November 2025 – Nix Illustration

Austriadactylus

Austriadactylus cristatus was an early pterosaur that lived during the Late Triassic, about 215 million years ago, in what is now Austria and Italy.

It’s one of the most basal (“primitive”) pterosaurs currently known, with its long tail lacking the stiffening bony rods seen in other early “rhamphorhynchoid-grade” forms.

It had a wingspan of around 1.2m (~2′), and a bony crest on its snout that grew taller towards the front. Its jaws contained a mix of two different tooth types – a few long pointed teeth and numerous smaller three-pointed teeth – with wear patterns that suggest its diet primarily consisted of hard-shelled invertebrates.

Megabalaena

Megabalaena sapporoensis was a member of the balaenid baleen whale lineage, related to modern right whales and bowhead whales. Living in marine waters covering what is now northern Japan during the late Miocene, about 9 million years ago, it helps to fill in a significant gap in the fossil record of this group.

Known from a partial skeleton about 12.7m long (~42′), it was much larger than earlier balaenids, but smaller than modern forms. It also had a narrower flipper shape compared to its modern relatives, a less arched jaw, and its neck vertebrae were only partially fused.

Modern right whales are slow-swimming ram feeders, but since Megabalaena was less specialized for this particular filter feeding style it’s unclear what its ecology was.

Dimacrodon

Dimacrodon hottoni was a synapsid that lived during the mid-Permian, about 272 million years ago, in what is now Texas, USA.

Known only from incomplete skull material, it had a thin bony crest on its forehead and a long snout with unusually toothless jaw tips — which had a rough bone texture suggesting there was a small keratinous beak there.

Its full body proportions aren’t known, but since its skull measured around 50cm (~1’8″) it was probably at least 2.5-3m long (~8-10′).

When its fossil remains were first discovered in the mid-20^th century it was thought to be a dicynodont-like anomodont, but later examination in the 1990s suggested it was actually a more basal “pelycosaur-grade” synapsid, possibly a sphenacodont close to early therapsids. There hasn’t been any further study on Dimacrodon since then, though, so its exact evolutionary relationships remain very murky.

Its ecology is equally unclear, but its beak-like jaws suggest it may have been somewhat herbivorous. It would have lived around a coastal river delta in a semi-arid climate, alongside herbivorous caseids like Cotylorhynchus and Angelosaurus, predatory sphenacodontids like Dimetrodon, small lizard-like parareptiles and captorhinids, and aquatic temnospondyl amphibians.

Xiphodracon

Xiphodracon goldencapensis was an ichthyosaur that lived in marine waters covering what is now the Jurassic Coast of the southern United Kingdom during the Early Jurassic, about 188 million years ago.

Around 3m long (~10′), it had fairly large eyes and a long narrow snout lined with small slender pointed teeth.

It was part of the leptonectid family, closely related to other long-snouted forms like Eurhinosaurus. Although currently only represented by a single fossil specimen, it’s actually the most complete ichthyosaur known from the Pliensbachian age of the Early Jurassic.

Preserved gut contents show that it primarily fed on fish, and also that its stomach was positioned on the left side of its body. The fossilized individual also suffered from multiple injuries during its life, including malformed teeth, a fractured clavicle, and avascular necrosis in its upper limb bones. It appears to have died after a bite to the skull from a predator – likely the larger ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus – and additional bite marks on one hindlimb may be evidence of scavenger activity.