Velociraptor mongoliensis

*Note: This is a digitally colored version of the original, available here:
sounder1995.deviantart.com/art…

Velociraptor mongoliensis (Osborn, 1924)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Tetanurae
Coelurosauria
Maniraptora
Paraves
Dromaeosauridae
Velociraptorinae

Late Cretaceous
Mongolia, China

Length: 2.07 m

The sclerotic rings of this once obscure little dinosaur suggest that she was primarily a nocturnal and/or crepuscular hunter amongst the sand dunes of Late Cretaceous Mongolia and China. Clever girl.
Sunday, August 30th, 2015

C. megalodon

C. megalodon

Chondrichthyes (Cartilaginous Fishes)

Elasmobranchii

Selachimorpha / Selachii (Sharks)

Lamniformes

Lamnidae OR Otodontidae

-          if Lamnidae: Carcharodon megalodon (Agassiz, 1843)

-          else if Otodontidae: Carcharocles megalodon (Jordan & Hannibal, 1923)

Middle Miocene to Late Pliocene

Worldwide

Length: Up to 18 m?

The largest shark of all time, she possessed one of the most powerful bite forces known to humans and hunted whales as a regular part of her balanced diet.

On a more important note: STOP. KILLING. SHARKS. Sharks kill an average of 10 people every year. Humans kill about 100 million sharks every year. Eating shark fins might make you look posh in your country, but to the rest of the world, you just look like an ass.

Estimated Bite Force: 108,514 N - 182, 201 N (Wroe et al., 2008)

Friday, August 28^th, 2015

Tyrannosaurus rex

*Note: This is a digitally colored version of the original, available here:
sounder1995.deviantart.com/art…

Tyrannosaurus rex (Osborn, 1905)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Tetanurae
Coelurosauria
Tyrannosauroidea
Tyrannosauridae

Late Cretaceous
Western North America

Length: 12.3 m

What does the T. rex say? Lacking the syrinx found in modern birds, T. rex could've growled and hissed like modern crocodilians, but she almost certainly could not have roared. Sorry, Spielberg.

On the plus side, she's got the most powerful bite of any terrestrial animal, so who cares what she sounds like? You'd be bitten in half before you even hear her footsteps...

Estimated Bite Force: 3.6 - 5.8 metric tonnes (Bates & Falkingham, 2012); 18.3 - 23.5 metric tonnes (Meers, 2003)

Monday, August 24th, 2015

Triceratops prorsus

Triceratops prorsus (Marsh, 1890)
Sauropsida
Diapsida
Archosauria
Dinosauria
Ornithischia
Neornithischia
Marginocephalia
Ceratopsia (Horned Dinosaurs)
Ceratopsidae 
Chasmosaurinae

Upper Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous
Hell Creek Formation
United States (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming)

Length: 7.9 – 9.0 m

Everyone’s favorite walking billboard was a lot spikier and hornier (in every sense of the word) than you might remember him to be.

Thursday, August 13th, 2015

Collinsium ciliosum

Collinsium ciliosum (Yang et al.)
Ecdysozoa
Panarthropoda
Stem-Onychophora (Velvet Worms)
Luolishaniidae

Early to Middle Cambrian
Yunnan Province, China

Length: 85 mm

With dorsal spines that managed to stay three dimensional even after 500 million years of geological activity, Collinsium was one particularly prickly invertebrate. Like her modern kin (velvet worms), she possesses Matryoshka doll style claws (and in her case, also spines) composed of layered chitin, the same carbohydrate that forms arthropod exoskeletons. Unlike velvet worms though, her kind were far more diverse in lifestyle and ecological niche. She, in fact, was a bona fide filter feeder and lacked eyes altogether (Those are armor plates before her antennae!). The glory days of stem-Onychophora would come to an end by the end of the Cambrian, though. Nowadays, shooting disgusting goo at prey and then liquefying it into delicious soup is all the rage among Onychophora.

Sunday, August 2nd, 2015

Hallucigenia sparsa

Hallucigenia sparsa (Conway Morris, 1977)
Ecdysozoa
Panarthropoda
Stem-Onychophora (Velvet Worms)

Middle Cambrian
Burgess Shale
British Columbia, Canada

Length: 1 – 5(+) cm

Originally reconstructed upside down, walking on stilt legs with wavy tentacles on her back (Conway Morris, 1977), Hallucigenia later received a more plausible reconstruction upon further examination of extinct relatives (Ramskold & Xianguang, 1991). However, her head eluded confused primates for decades to come. The only clue was a blobby thingy at one end of her body. Fortunately, new specimens and the rise of the machines later revealed her head, complete with simple eyes, mouth, and pharyngeal teeth, at the end opposite the blob (Smith & Caron, 2015). Turns out the blobby thingy was just decay fluid… (Does this mean I’m going to bleed out my anus after I die?) Like her modern kin (velvet worms), she possesses Matryoshka doll style claws (and in her case, also spines) composed of layered chitin, the same carbohydrate that forms arthropod exoskeletons.

