#meiolania

[arminreindl]

Meiolaniidae

So honestly I'm relatively new to digital painting. I sketched a little here and there, made skeletals, but actual painting I've done very little. But I ended up putting this together for my work on the Wikipedia page for meiolaniid turtles. (Yes the Ninjemys colours are a reference to it being named after the TMNT)

I've rambled a bit about them before, but basically, meiolaniids are weird stem-turtles thought to be outside the two main modern groups we have. They were decently large animals, their shells alone range from 1 meter to 2 meters in length (3 to 6ft I believe?), they were land animals, had some crazy horns and tails that were encased in spiky armored rings and tipped with a tail club. Here some photos with paleontologist Victoria Arbour, a Ninjemys tail club photographed by Serjoscha Evers and a Meiolania tail club illustrated by W.H. Wesley.

They were found throughout almost the whole Cenozoic, with the oldest form dating to the Eocene of South America and the most recent ones living from the Pleistocene to Holocene in Australia and on various South Pacific Islands. They are honestly pretty cool animals and super underrated, which is why I decided to give their wikipedia pages upgrades in the first place. Which also meant doing a bunch of other illustrations (that I was more in tune with) and pulling a bunch of public domain photos and putting them on wikimedia. Here some skeletals and charts I made, open the last pic, it shows multiple different Meiolania species atop each other.

The results were pretty mixed tbh. Some of the most recent forms, Gaffneylania, Warkalania and even Ninjemys had relatively little to write about. But things were more exciting with Niolamia (if you remember my rant about its messed up history). Meiolaniidae itself was just a big summary of all the other stuff, but easily the most extensive was Meiolania itself, which took AGES to research and put togehter. Tho I'm pretty happy with the result. Here's a little side by side, old and new.

[tym-0n]

Horned turtle from Australia and near islands Meiolania

Scale: 1:35

Material: super sculpey

[dry-gold]

Mythunga, a cretaceous pterosaurLinks and propaganda Mammalodon, a cenozoic baleen whale from before baleen Mandageria, a devonian lobe-finned fish Megalibgwillia, a big cenozoic echidna Meiolania, a cenozoic horned tortoise Minmi, a cretaceous armoured dinosaur Murgonemys, a cenozoic soft-shelled turtle Murrayglossus, an even bigger cenozoic echidna Muttaburrasaurus, a cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur Mythunga, a cretaceous pterosaur

[pleistocene-pride]

Meiolania also known as the horned turtle, is an extinct genus of meiolaniid stem-turtle that lived throughout Australia, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Fiji from the Middle Miocene to early Holocene some 20 mya to 2,000 years ago. The first fossil remains of Meiolania where uncovered from Lord Howe Island by Sir Richard Owen in 1886 who thought they represented ancient lizards and assigned the remains as belonging to two species M. platyceps and M. minor (now a synonym of the former), dubbing the genus Meiolania meaning small roamer. In time however it was learned that Meiolania was actually a terrestrial turtle and today 3 species are recognized: M. platyceps, M. mackayi, and M. brevicollis. Reaching 4 to 8 feet in length and 250-1,000lbs in weight, Meiolania is a candidate for the largest known terrestrial turtle/ tortoise, rivaled only by Megalochelys atlas from Pleistocene Asia. Meiolania had an unusually shaped skull that sported many knob-like and horn-like protrusions. Two large horns faced sideways, and would have prevented the animal fully withdrawing its head into its shell. Aside from the large spikes on the head, Meiolania also had a spiked tail similar to some tails of the ankylosaurus and glyptodonts,  these may have been defensive features for protecting the head and tail extremities from predators as such adaptations would have made it difficult for predators to close their mouths around these spots without getting a mouthful of spikes. In life Meiolania would have inhabited Forests, Savannahs, and Wetlands feeding upon sedges, grasses, shrubs, flowers, cacti, fruit, and carrion. The disappearance of much of the Pleistocene megafauna is often attributed to the arrival of humans and in the case of Meiolania there is actually strong evidence to support this. In Vanuatu the remains of Meiolania have been found in the rubbish dumps of early human settlements, going extinct some three hundred years after the first human contact. 

Art can be found here:

https://twitter.com/serpenillus/status/1264250510753890307

https://www.deviantart.com/hodarinundu/art/New-Caledonia-3000-years-ago-903959697

[hasellia]

Reblog for a bigger sample size.

