Pakasuchus

Pakasuchus kapilimai, a notosuchian crocodyliform from the mid-Cretaceous of Tanzania (~105 mya). This 50cm long animal (1′8″) had an elongated body and relatively long limbs, and would have been an active terrestrial predator chasing after fast-moving small prey like insects.

The bony osteoderms on its body were much smaller and sparser than those found on most of its relatives – except for its tail, which was still heavily armored.

It also had some of the most complex teeth of all known crocodilians, with surprisingly mammal-like ‘canines’ and ‘molars’ that gave it the ability to chew its food.

Skull of Pakasuchus
[image source]

Turtle-jawed moa-nalo

The turtle-jawed moa-nalo (Chelychelynechen quassus) was a large flightless goose-like duck from the Hawaiian island of Kaua‘i. About 90cm tall (3′) and weighing around 7kg (15lbs), these birds and their relatives were descended from dabbling ducks and existed on most of the larger Hawaiian islands for the last 3 million years or so – before going extinct around 1000 years ago following the arrival of Polynesian settlers.

Chelychelynechen had an unusually-shaped bill, tall and broad with vertically-oriented nostrils, convergently similar to the beak of a turtle. It would have occupied the same sort of ecological niche as giant tortoises on other islands, filling the role of large herbivore in the absence of mammals.

Herrerasaurus

One of the earliest known dinosaurs, Herrerasaurus lived during the Late Triassic (~231 mya) in what is now Argentina, South America. It was a fairly lightly-built bipedal carnivore, with the largest specimens reaching sizes of just over 5m long (16′4″).

The exact classification of herrerasaurids is still somewhat unclear, with different analyses putting them in different positions on the early dinosaurian family tree. They’re generally considered to at least be closely related to basal theropods – but a recent analysis that reshuffles dinosaur relationships suggests their resemblance to the theropods might be a result of convergent evolution, with them being the sister group to sauropods instead.

Teleocrater

Teleocrater rhadinus from the Middle Triassic (~245 mya) of Tanzania. Measuring about 2.5m long (8′2″), it was one of the earliest known members of the avemetatarsalians – the dinosaur-and-pterosaur (or “bird-line”) branch of the archosaurs. Its fossils have been known for over 80 years, but it was only very recently given an official name and classification following the discovery of additional specimens in 2015.

It turned out to be rather different from what paleontologists had expected an early bird-line archosaur to look like. Instead of being a bipedal basal-dinosaur-like animal, Teleocrater was actually a quadruped with more crocodilian-like limbs and oddly elongated neck vertebrae.

I’ve done two variations of the image today – both with and without a little speculative proto-fuzz.

An illustration of an extinct reptile related to the ancestors of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. It's a quadrupedal animal with a lizard-like head, a long neck, crocodile-like limbs, and a long tail.
Teleocrater rhadinus (no fuzz version)

Utahraptor

Utahraptor ostrommaysorum lived during the Early Cretaceous (~130-124 mya) in Utah, USA, and was the largest known dromaeosaurid. Reaching lengths of around 6m long (20′), it’s often compared in size to the fictional raptors of Jurassic Park.

Recent discoveries show it had some weird proportions compared to its relatives – a thick stocky body, chunky legs, smaller arms, a shorter and more flexible tail, and a large deep skull with an oddly curved lower jaw.

But we still don’t know very much about it… yet.

There’s a huge slab of rock full of Utahraptor fossils just waiting to be extracted and studied. There are at least six raptors in there ranging from babies to adults, hinting at the presence of a family group or even pack hunting behavior, and potentially other animals and new discoveries too – but the main roadblock for this project is lack of funding.

The paleontologists involved have turned to crowdfunding to attempt to raise enough money for essential equipment and the services of a professional fossil preparator, but they’re still only at about 10% of their goal.

So this first week of April is #UtahraptorWeek in the paleontology community, raising awareness of this fascinating giant raptor and how close we are to finding out so much more about it. Spread the word, and if you’re able to please consider helping out the Utahraptor Project on GoFundMe.

Unsolved Paleo Mysteries Month #18 – The Biggest Beefy Boys

In 1878, during the Bone Wars of American paleontology, Edward Drinker Cope published a description of a partial sauropod vertebra and femur from the Late Jurassic of Colorado (~150 mya). He classified it as a new species of the diplodocoid genus Amphicoelias (which he had named earlier that same year), designating it as Amphicoelias fragillimus in reference to the bone’s poor condition and incredibly fragile structure.

But what set this fragmentary find apart was its sheer size. The partial back vertebra measured around 1.5m tall (5′), with estimates of its full height anywhere up to 2.7m (8′10″) – twice the size of the same bone in Diplodocus, and far larger than anything else known.

Obviously its very difficult to accurately estimate the full body size of an animal from a single broken bone, but plenty of attempts have been made anyway, producing lengths of up to 60m (197′). For comparison, the largest living animal the blue whale reaches lengths of around 33m (108′).

Around the time of Cope’s death in 1897, his massive fossil collection was sent to the American Museum of Natural History, and the A. fragillimus vertebra was entered into their catalog

Only to vanish, never to be seen again.

Multiple searches through the collection have found no trace of it, and there’s speculation that at some point the fragile bone may have crumbled entirely into pieces and been thrown away. No other material of A. fragillimus has ever been found in the ~140 years since its description, despite searches of the area where it was originally discovered, leading to claims of the entire specimen being a hoax – suggestions that Cope exaggerated or typoed his measurements in his rush to outdo his rival Othniel Charles Marsh.

Without that paleontological holy grail of finding the lost fossil or a new specimen, we just don’t know how big that bone truly was, or whether A. fragillimus was a living kaiju or a much more “normal-sized” sauropod. There’s even been some speculation of it being proportioned more like a rebbachisaur, with tall “sailback” vertebrae.