Friday, July 24th, 2015

Mammuthus columbi

Mammuthus columbi (Falconer, 1857) (Columbian Mammoth)
-    Formerly = Mammuthus imperator? (Leidy, 1858)
- Formerly = Mammuthus jeffersonii? (Osborn, 1922)
Mammalia
Theria
Eutheria
Placentalia
Afrotheria
Paenungulata
Proboscidea
Elephantidae

Pleistocene to Early Holocene
North America

Height: 4 m at the shoulder

A (more) southern relative of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), the Columbian mammoth sadly is also no longer a resident of our home planet. Whether he’s a victim of climate change and/or overhunting by North American “native” humans (Both the mammoths and humans migrated to North America from Asia by crossing the Bering land bridge) remains contested.

Monday, June 29th, 2015

*Note: This is an updated version of my previous Mammuthus columbi picture, available here:
sounder1995.deviantart.com/art…
I manually lightened parts of the image up for greater contrast and more definition to his form. May digitally color @ some point.

Europelta carbonensis

Europelta carbonensis (Kirkland et al., 2013)
Sauropsida
Diapsida
Archosauria
Dinosauria
Ornithischia
Thyreophora
Ankylosauria
Nodosauridae
Struthiosaurinae

Early Cretaceous
Spain

Length: 4.5 m

The most complete ankylosaur known from Europe, her remains were found in a Spanish coal mine.

Monday, June 29th, 2015

*Note: This is an updated version of my previous Europelta picture, available here:
sounder1995.deviantart.com/art…
I manually lightened parts of the image up for greater contrast and more definition to her form. May digitally color @ some point.

Paraceratherium transouralicum

Paraceratherium transouralicum (Pavlova, 1922)
-    Formerly = Indricotherium transouralicum (Pavlova, 1922)
Mammalia
Theria
Eutheria
Placentalia
Boreoeutheria
Laurasiatheria
Perissodactyla
Ceratomorpha
Rhinocerotoidea
Hyracodontidae
Indricotheriinae

Oligocene
Asia and Eastern Europe (Whose idea was it to divide Eurasia like that anyway?)

Height: 5(+?) m at the shoulder

The largest land mammal of all time… Maybe…  (www.app.pan.pl/archive/publish…) Unlike modern rhinos, he prefers leaves to grass, since grass wasn’t all that popular yet.

On a more important note: STOP. KILLING. RHINOS. Rhino horns are no more than incredibly compressed hair (They are composed solely of keratin, the protein that forms hair, nails, claws, and tetrapod scales.) and will not cure any diseases, extend your life expectancy, nor boost your sex life.

Friday, July 3rd, 2015

Carnotaurus sastrei

Carnotaurus sastrei (Bonaparte, 1985)
Sauropsida
Diapsida
Archosauria
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Ceratosauria
Abelisauroidea
Abelisauridae

Late Cretaceous
South America

Length: 8 – 9 m

The “flesh eating bull” in Latin, she has evolved a large caudofemoralis (muscle at the base of her tail), enabling her to run at surprisingly fast speeds for an animal of her size. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of smaller muscles for tail stability. To compensate, her proximal caudal vertebrae (tail vertebrae closest to her pelvis) interlocked with one another and her pelvis. This severely limited her ability to make tight turns, which likely led to many a pratfall. Luckily, her vestigial arms (proportionately the smallest in any known dinosaur, save for some flightless birds) meant there was not much to break in the event of a fall.

On the off chance anyone reads this, I’m taking a poll:
Who would win in a slap fight: this gal or a toddler?

“I hate Carnotaurus.”
-    Stephen Lang

Credit goes to  for the inspiration for the horn design.

Thursday, June 25th, 2015

Anisodon grande

Anisodon grande (Lartet, 1851)
-    Formerly = Chalicotherium grande (Blainville, 1849)
Mammalia
Theria
Eutheria
Placentalia
Boreoeutheria
Laurasiatheria
Perissodactyla
Chalicotheriidae
Chalicotheriinae

Late Oligocene to Early Pliocene
Europe

Height: 2.5+ m at the shoulder

A knuckle walking relative of modern day horses, rhinos, and tapirs, A. grande (not to be confused with Ariana Grande) spent a lot of her time sitting in front of trees and eating their leaves like a gorilla or panda.

Saturday, June 20th, 2015

Helicoprion

Helicoprion sp. (Karpinsky, 1899)
Chondrichthyes (Cartilaginous Fishes)
Holocephali
Eugeneodontida
Agassizodontidae

Late Carboniferous to Early Triassic
Worldwide

Length: 3 – 4 m

For over a century, bipedal apes scratched their heads in confusion as to where this fish’s dentition fit inside her mouth; being a cartilaginous fish, only her teeth managed to survive hundreds of millions of years of geological processes and hominid error. In 2013, newly described fossils, that included preserved cartilage, finally shed some light on her enigmatic oral features. It appears she likely evolved such unique dentition to help her more efficiently consume (and potentially shell) cephalopods. Yum! Who wants calamari?

