#girdled lizard

[herpsandbirds]

May I ask for Armadillo girldad lizard before christmas???

M E RR Y C HR IST MA SSSS

Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Ouroborus cataphractus), family Cordylidae, endemic to South Africa

photograph by @don.cataphractus

Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Orobourus cataphractus), family Cordylidae, from Calvinia, Northern Cape, South Africa

photograph by Johan Marais - World of Reptiles

Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Ouroborus cataphracrus), family Cordylidae, western cape of South Africa

photograph by Devin Belliston

Armadilo Girdled Lizard (Ouroborous cataphractus), family Cordylidae, West Coast, South Africa

photograph by Chad Keates

[nautarot]

THE CYCLE ENDS WITH YOU

Armadillo girdled lizard linoprint

[bardicgoose]

Found a little Girdled lizzard just chilling in the sun, little dude looked like they were just contemplating life

[critter-creature-or-beast]

By cndyntdhn - bdfhbdx, CC BY-SA 4.0

[antiqueanimals]

Cape girdled lizard (Cordylus cordylus) ; Giant girdled lizard (Cordylus giganteus)

Reptiles and Amphibians of the World. Written by Hans Hvass. Illustrated by Wilhelm Eigener. Originally published in 1958.

Internet Archive

[disorderedcritters]

Species - girdled lizard

Disorder based on - DID / dissociative identity disorder

Nicknames - the lizard , Galaxy

Pronouns - any / all

Likes - muffled music , simple video games , people , snow storms , the rain , pianos , writing , taking photos , flowers , dark and light colours , humming .

Dislikes - loud music , complex video games , being too warm , guitars , small talk , thorn bushes , being made to talk to people they don't know , kids .

Hobbies - journaling , playing piano , photography .

Tag : ≈ DID girdled lizard

[dreamsy990]

You're intriguing ,theres likely a lot you could put in a pinned post if you really wanted to

there really Is Not

[crazymelimelo]

Riecka <3 --- Commissions are OPEN

[dinosaurwithablog]

I love these adorable little dragon like creatures!! 😍

“Armadillo girdled lizard biting its tail looks like a tiny dragon.”

(Source)

[songstarliner]

Armadillo Girdled Lizard

[herpsandbirds]

Trick or treat? <3

🦎🦎

IT IS NOW LIZARD TIME!!!

The Sungazer aka Giant Girdled Lizard (Smaug giganteus), family Cordylidae, endemic to Highveld grasslands of South Africa

photograph by Reptiles4all

[pillarboxstudio]

[whodoyouthinkithinkiam]

I had to learn more about these little guys and I am so happy to announce that their scientific name is Ouroborus cataphractus.

Armadillo Girdled Lizard

[the-ancient-dragons]

EXTRA OVERCOMPLICATED ICEWIIIIINGS

You know how it goes, Joy Ang is cool and I'm not yadda yadda move on.

Details and explanation below!

Otherwise, next week is the last Pyrrhian tribe: NightWings!!!! See you then!

More overcomplicated dragons.

If the RainWings are the design that destroys Joy's work the least, this one takes the original IceWings and tosses them out the window. Going into this design I knew it would be hard, but boy was I unprepared to get art block for 2 months because of it.

I eventually found my inspiration in the girdled, spiny, and horned lizards, They. Are. So. Freaking cool. If you think a crocodile skink is awesome, look up girdled lizards. Not as fancy with the eyeliner but they are SPIKY!

I fell in love in particular with the giant girdled lizard. I knew I wanted the scales of the IceWing to look rough and like they were made of actual ice or diamonds - or covered in frozen sleet and snow - and this lizard was basically perfect inspo for that. Also, blue spiny lizards. They are basically real life IceWings, full stop.

But even though I had perfect references to draw from, I still struggled with the head shape. I wanted them to feel like a reptilian polar bear, which is why I slightly blunted it, but I think I should have gone with a more angular shape instead. I can always change it later when I do their full-body.