Except

In a surprise plot twist, there is another.

An absolutely enormous neck vertebra hints at the existence of other gigantic mega-sauropods. We still don’t have enough remains to know what the heck was going on with these animals – how did they even manage to get so huge? were they rare individuals who lived long enough to grow into “super-adults”? – but the prospect of perhaps one day finally validating A. fragillimus’ enormous size is exciting.


My version of Amphicoelias fragillimus here works out to about 50m long (164′), although it might be closer to 60m long with a more horizontal neck posture. Its proportions are mainly based on a mixture of Diplodocus, Supersaurus, and Barosaurus, with slightly taller neural spines raising its back profile a bit and some big fat deposits thickening up its tail.

Unsolved Paleo Mysteries Month #16 – Strange Snoots 2: Oddball Ornithischians

Those extinct horses weren’t the only ancient creatures with unexplained noses. Some dinosaurs had equally weird things going on with their snouts – and while hadrosaurs’ big honkin’ snoots are fairly well-known, there were other ornithischians with their own bizarre nasal anatomy.


An illustration of the skull of an extinct horned dinosaur, showing the unusually large nasal cavity. Below is a reconstruction of the dinosaur's head in life.
Triceratops horridus skull and head reconstruction

Many ceratopsids had an enormous nasal opening forming a giant bony “window” through their snout, with the chasmosaurines like the famous Triceratops having additional bony projections and hollowed regions within these holes. They probably supported some huge elaborate cartilage structures in life, but what they were for is still a mystery. They may have helped with heat dissipation or moisture conservation, aided sound production, provided a highly sensitive sense of smell, housed a vomeronasal organ, held part of an air-filled pneumatic system… or, getting more speculative, possibly even some sort of inflatable nasal display structure.


An illustration of the skull of an extinct armored dinosaur, showing the multiple holes inside the nasal cavity. Below is a reconstruction of the dinosaur's head in life.
Minotaurasaurus ramachandrani skull and head reconstruction

Some ankylosaurids, meanwhile, went with multiple holes instead. Minotaurasaurus here had two additional openings around its nostrils, and Pinacosaurus could have up to five – the purpose of which is unknown. Many ankylosaurs also had forward-facing nostrils (a rare trait in archosaurs) and incredibly complex looping airways through their skulls. These may have allowed for mammal-like “air conditioning”, regulating the heat and moisture content of each breath, or perhaps enhanced their sense of smell or served some sort of resonance chamber function. Or, again, maybe even nose balloons.

Also floofy ankylosaur because I can.

Unsolved Paleo Mysteries Month #13 – The Case of the Absent Archaeopteryx

One of the most famous of all fossil organisms, and a classic example of a transitional form, Archaeopteryx is currently known from 12 body fossil specimens.

Except one of them is missing.

The Maxberg specimen was part of the private collection of Eduard Opitsch, the owner of the Bavarian quarry where it was originally discovered in 1956. Despite being partially disintegrated, and missing its head and tail, it was still an immensely important discovery – at the time, it was only the third recognized Archaeopteryx ever found.

After briefly attempting to sell the new Archaeopteryx, Opitsch eventually allowed it to be held at the local Maxberg Museum. In 1974 he permitted casts to be made from it – but then suddenly removed it from public display and refused all further requests to access or study it.

(This may have been a reaction to the 1973 announcement of the more complete Eichstätt specimen. Opitsch, who was described as having “a difficult personality”, became increasingly defensive about the fossil, seeming to feel this new discovery was getting more attention and was deliberately devaluing his own.)

From then on the Maxberg specimen was lost to science.

When Opitsch died in 1991 his heir attempted to locate the fossil – it was rumored to be kept under his bed – but it was nowhere to be found. There’s some speculation that he was buried with it, literally taking his prized Archaeopteryx to the grave as a final act of spite. Another possibility is that it was stolen and sold in secret, perhaps to this day hidden away in a wealthy owner’s private collection.

It’s been missing for over 25 years, but there’s still lingering hope that the missing Maxberg specimen will one day resurface.

For now, though, all we have left are a few casts, photographs, and x-rays.

Unsolved Paleo Mysteries #01

Welcome to Unsolved Paleo Mysteries Month!

There’s a lot of things we now know about the distant past that seemed impossible only a few decades ago – discovering the colors of fossilized animals, fragments of collagen in dinosaur bones, and even finding near-complete remains of previously enigmatic animals like Deinocheirus.

But there’s also still a lot of things we don’t know. The fossil record is spotty and very incomplete, and even as we answer some questions others remain frustratingly unanswered.

So, every weekday during March I’ll be featuring a different paleontological mystery. Starting with…


Ptransitional Pterosaurs

We don’t really know where pterosaurs came from.

They appeared suddenly in the Late Triassic (~228 mya) with their anatomy already fully adapted for flight, and there are no traces of transitional forms before that point.

We at least know they were members of the archosaurs, and the sister group to dinosaurs, and their closest known relative seems to have been a small hopping creature named Scleromochlus. The complete lack of any other potential ancestors suggests that proto-pterosaurs must have evolved incredibly rapidly in an environment that just didn’t favor fossilizing their tiny fragile remains.

We might get lucky one day and finally find a pterosaur equivalent of Archaeopteryx, but for now all we have are hypothetical ideas of what such animals might have looked like.

Montealtosuchus

Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi, a crocodyliform from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil (~93-83 mya). About 1.8m in length (6′), it had slightly forward-facing eyes, giving it binocular vision, and long upright limbs – adaptations for active hunting on land.

Basically, it would have looked a little like a “crocodile dog”.