Salvadorian artist and enthusiast on Paleontology, Biology and others earth sciences, as well for speculative biology-zoology topics, as well science fiction
Spectember D29: Speculative Biome
Monumental and ancient organisms of about a kilometer in height, The Heaven's Tree is something more than a organism but a whole formation that encapsulates a microecosystem inside that is replaced in spans of millions of years.
I swear I had a Deja vu when I saw some people saying that the new dunk body size was published is a downgrade and it was from Livyatan size calculations below 17 meters were considered.
honestly something about this scene that lacks is the sense of scale in comparison to a human of this battle which depending of what the species depicted will be we are truly watching a battle of gods...
Finally, after months of waiting and a little more getting used to drawing placoderms, I finished my new version of Dunkleosteus, one of the most iconic animals of the Devonian and the Paleozoic, referred to as one of the first megafauna predatory vertebrates 1/
#PrehistoricPlanet
so did somebody noticed the little fella that is standing while the hadrosaur herd is moving towards the river? it doesnt look like a mammal and more like a lost trike in the snow but looks so motionless like somebody added a extra model and forgot the rig.
Skeleton recovered from the Le Lanchon experiments on human evolution.
In these tests, volunteers were subjected to procedures to "accelerate the development of mankind". No subject is recorded to have survived. Their crab-like form is thought to be an instance of carcinization.
I feel this needed more work on the feathers but, I guess for now is enough, finally finished Argentavis on its wide feathered glory, one of the biggest (probably heaviest) flying bird ever to exist, around 5 to 5.7 meters in wingspan and a estimated weight of 40 to 70 kg.
Among the largest organism of "The Future is Wild" timeline, as well the largest squid and animal on the planet in 200 M.y. in the future, the Rainbow Squid is one of the extraordinary representatives of the unique color adaptations cephalopods achieved.
being honest about the JWD dimetrodon I wouldn't be bothered for something that will not appear for probably less than a minute but I really bugged for the thing that they just made a super generic head for something that has the most remarkable look of any extinct animal
It took me a good time but I managed to complete the size chart of the biggest cambrian fauna known, even though most of the species presented aren't titanic or very huge creatures compared to megafauna, they were around that period the big of the big among its relatives.
Probably the most magnificent titan since the dinosaurs went extinct, Paraceratherium emerged as one of the largest land mammals on record, with a shoulder height of 5 meters and a mass of almost 20 tons this long behemoth wouldn't have any comparable
You know this is perhaps is the first time in 20 years that there will be a new pretty nailed abelisaur in paleomedia with the arms right articulated since Dinosaur Planet Aucasaurus, something that is always skipped even in documentaries.
So I made this chart as an attempt to understand the JW Mosasaurus size topic for things like size charts related to this I have seen that they are quite poorly made or very wrong and made me take the initiative to try to create this to get how massive her is... and damn she is.
Giganotosaurus has integrated into the paleoculture as one of thelargest theropod comparable to T. rex. Itself is alone a large formidable carcharodontosaur being the peak of ecological dominance across South America.
Now here is your favorite cursed bigfoot of australia, Procoptodon goliah, one of the biggest macropods ever, reaching more than 2 meters tall, this species likely interacted with humans on the late Pleistocene
Surely a frightening view by those aborigines who ran into it.
Originally recognized as the African Brachiosaurus species for almost a century, Giraffatitan is among the few sauropods we have an certain accurate weight estimation of, thanks to the ammount of material we have of such giant with a mass of almost 50 tons.
Kinda late to join the combo of the last week but here is a pterosaur I was waiting so long to reconstruct since I hear there was a full description of the material, Quetzalcoatlus was the aereal ruler of the Late Cretaceous, one of the largest pterosaurs ever.
In the world of "The New Dinosaurs", on the Neotropical regions (South America), a relict of the tyrannosaurs survived from a branch that split out and leaked through a early land bridge across the continent around 55 million years ago, which lead up to become into the Gourmand.
A god oyster Platyceramus represents the biggest bivalve ever, this flat wide square shaped Inoceramid lived on the seabed of the Western Interior Seaway at depths of 300 m, being host of some of the surrounding fauna which were sometimes preserved inside the shell
Shantungosaurus is among my favorite dinosaurs and finding good references to draw has been complicated, so... I did one, reading through the original descriptions and updating it according to our understanding of hadrosaur anatomy accurate skeletal reconstruction
Well dunkie is trending but I need to work on something, so here is the Redtail catfish, is unique for its inner bony plates that resembles the one of Arthrodira.
I’m finally happy to have completed this famous as well one of the largest bony fishes of all time that wandered across the Late Jurassic seas, the famous filter feeder
#Leedsichthys
, the titan pachycormid.
