science illustration – Page 51

Cycnorhamphus

Cycnorhamphus suevicus, a pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Germany and France (~150-145 mya).

It had a wingspan of about 1.3m (4′3″), and was originally thought to look similar to Pterodactylus with long straight jaws – but a well-preserved fossil nicknamed “the Painten Pelican” revealed its snout was actually much more oddly-shaped.

*“Painten Pelican mount” by* *Mike Steele* | *CC BY 2.0* *| cropped from original*

It turns out Cycnorhamphus’s jaws arced outwards, creating an opening that seems to have become more pronounced as individuals reached adulthood. Soft-tissue impressions in the fossil also show some sort of stiff “flanges” on each side of the upper jaws, covering the gap and giving it a sort of bulldog-like appearance.

The function of this jaw structure is unknown for certain, but it’s been speculated to be a specialization for cracking open hard-shelled prey like molluscs.

Enantiophoenix

Enantiophoenix electrophyla, an enantiornithean bird from the Late Cretaceous of Lebanon (~95 mya).

It was similar in size to a modern starling, around 20cm (8″) long, and although only known from a fragmentary fossil it had fairly chunky leg bones with large claws. It was probably a strong percher like most other avisaurid enantiornitheans.

Several tiny pieces of amber were also found within the fossil, which have been suggested to be stomach contents. This could perhaps be evidence of Enantiophoenix feeding on tree sap like modern sapsuckers, but without a known skull it’s hard to tell for certain whether it was specialized for that sort of diet or not.

Eretmorhipis

Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, a hupehsuchian marine reptile from the Early Triassic of China (~247 mya).

This species was originally named back in 2015, but at the time the only known specimens were missing their heads. It was assumed that its skull would have looked similar to those of other hupehsuchians… but now new fossils have been found, and it seems to have actually been much much weirder!

Eretmorhipis’ head was surprisingly tiny in proportion to its body – sort of like a marine version of Cotylorhynchus – and its shape convergently resembled the modern platypus, with a wide “duck bill” and very small eyes. It may have hunted for food along the seafloor in a similar manner to the platypus, using either a highly sensitive sense of touch or possibly even electroreception to locate small invertebrates like worms and shrimp.

It also had much larger bony osteoderms than its other known hupehsuchian relatives, forming a distinctive protruding spiky ridge down its back. At about 85cm in length (2′9″) it was one of the largest marine animals around at the time, so this structure probably wasn’t needed for defense – but as with other hupehsuchians its actual function is still unknown.

Triopticus

What Triassic animal has a name that sounds like a Transformers character?

Triopticus primus!

Living in Texas, USA, during the Late Triassic, about 229-226 million years ago, Triopticus was a type of archosauriform reptile (a “cousin” to crocodiles, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs). Classifying it any more specifically than that is rather difficult since it’s only known from a single partial skull.

It had five large bony bosses on its head that convergently resembled the domes of pachycephalosaurs, suggesting it may have engaged in similar headbutting or flank-butting behavior. At the back of its skull there was also a distinctive deep pit that looked like a “third eye socket”, inspiring it its name – although this feature probably wasn’t actually a parietal eye, instead just being the result of the way several of the bosses came together at that point.

The rest of its appearance is unknown, and this reconstruction is rather speculative as a result. But based on other archosauriformes it was likely to have been a small semi-sprawling quadruped, possibly around 80cm in length (2′7″).

Kulindroplax

Kulindroplax perissokomos, a mollusc from the mid-Silurian of England (~428-423 mya).

About 4cm long (1.6″), it had a wormlike body covered in spicules (tiny spines) which suggests it was a member of the aplacophoran molluscs – but it also had a row of seven larger shells along its back resembling those of chitons.

Modern aplacophorans are all shell-less and were traditionally thought to be a very early branch of the mollusc lineage that retained a “primitive” ancestral body plan. More recently, however, a combination of genetic evidence and fossil discoveries of animals like Kulindroplax have revealed that they’re actually close relatives of the chitons and instead lost their shells much more recently during the course of their evolution.

Qianzhousaurus

Qianzhousaurus sinensis, a tyrannosaur from the Late Cretaceous of southern China (~72-66 mya). Measuring about 9m long (29′6″) it had an unusually long and slender snout for a tyrannosaur, leading to its nickname of “Pinocchio rex”.

The only other known long-snouted tyrannosaur was the closely related Alioramus from Mongolia – but since only juveniles of that genus have been found so far, it’s also possible that Qianzhousaurus was actually just a fully-grown species of Alioramus.

Anomalochelys

Anomalochelys angulata, a terrestrial turtle from the mid-Cretaceous of Hokkaido, Japan (~100-94 mya).

Measuring around 60cm long (2′), it had a pair of large forward-facing horn-like spikes at the front of its shell – the function of which isn’t clear, but they may have been useful for defense if it was incapable of fully retracting its head into its shell.

It was part of a family of turtles from Asia and North America known as nanhsiungchelyids, a group that adapted to live fully on land and ended up convergently closely resembling modern tortoises. Other members of this group included the larger Nanhsiungchelys (which was also recently found to have possessed “horns” on its shell!) and the very flat Basilemys.

They were also a rare example of a turtle family that didn’t survive through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, with no known remains from the Cenozoic.

Eons Roundup

This year I’ve been lucky enough to have some of my work featured in several PBS Eons videos – and I even recently got the opportunity to do some custom images for them! Since I didn’t show any of these off at the time, here they are now:

The basal temnospondyl amphibian Iberospondylus, from “When Giant Amphibians Reigned”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGthtRZl8B0

The flying paleognath bird Lithornis, from “When Birds Stopped Flying”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3h05ajJw0o

The ground sloth Nematherium, from “How Sloths Went From the Seas to the Trees”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt9tBtQoAHo

Happy new year, everybody!

Sanctacaris

Nicknamed “Santa Claws”, Sanctacaris uncata was a marine arthropod from the Middle Cambrian (~505 mya) Burgess Shale deposits of Canada. Its exact evolutionary relationships are unclear, but it’s thought to have been very closely related to or part of an early branch of the chelicerates – the lineage that includes modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs.

Measuring up to about 9cm long (3.5″), it had forward-facing eyes and five pairs of grasping appendages on the underside of its head, adaptations that suggest it was an active predator convergently similar to anomalocaridids. It probably swam around grabbing onto whatever small prey items it could catch, trapping them in its “limb basket” while it ate them.

Peltephilus

Peltephilus ferox, an armadillo from the Early Miocene of Argentina (~17-16 mya) that was similar in size to a large dog, probably around 1.5m long (5′). It had less solid armor than its modern relatives, with its bony osteoderms being arranged more like chain mail, loosely connected to each other and slightly overlapping, creating a much more flexible body covering.

Its most unusual features were the horns on its snout, convergently resembling the later horned gophers of North America. But unlike other mammals Peltephilus‘ horns were actually modified plates of its face armor, enlarged pointed osteoderms that were only connected to its skull by soft tissue membranes – meaning that after death they tended to fall off, and the exact number and position of them is still a little uncertain.

Its unusually broad snout and large teeth were originally interpreted as evidence of it being an active carnivore, but more recent studies of its anatomy have suggested that it was much more likely to have been a herbivorous or omnivorous digger, mainly feeding on underground plant matter like roots and tubers.