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.