Halmacoele represents a kind of long legged arachnid kaiju of about 340 m of wingspan, it use their long legs to soar though the sky, being able to take flight using the 2 last pair of legs to take a big jump and acquire sufficient height.
Seeing people posting about Spinosaurus more than usual I guess it's time to pull out my reconstruction as well. The dude itself that carry fame in a cursed way for its taxonomy to its anatomy compared to any other theropod due to its aquatic lifestyle.
#Lisowicia
bojani represent the pinnacle on non mammalian synapsid gigantism, being the biggest dicynodont known from the late triassic of Poland, based on the largest specimen it could have grown around 5 m in length and weighing around 6 tons.
#dicynodont
#triassic
And here is what would be the biggest synapsid of the middle permian, the Titanosuchid Jonkeria haughtoni it belongs to the very diverse genus Jonkeria, omnivores of variable size and form ranging from 3 to almost 5 meters in lenght.
It has been a while since I tried some dynamic pose so what couldn't be better that Jonkeria to do, itself one of the largest Paleozoic tetrapod known, reaching up to 5 meters it was not a fella to mess around with.
I found hilarious to find out of one of my favorite science channels in spanish the mummies have been going around enough one was properly studied an its head turned out to be the braincase of a llama...
the fucking braincase of a llama carved...
I promise I’ll stop talking about this thing but I think it’s really funny that they just sprinkled a bunch of loose sand on it to make it look “ancient”
Basilosaurus represented the culmination of gigantism since the extinction of marine reptiles in the KPg, at the end of the Paleogene it became one of the largest archaeocete known reaching up to 20 meters and probably weighing about 24 tons.
Guess have to join the Perucetus sweep considering the large repercutions it has over the evolution of gigantism on cetaceans, making the precedent the modern baleen whale and
recent neogene Physeterid weren't alone, paleogene archaeocetes could come to similar size magnitude.
MSNM V4047 represents one of the most complete skull material of Moroccan spinosaurs an on the size scale also stands as the largest spinosaur specimen known, scaled from some of the most recent reconstructions of
#Spinosaurus
this ranged above 12 meters in length.
So at last I could finally rework my
#cambrian
size chart and renew some of the species and at the same time add others, I was waiting of do update this since the first version had some failures, the number of species that I omitted and certain designs that I did not like.
@Trey_Explainer
Seriously this looks like they puked Sonic Green Field into a natural reserve, only for wannabe rich people to play in a glorified backyard artificial garden.
I hope for Javelinas to reclaim that place.
Got a reminder Tonina (Pontoporia blainvillei) is a real small cetacean and has some of the most bizarre vertebra proportions I have ever seen in a cetacean.
Something I've hear about the discovery of Aquilolamna and reading the paper is the possibility that the enigmatic Platylithophycus belongs to the same family, of course the lack of gill arches on Aquilo makes unlikely to to confirm this, in that regard I tried to speculate 1/2
Gorgonichthys on its full body, at least based on current estimated proportions of arthrodira and mostly from relatives like Amazichthys which we have a full body specimen give this new version something of a size of about 4 meters, similar on the league of Dunkleosteus but...
I guess it was matter of time until I had to do it, like with T. rex it seems is paleoart fate to draw once Otodus megalodon, the largest predatory shark on history, fragmentary as hell but still enough that it can be speculate the body shape.
Now that I made O. megalodon it was necessary to complete the pack of titanic oligocene marine predators, from Peru Livyatan rises up as one of the biggest raptorial sperm whales known with a head of almost 3 meters.
And a new size chart of giant fauna, this from the shortest but still very important time period of the paleozoic, the Silurian, a time where jawless and jawed vertebrates, land arthropods, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems exploded in diversity and sizes.
#AncientWhaleWeek
there is Basilosaurus, and then there is Llanocetus, a pretty interesting cetacean of the late eocene of the south hemisphere, one of the earliest and probably one of the largest toothed baleen whales of the time, trying to reconstruct it is a cursed puzzle
Looking recently that Spinofaarus reached its first decade anniversary I want to repost a fella that was the next step on its evolutionary glory if it wasn't tear down by the big theropoda, Trunkofaarus, embracing the sea to reing forever
Turned out that checking the pterosaur scene the eyes placement is where the nostril is, the back were in poor quality videos looked it had eyes lacks them and the nostrils are in the upper front of the crest
The movie 65 is out, so you can bask in its HD glory now
I've just noticed that one of the T. rex has white stripes, Oviraptor is as featherless as a newborn bird. Those small theropods are likely Troodontid due to sickle claws. Pterosaurs are great
Part 1 of screenshots (1/3)
Spectember Day 4: Sympatric speciation
New Zealand is not longer the same as before for the step of humanity there, new opportunities they arose for the survivors and so keas became large predators which eventually another species of the same genus would emerge, both lethal.
