chickenlike comb! Like with modern fowl, it would have evolutionary value to small social species as a display structure, but tradeoffs like being more visible to predators/prey would definitely be in play here.

I mean obviously the tradeoff is worth it in some cases since we get creatures like this walking around on this earth:

Basically my message with all this is like. When doing palaeoart look into what areas are open to speculation, then think about what factors might constrain those!

[cypressure]

cypressure 2024 top 10

1. Kentrosaurus aethiopicus - 8,095 notes - Jul 10 2024

2. amtrak cascades - 3,758 notes - Sep 19 2024

3. Irritator challengeri - 2,347 notes - May 14 2024

4. Sauropelta - 2,075 notes - May 4 2024

5. Fona, Isotelus, Coahuilasaurus, and Goyacephale - 1,760 notes - Sep 8 2024

6. izzy + tem - 1,524 notes - Jan 27 2024

7. Raptor Red - 1,498 notes - Mar 30 2024

8. Dilophosaurus - 1,427 notes - May 20 2024

9. Opabinia, Barosaurus, Titanites, and Saurornitholestes - 1,345 notes - Sep 21 2024

10. Cameroceras, Thalassotitan, Ctenosauriscus, and Saltopus - 1,317 notes - Sep 15 2024

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[saritapaleo]

Archovember 2024 Day 3 - Gorgosaurus libratus

The apex predator of Western North America during the Late Cretaceous was Gorgosaurus libratus. Found so far in Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA, it lived several million years before Tyrannosaurus rex would appear. While it was a tyrannosaurid, it was more closely related to Albertosaurus, so much so that some scientists consider it to be another species of Albertosaurus. Gorgosaurus is the most numerous tyrannosaurid in the fossil record, known from dozens of specimens. This abundance of fossils has allowed paleontologists to investigate Gorgosaurus’ ontogeny, life history and many other aspects of its biology. For example, in 2023, a 5-7 year old juvenile Gorgosaurus was discovered with stomach contents consisting of two intact Citipes juveniles about a year old. This showed that younger Gorgosaurus’ were mostly eating prey much smaller than them, and were probably not hunting in packs, as the meal would not have been large enough to share. That being said, only the remains of the hindlimbs and caudal vertebrae of the juvenile Citipes were present, suggesting that this Gorgosaurus may have had a preference for the muscular hindlimbs. Many Gorgosaurus specimens also preserve evidence of facial scars, a result of intraspecies facebiting.

Gorgosaurus would have lived on the coastal plain along the western edge of the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea which divided North America in half during the Late Cretaceous. The area was subtropical with periods of drought. Conifers would have dominated the forests, while the underbrush consisted of ferns, tree ferns and angiosperms. Gorgosaurus is best known from the Dinosaur Park Formation. Here, it would have lived alongside another apex predator: Daspletosaurus wilsoni. While these tyrannosaurids were roughly the same size, they may have preferred different types of prey, allowing them to coexist without too much competition. And there was a wide diversity of prey here, from many of the most famous ornithopods like Parasaurolophus walkeri, Corythosaurus casuarius, Gryposaurus notabilis, and Lambeosaurus lambei, to beloved ceratopsians like Styracosaurus albertensis, Centrosaurus apertus, Chasmosaurus belli, Spinops sternbergorum, and Vagaceratops irvinensis. There were also ankylosaurs like Anodontosaurus inceptus, Dyoplosaurus acutosquameus, Edmontonia rugosidens, Euoplocephalus tutus, Panoplosaurus mirus, Platypelta coombsi, and Scolosaurus. Pachycephalosaurids included Foraminacephale and Stegoceras validum. Gorgosaurus also shared space with other, smaller theropods, like the ornithomimids Ornithomimus and Rativates, caenagnathids like Caenagnathus, Chirostenotes, and Citipes, dromaeosaurids like Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes, and troodontids like Latenivenatrix and Stenonychosaurus. Dinosaurs were not the only animals here, and Gorgosaurus would have also had to share space with the giant azhdarchid pterosaur Cryodrakon, as well as alligatoroids like Albertochampsa and Leidyosuchus, and choristoderes like Champsosaurus. Gorgosaurus is also known from the Two Medicine Formation and Judith River Formation.

This art may be used for educational purposes, with credit, but please contact me first for permission before using my art. I would like to know where and how it is being used. If you don’t have something to add that was not already addressed in this caption, please do not repost this art. Thank you!