Pics of prehistoric animals thread

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I've kinda got myself in the habit of posting pics of prehistoric animals in the "got anything random to say" thread so I made this thread just as an experiment to see if a thread entirely devoted to pics of prehistoric animals could be enjoyable for a lot of you. If it turns out that I'm the only one to post here I'll stop posting due to my instinct not to double-post and this thread, deprived of nourishment, will *ahem* go extinct. Therefore I guess I've got nothing to lose.

I'll start with a pic of a fairly recognizable creature - Pteranodon.

Pteranodon was a flying reptile that lived in the Late Cretaceous in North America. Many remains of Pteranodon show fish remains in the stomach proving that this creature was fish eater. Like (apparently) all members of the pterosaur order, Pteranodon walked on all fours while on the ground as opposed to modern birds which are bipedal on the ground. Experiments have shown that its head crest would have not been useful for anything except mating display. It is believed that males had larger crests than females.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1301/699 ... e306_o.jpg
Argentavis magnificens

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2 ... a_glid.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_sloth

Giant Short Faced Bear



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctodus_simus

Leviathan:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt130847.html

I wanted to post just an image of this gorgeous beast but I can't for some reason so I'll post a link instead.
http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/biodiversi ... age_22.htm

Rare prehistoric frilled shark

I see it says server not found. Every image I saw of the Chalicothere would not let me post the image. I'm going to try Bing.

Success! This animal is stupendously something.

I was going to say the shark dates back to the Cretaceous period and is still around now. But I ended up making a duplicate post accidentally.

Last edited by zen_mistress on 05 Jul 2010, 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dimetrodon

Dimetrodon ("two measures of teeth") was a predatory synapsid that lived between 280 and 265 million years ago. I likely hunted other synapsids living at the time such as Edaphosaurus. The "sail" on its back is believed to have been used by it to control its body temperature. It could have heated itself up quite easily with the sun against its sail. To cool, it could have faced the sun or directly away from it making the sun's rays run past the sail and not direcly into it. Its name refers to the fact that it had two different kinds of teeth wheras its reptile ancestors had identical teeth. The modern descendents of synapsids - mammals - have many different sorts of teeth (canines, incisors, molars, premolars).

Ooh, the birds are my favorite too. Back when I had my Dinosaur obsession (you know, like age 7 or something) my favorite creature was the Archaeopteryx.



But this thing's also cool.


Huge eagles 'dominated NZ skies.'

Mammut americanum

Mammut americanum, otherwise known as the American mastodon was a huge mammal that lived 3.7 million years ago until around 10,000 BCE. Fossils of it have been found all across North America from as north as Alaska to New England to Florida to Honduras in the south. It was a browser - it used its trunk to pluck vegetation and pass it to its mouth. It was hunted by early humans.

I rather like that pic.

Gorgonopsids are my favourite.

I like tham too. So underrated. Everyone seems to like dinosaurs more.
And now for something completely different.
Castorocauda

Castorocauda was a synapsid that lived during the late Jurassic. As its appearence suggests, it was closely related to mammals. Fossils of it suggest that it had webbed toes and a flattened tail for swimming. It is believed to have been a fish eater. It probably laid eggs.

Exactly. I think they must have been pretty bad ass.


Castorocauda is awesome! I never knew about it. So it would be between the gorgonopsids and mammals. Thanks

Your welcome.

Here is another creature, but some may consider it offensive to call this one a "creature".
Homo floresiensis

Homo floreniensis ("Flores Man") was a proto-human that lived from 94,000 years ago to to 13,000 years ago on the island of Flores in Indonesia. It is believed to be an descendent of an earlier sort of proto-human that found a way to Flores and settled there. At 1.06 metres tall it is the smallest Proto-human discovered so far. Its size has earned it the nickname "hobbit". Its size is due to the phenomena of island dwarfism. It coexisted with giant rats (Papagomys armandvillei) Komodo Dragons and even Homo Sapiens.