I did have a very fun time with the horns, however. I wanted them to be a mix of narwhal teeth and icicles (yes, narwhal 'horns' are actually overgrown teeth. One tooth, usually, but sometimes they can have two!!). Before I get distracted I should explain how they grow: the scales at the base of the horn are constantly growing and essentially create the horn. That's what gives them their narwhal-like spirals.

I chose a similar approach to the neck spikes (untangling that mess was fun, let me tell you. Grids are very useful when doing many scales/spikes). At the base of each one you'll notice a scale forming it. On the back, I wanted to give a good side profile of the spikes. Technically, they are ever-growing, and need to be trimmed or sharpened constantly.

Now, as I was drawing them, I asked myself: why do IceWings need a mane of spikes?

A stupid question, you might wonder, but to me it's very important. Animals look the way they do for survival. So, while it's important visually for the ice theme, how could they be explained scientifically?

And then, when thinking of polar bears, I got my answer.

How the hell does a giant sparkly dragon hunt in the north? Seals would probably be part of their diet, but it's hard to sneak up on them if you're a ten ton reptilian flying creature, so I imagine they would tackle the problem like a polar bear would by waiting by a breathing hole and pouncing at the right moment. They already look like a frozen snowbank, so that part is easy.

But any hungry polar bear would be doing the same thing, and like a giant dragon, they would be waiting downwind of the breathing hole too. They wouldn't pose a threat to adult dragons or dragonets larger than them, but in real life polar bears are dangerous hunters and prey on humans. Why wouldn't it prey on a dragonet it thinks it can take on? Things in the WOF universe seem to be extra big (or scavengers/humans are tiny) so I think it would be a feasible for a desperate bear to hunt a dragon. They cannibalize, anyway, so going after another apex predator isn't out of the question. In this case, the horns and neck spikes would be a dragonet's saving grace, discouraging attacks from behind and especially on their necks. A bear's teeth could never get through their scales, but they could still crush their airways and choke them, and the spikes would keep them away from their necks and protect them from that fate. As they grow up, the neck spikes' length and strength could be used to determine a dragon's health and help them select good partners.

Finally, continuing with the bear theme: for the scales, I took inspiration from polar bear fur (which is actually hollow) to help design how IceWings preserve their body heat. In polar bears, its used to make them look white by reflecting the light of the sun, but in IceWings it could keep the cold out. Air pockets would create a barrier between them and the outside elements, and whatever gets in would meet their thick layer of fat that does the real warming. Yes, IceWings would be squishy, but you'd probably poke your eye out or stick permanently to their side a la tongue to cold metal pole.

Don't hug IceWings; they're very cold.

[arminreindl]

A Week in Croc News: A ziphodont crocodilian from New Guinea and a "baby" Piscogavialis

Once again I'm here to recap exciting fossil croc news. To give a quick rundown of papers from the last week, we had one on non-semi aquatic adaptations in crocodylomorphs (mostly life on land but also notes of marine groups), a paper that I'm biased toward because it feaures two of my silhouettes in its phylogeny.

The two silhouettes of mine used in the study. Duerosuchus representing the Planocraniidae and Trilophosuchus representing Atoposaurids (eventhough it's not one, it was picked since it at least conveys the right proportions).

Thalattosuchians recieved a lot of attention this past week. For starters, in addition to being brought up in the afforementioned paper, they were given a lot more focus in a study comparing the function and phylogenetic importance of their shoulder girdles (and those of dyrosaurids), a metriorhynchoid skeleton of uncertain affinities from the Cretaceous northeast Italy was described and just today we got a study on the braincase anatomy of Thalattosuchus.

The one paper that excited me the most however was the description of ziphodont crocodilian teeth from the Pliocene Otibanda Formation of Papua New Guinea. To those unaware, ziphodont teeth are essentially teeth that are flattened like a blade and bear serrations along their cutting edge, something seen in dinosaurs, monitor lizards and a select few crocodile groups like sebecid notosuchians, planocraniids and some mekosuchines. Now these teeth are nothing new, they've been known since 1967, hell I even mentioned them on both the wikipedia pages for Mekosuchinae and Quinkana, but they were never properly described...until now.

