reptile – Nix Illustration

Garamaudo

Garamaudo bauciensis was a mosasaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 84 million years ago, inhabiting freshwater lakes and marshes in what is now southeastern France.

Its genus name comes from the Provençal expression “gara au maudo”, meaning “beware the cursed one”, referring to an aquatic serpentine monster of local legend.

Around 2.5m long (~8’2″), Garamaudo was a fairly “primitive” mosasaur, with limb anatomy closer to the legs of terrestrial lizards than the paddle-like flippers of later forms. It had increased bone density that would have helped control its buoyancy and aided it in diving — but this also would have made it unable to move around on land due to the increased fragility of its heavier bones.

It probably swam with an eel-like motion and may not have been particularly speedy or maneuverable, possibly relying on ambush predation to capture its prey.

It would have been one of the largest aquatic predators in its ecosystem, living alongside gars, turtles, small crocodilians, and some of the last known freshwater coelacanths.

Ogresuchus

Ogresuchus furatus was a small crocodyliform that lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 66 million years ago, in what is now Catalonia, Spain.

It was originally classified as a sebecid, which would have made it the earliest known member of that family, but a more recent analysis suggests it was probably instead an atoposaurid.

Around 1m long (~3’3″), it was a lightly-built generalist predator that would have fed on invertebrates and small vertebrates — possibly even including sauropod hatchlings, since its fossil remains were discovered in a titanosaur nesting site.

Spectember 2026 #03: Hydra-panosaur

Hydramendax tricephalus is a large Late Triassic drepanosaur, around 1m long (~3’3″). Related to fossorial forms like Skybalonyx, it digs underground burrows using the massive singular claws on its hands — which are specialized to the point of having fully lost all the other digits — and spends its time on the ground rather than climbing around in trees.

No longer used for grip while climbing, its prehensile tail-claw has been repurposed as a “false head“, enlarged and vividly colored to startle and distract predators. A single Mirasaura-like crest plume with similar bold eyespot markings appears to serve as another decoy head, and also as a visual display structure, able to be raised and lowered atop its shoulder hump.

It primarily feeds on insects, using its claws to rip open rotting wood and its long birdlike jaws to probe inside — but it’s somewhat more omnivorous than its relatives and also eats roots and tubers unearthed while burrowing.

Spectember 2026 #01

It’s #Spectember once again, and looking at what’s left of the speculative evolution submissions you all gave me several years ago… I’m actually kind of burnt out on them at this point.

The ones that are left now are a bit too broad, or are just things I currently have no good ideas for — so I’m finally officially calling it quits on that particular batch of prompts. I still won’t be accepting new ideas for the time being; instead this year I’m just going to have some fun with my own concepts.

So! Let’s start off with…

Spectember 2026 #01: Cave Turtle

An illustration of a speculative cave-dwelling softshell turtle. It's pale and fleshy-looking, with no eyes, barbel whiskers on its lower jaw, large paddle-like front flippers, and tiny vestigial hindlimbs.

Voragochelys phantasma is a small turtle descended from present-day softshells, living exclusively in a single deep isolated cave system.

Only around 10cm long (2.5″), it’s completely pigmentless and blind, with tiny vestigial eyes covered by skin. A keen sense of smell and sensitive barbels on its jaw help it navigate in total darkness and locate prey such as smaller crustaceans and fish. It uses large paddle-like forelimbs to swim and haul itself over rocks, while its hindlimbs are highly reduced.

Like its present-day relatives it’s capable of absorbing some oxygen through its thin skin, and also via “pharyngeal breathing” — the inside of its mouth and throat are lined with numerous fleshy projections that massively increase the surface area and act like gills, allowing for gas exchange when water is pumped in and out. Its incredibly low metabolic rate means it can remain fully submerged almost indefinitely, sometimes barely moving for years at a time.

Females lay small clutches of eggs once every decade or so in rock crevices just out of the water, and similarly to the present-day pig-nosed turtle their hatching is triggered by seasonal flooding.

Simosaurus

Simosaurus gaillardoti was a marine reptile that lived in shallow tropical seas covering much of what is now Europe and the Middle East, about 242-235 million years ago.

It was part of the nothosaurian lineage, a group of semi-aquatic sauropterygians that were widespread throughout the Triassic seas before the rise of the more fully marine plesiosaurs.

Growing up to around 4m long (~13′), Simosaurus had a flat short-snouted skull and rather thick blunted teeth, along with jaw musculature adapted for a quick strong snapping bite — suggesting it specialized in crushing tough prey like shelled cephalopods and hard-scaled fish.

Lentamanusuchus

Lentamanusuchus hubeiensis was a small marine reptile that lived during the early Triassic, about 248 million years ago, in shallow tropical seas covering what is now southwestern China.

It was part of a group known as hupehsuchians, early cousins of ichthyosaurs that had toothless jaws, paddle-shaped limbs, eel-like tails, and distinctive bony armor along their backs.

Around 1.2m long (~4′), Lentamanusuchus had particularly broad flippers with extra bones in its hands, a transitional state between its ancestors and later polydactylous hupehsuchians.

Galahadosuchus

Galahadosuchus jonesi was a small early crocodylomorph that lived during the late Triassic of what is now southwest England, around 215 million years ago.

About 60cm long (~2′), it had a fully upright quadrupedal posture, slender digitigrade limbs, a long tail, and a paired row of interlocking osteoderms running along its back.

Its habitat at the time was part of an archipelago of small tropical islands, in a forested karst environment full of sinkholes and caves. It would have been a fast and agile runner, and like its close relative Terrestrisuchus it was probably a generalist pursuit predator feeding on prey such as invertebrates and smaller reptiles.

Saniwa

Saniwa ensidens was a varanid lizard that lived during the Eocene, about 49 million years ago, in what is now Wyoming, USA.

Closely related to monitor lizards, it would have grown to about 2m long (~6’6″) and looked very similar to modern forms, with a pointed snout, well-developed limbs, and a proportionally long tail.

But it also had something not seen in any other jawed vertebrate — a total of four eyes.

Many lizards have a single prominent parietal “third eye” on the top of their heads, which are light-sensitive and involved with both regulating circadian rhythms and hormone production for thermoregulation. However, Saniwa ensidens had two of these structures, with one formed from the parapineal gland like in other lizards, and the second positioned behind it formed by the pineal gland. The only other vertebrates with this arrangement are the jawless lampreys, suggesting that Saniwa somehow re-evolved a pineal eye hundreds of millions of years after its distant ancestors had lost it.

It’s not clear what this extra eye was used for. It would have increased the pineal complex’s sensitivity to blue-wavelength light, and may have been involved in orientation and navigation using polarized light similar to some modern lizards — or possibly magnetoreception-based navigation similar to some modern newts.

Solnhofia

Solnhofia parsonsi was a turtle that lived in the tropical seas covering what is now Europe during the Late Jurassic, about 150-148 million years ago.

Around 20cm long (~8″), it had a long pointed beak and a large triangular head that would have supported powerful jaw muscles, which it may have used to crush hard-shelled invertebrate prey.

Its relatively short limbs are more similar to those of freshwater turtles than the long flippers of oceanic-swimming sea turtles, suggesting Solnhofia was adapted to shallow coastal waters and lagoons rather than the open sea.

Some specimens have considerably shorter tails than others, which may represent the same sort of sexual dimorphism as seen in modern sea turtles – with the longer-tailed individuals being males, and the shorter-tailed ones females.

One fossil’s carapace also shows predation tooth marks from a marine crocodilian similar to Dakosaurus.

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.