Late on
#SynapsidWeek
but eh.
Dimetrodon was through the Early Permian one of the most successful genus of synapsid pelycosaurs lasting almost 20 m.y., upon this there has always been a different species in each point being in most cases the apex predator until the end.
People is probably very familiar with the famous Daeodon of NA, but on Asia things got a little bigger with one of its relatives, Paraentelodon is among the biggest terrestrial omnivorous mammals known as well one of the biggest Entelodontids in record.
And from the vault
#specevo
iconic future critters the Ocean Flish from TFIW stands remarkable, these constitute a bizarre new radiation of vertebrates from the ocean after tetrapods were wipe out of the face of earth, becoming one of the many recovering animals on 200 m.y.
We all know how prominent were allosaurs and megalosaurs as macropredators in the Jurassic, but there were also metriacanthosaurids, which on Asia rivals in size those other theropods with the 10 meter long Yangchuanosaurus, a peculiar looking theropod from that period.
The late eocene was really full of peculiar things just few dozen million years after the KPg from giant nosed freaky land mammals to chubby or longo deers
I made a quick sketch of what could be the skull of the Tyrannosaurus rex from WWD based mostly from the proportions of the original. Is mostly thinking about how weird in general the proportions and structure of the head looks.
I really suprised to realize that in a spand of 3 months we got 3 different representation of the KPg impact in 2 docs and one movie but they all looks either unrealistically slow or just lame, maybe to create tension but when one realize this is an object moving at 20 km/s...
Boatbill is a high derived pelagic descendant of Pteranodontid Pterosaurs that that has become a flightless filter feeder, however, this is characterized by being mostly close to the surface using its large peak which is quite hollow and allows it to float on the surface.
Finished the beast of beasts of hadrosaurs, and perhaps the biggest mesozic herbivore that ever walk the earth that wasn't a sauropod, Shantungosaurus was the titan of east china on the late cretaceous, with dozens of specimens showing a great range of size up to 15 meters.
Well expecting all the chances I did my third edit on the very poorly crocopleurodon and made it into a pliosaur despide all the scutes, is now smoothy and chunky, amazing the teeth were perfectly matching to actual pliosaurs but they were downgraded for the croc look
A freaky long finned pliosaur of the late jurassic, the famously nicknamed "Predator X" is formely Pliosaurus funkei, one of the many species of this genus with a peculiar body proportions with fins of almost 3 meters in length but with a comparable short body.
#PrehistoricPlanet
desert was fantastic, my only complain about this episode is that this had the most background animals that I could have love to see focus more, is one of those scenes which it could have worked as a hour documentary, I really waited for therizinosaurus action.
Widely recognized as the first non-avian dinosaur described in the scientific literature, Megalosaurus is one of the most important discoveries on early paleontology, it took many decades and better research to finally give a concrete reconstruction to this predator from Europe.
Have little appreciation time now that the JWE2 liopleurodon dropped the Primal Liopleurodon is by far the most accurate depiction done on recent times.
Struthiocephalus is remarkable one of the most bizarre dinocephalians that Guadalupian SA witnessed with a very robust and short body, a elongated whale-looking face and a set of knobs and protuberances across its upper face which on larger individuals became a sort of horn.
Food for thought: biomes that existed in prehistory but not anymore (at least in large scales)
Fern prairies, Carboniferous coal swamps, and whatever you call this Silurian environment come to mind
Considering the broad diversity of this genus I wanna show the other Paraceratherium species sketches I made and I have to finish (plus Dzungariotherium) just to remark how variable they were for at least the 10 million years they existed.
#coproliteposting
#PrehistoricPlanet
You know what, staying in front of a dangerous animal is a fancy game when you compare it to parenting in the prehistory 🤭
A return of my SE Giants project re-work coming to the animals with the documentary of almost two decades old "The Future Is Wild", each them that have been chosen according to clade and habitat from 5, 100 and 200 million years in the future
#TFIW
Still thinking old peters ha some very outstanding pieces of paleoart for its time, alongside the more bird like posing maniraptorans.
He really went very low after the 2000s with his crackery.
#Lifeonourplanet
So a topic that gets me now that ever checking the second episode, apart that likely Anomalocaris was specialized in soft prey and not trilobite, there is a huge lack of representation of radiodonts showing how extraordinarily diverse were and versatile 1/
Well it has been a while since I did spec evo size chart stuff so here is something I really was invested to do better, one of the first animals I scaled from the spec dinosaur project.
The Black Carpo is a very large type of "avian ape" inhabitant of the jungles of africa.
Dinichthys has been most referred placoderm in popular and general scientific literature for the last century thanks to its inferred close relationship with Dunkleosteus, but just a decade ago its relationship changed meaning its look was probably different to a big extend.