Leave it to Jorgo Ristevski, Ralph Molnar and Adam Yates to tackle this one, describing not just the ziphodont teeth but also the postcranial material and conical teeth from the formation. Now don't expect any new species or genera. Though valuable, the study doesn't cause any major stirr ups. The ziphodont teeth are tentatively referred to the Mekosuchinae, though they are not morphologically distinguishable from other ziphodont groups like sebecids or the previously mentioned planocraniids, mekosuchines are the only ones that fit the time and location. The other fossils are even more ambiguous, the postcrania referred to Crocodylia incerta sedis and the conical teeth to cf. Crocodylus sp., so basically an unknown crocodilian and a modern croc. This at least suggests that two different crocodiles inhabited Papua New Guinea at the time, maybe even three assuming that the postcrania don't belong to either the ziphodont or conical form.

Since New Guinea and Australia were once connected, forming the continent of Sahul, some Quinkana-like mekosuchines could have easily traveled to the island.

The final thing I want to mention is not an actual study, but still newsworthy. Scientists in Peru just revealed whats thought to be the first juvenile Piscogavialis. An amazingly preserved skeleton was unveiled, preserving much of the skull minus the tip of the snout, most of the spinal collumn until the base of the tail, both hindlimbs and some other bones as well (from the photos theres a few ribs at least).

Whats fun is that though described as a juvenile, the animal is estimated to have already reached around 3 meters in length. To put this into perspective, thats the size of the average female saltwater crocodile and just shy of the 4.3 meters reached by the contemporary Sacacosuchus. Now on the one hand, I think calling that a juvenile might be a bit of an exaggeration (then again the term subadult is arguably vague and meaningless) and I'm curious to see whether or not an eventual study will back this up with anatomical features or if its even possible that it could just be an instance of dimorphism between sexes. But thats just me musing on the basis of a few photos.

Anyways, given that they just state that this 3 meter animal is a "juvenile", you might wonder how large the adult would be?

The short answer...large. Yeah Piscogavialis got big. The skull alone measures over a meter in length and a recent paper on Sacacosuchus said that they grow to nearly twice the length of their smaller contemporary. With Sacaco sitting at 4.3 meters, one could easily imagine Piscogavialis reaching 7 to maybe 8 meters (I should make a proper scaling at some point). Here's how Gabriel Ugueto and artbyjrc scaled this animal and yeah, even if it ate fish it could probably do some real damage if provoked.

[disorderedcritters]

Some food for y'all because I don't think I've done a proper drawing in a little while

So , , here's all the critters having a little sleepover

(yes I did watermark this to shit. I worked on this for so long lmao)

A few other lighting versions + a rant about making this and my thought process under the cut !!

So, making this took SO LONG. I'm not very good at posing and this definitely challenged me. Plus I don't think I've ever drawn this many characters in one piece, so it was a good practice. (Also I may or may not be shipping Galaxy and Nebula lmao). Personally I really liked doing Aster's pose, just kind of standing back there menacingly lol. Well, not so menacingly, they're such a cutie. Also I tried to give everyone little hoodies or sweaters, a throwback to that one drawing of Solar in a hoodie (Lunar definitely made everyone wear them btw). The background was pretty hard. I'm not very good at them as I mentioned before, and I'm especially not good at perspective but I gave it a shot this time! I quite enjoyed drawing Solar too, he's definitely my favourite of them all <3 (yes I have favourites). Also Galaxy was meant to have a blanket but it was cut out because it looks weird, so yeah, sorry guys. Also LUNAR IS SO CUTE HERE, she's just, so peaceful!! All of them are meant to be relatively tired, but I really wanted at least one or two to be sleeping (Nebula and Lunar)

And for context this piece takes place in some kind of community room. It's assumed the perspective is from a door / window, which is why the lighting a circle (it's meant to be light from the window of the door, if that makes sense).

I think this would be a nice starting point for the game, but unfortunately for y'all I don't think I will go for it lol.

Speaking of the game I have designed a player character, but y'all won't see them for a bit don't worry