Monday, June 15th, 2015

Kelenken guillermoi

Kelenken guillermoi (Bertelli et al., 2007)
Sauropsida
Diapsida
Archosauria
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Coelurosauria
Avialae
Aves (Birds)
Neognathae
Cariamiformes
Phorusrhacidae (“Terror Birds”)

Middle Miocene
South America

Height: Up to 3 m

Armed with sharp talons and the most massive skull of any known bird, this titanic predator towered over all other competition. She dispatched her prey with swift downward blows from her beak.

Friday, June 12th, 2015

Anurognathus ammoni

Anurognathus ammoni (Döderlein, 1923)
Sauropsida
Diapsida
Archosauria
Avemetatarsalia
Pterosauria
Monofenestrata
Caelidracones
Anurognathidae

Late Jurassic
Germany

Wingspan: 35 cm

Long before drones and radio waves filled the air, Anurognathus soared amidst the trees of Germany, snatching up airborne insects with her small, sharp teeth.

Sunday, June 7th, 2015

Ceratogaulus hatcheri

Ceratogaulus hatcheri (Matthew, 1902) (Horned Gopher)
Mammalia
Theria
Eutheria
Placentalia
Boreoeutheria
Euarchontoglires
Glires
Rodentia
Sciuromorpha?
Mylagaulidae

Late Miocene to Early Pleistocene
North America

Length (Quadrupedal): About 30 cm

The smallest horned mammal known to modern science, she has evolved bony (not just keratinous!) horns as a defensive measure. They are no larger nor more elaborate in her male counterparts.

The horned gopher. An animal so self-explanatory, she makes rocket launcher instructions seem like graduate school level calculus!

Sunday, May 31st, 2015

Opabinia regalis

Opabinia regalis (Walcott, 1912)
Stem-Arthropoda
Dinocaridida?
Radiodonta
Opabiniidae

Middle Cambrian
Burgess Shale
British Columbia, Canada

Length: 7 cm (9.4 cm with proboscis)

Long before plastic and radioactive garbage filled the oceans, Opabinia patrolled the seafloor, snatching up soft prey with her trunk and then shoving them into her backward pointing mouth on the underside of her head.

Thursday, May 28th, 2015

“Ain’t I seen you before? I think I remember those eyes, eyes, eyes!”
-    Usher

Yi qi

Yi qi (Xu et al., 2015)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Tetanurae
Coelurosauria
Maniraptora
Pennaraptora
Paraves
Scansoriopterygidae

Middle to Late Jurassic
Hebei, China

Estimated Mass: 380 g

Unlike her sister paravians, Yi qi was too cool for pennaceous feathers, sporting absolutely none (unless they somehow failed to be preserved with her remains). Instead, she evolved a “styliform element,” made of bone or at least calcified cartilage, extending from her wrist to help support her membranous wings as she glided, if not soared, through the forests of Middle and Late Jurassic China. 

Sunday, May 24th, 2015

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (Stromer, 1915)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Tetanurae
Megalosauroidea
Spinosauridae
Spinosaurinae

Early to Late Cretaceous
North Africa

Length: 15+ m

The largest carnivore to ever walk on terra firma, she preferred fish to dinosaurian flesh and the water to life as a land lubber. On a sadder note, her holotype specimen was destroyed during the night of April 24th, 1944 by a Royal Air Force bombing run on Munich, a solemn reminder that we humans would perhaps much rather prefer to destroy this planet than learn a darn thing about it.

Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

Deinocheirus mirificus

Deinocheirus mirificus (Osmólska & Roniewicz, 1970)
Dinosauria
Saurischia
Theropoda
Tetanurae
Coelurosauria
Maniraptoriformes
Ornithomimosauria
Deinocheiridae

Late Cretaceous
Mongolia

Length: 11 m

Though Deinocheirus was originally known only from her enormous arms (exceeded in size only by Therizinosaurus), two new skeletal remains (this time more complete) described in 2014 (after being successfully recovered from Mongolian thieves) helped shed some light on this previously enigmatic animal, such as her now-confirmed (at least partial) piscivory, though she remains quite an enigma. Unfortunately, in attaining huge size, she has lost the speed and intelligence of her smaller relatives.

Saturday, May 16th, 2015

Megatherium americanum

I… AM… GROOT!!!!!

Megatherium americanum (Cuvier, 1796)
Mammalia
Theria
Eutheria
Placentalia
Xenarthra
Pilosa
Folivora (Sloths)
Megatheriidae

Late Pliocene to Early Holocene
South America

Length (Quadrupedal): 6 m

As big as an elephant, this ground sloth was one of the largest land mammals of all time, exceeded in only size by Paraceratherium and some proboscideans. Sadly, she still proved no match for the most dangerous mammal of all: humans.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2015

Inspiration for Groot pose here: comicbook.com/blog/2014/07/18/…