Say in the tags what you voted for and if you live in or outside the US

[turqoisetortoise]

In my kaiju phase

[godzilla-and-aang-monsters]

Oogway

Altura: 180 metros (al caparazón)

Longitud: 479.88 metros

Peso: 250,000 toneladas

Primer Avistamiento: Isla de Mauricio [Tierra: Teratoverso]

Controles: Fuego Control [Aliento de Fuego y Bolas de Fuego] Agua Control [Nado] Tierra Control [Caparazón, Reforestación]

Guarida: Isla de Mauricio [Tierra: Teratoverso] Zaofu [Avatarverso]

Aspecto: Oogway (Coloración) + Tortuga de las galápagos + Meiolania

Aliados:

Humanos: Aang, Katara, Soka, Iroh, Zuko

Kaijus y otras bestias: Anguirus, King Kong, Godzilla (frecuentemente), Mothra, Rodan

Enemigos:

Humanos: Ozai y Azula

Kaijus y otras bestias: King Ghidorah, King Kong, Godzilla (ocasionalmente)

[boobookittenartblog]

Meiolania seems like it was the turtle that wished it was an ankylosaur.

For certain it looked the part, evolving both a spiky armoured head and an even spikier armoured tail with a solid club at the tip. It lived in Australasia during much of the Cenozoic and grew up to 2 metres long, making it one of the largest known land turtles to have existed.

Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto

[jjmin-art]

Meiolania and Pelagornis

[non-rise-tmnt-au-competition]

eon rewind summary: scientists have done it! they have resurrected the dead! well, with turtles at least. from all ages of the past eon, a team of scientists at T.C.R.I. have brought back a meiolania, a carbonemys, and twin stupendemys! doctor baxter stockman, an independent researcher, followed this up with an odontochelys and proganochelys of his own! they would bring back more, but, well… it’s a little hard to with the current… alien problem. unfortunately, all the turtles have been lost. In other news, could ninjas be in new york? more at twelve!

tmn't' summary: welcome to tmn't'!! in this iteration, the boys don't grow up in a busy city, but secluded in a house in the woods on an island on the coast of south carolina. when splinter escaped with the kids, he ran as far and as fast as he could, hitchhiking, train hopping, and stealing bus tickets with two oddly covered toddlers and a suspiciously lumpy backpack. wonder who he was running from...

eon rewind - @rubberducky2pointoh

teenage mutant nature “turtles” - @i-got-da-rubes

[arminreindl]

So everyone loves Megalania (Varanus priscus), the giant monitor lizard from Pleistocene Australia. But here's something I found out today. For a brief period of time in the 1880s Richard Owen, the guy who described it, thought it was a giant spiny lizard similar and possibly related to the Thorny Devil. At that time this reconstruction was created.

The reason is about as dumb as you would think. So while Megalania was originally described based on a few vertebrae, Owen was beginning to referr more and more material to the animal, a lot of the time without the bones showing any overlap. Now around 1880 the skull of the giant turtle Ninjemys was found in Australia and sent to Owen in London. G. F. Bennett, who found the skull, correctly identified it as a turtle and mentioned as much in a letter to Owen.

Except Owen seemingly ignored that or disagreed, because he swiftly proposed that the skull was actually that of a lizard and not just that, specifically that of Megalania. As if that wasn't already an unholy chimera enough for you, the limb bones that Owen assigned to Megalania at the time were those of a GODDAMN MARSUPIAL. Not even a reptile.

Even when studying more turtle skulls from Lord Howe Island, Owen insisted that what he had were actually lizards, which he considered to be relatives of Megalania (naming them Meiolania). Eventually both Huxlay and Woodward got involved, recognizing the two skulls as turtles and removing all the non-lizard stuff from Owen's Megalania. But for just a brief period of time Megalania was some uncanny hybrid between monitor lizard, giant wombat (art by Gabriel Ugueto) and tail-clubed turtle (art by Joschua Knüppe)

[malicious-fisheeves]

Cenozoic fauna poll... 2!

the last one was a lot of fun and people left great suggestions so I've made a 2nd poll (and also expanded the temporal range slightly)

Like before, the animals would have their space/habitat needs adequately met and would not be immediately at risk for genetic issues/poaching/habitat loss. Also just for funsies you can also imagine that the other members of their ecosystem would also be brought back, this is just who'd you want back first.

[sevarix-blogs]

i love looking at ancient dinosaur and turtle skeleton reconstructions and imagining the lives they lived, the things they saw, their parents and packs and neighbours. as well as what people thought of the skeletons when they were found in a time before the word / concept of "dinosaur".

I've only been to a natural history museum in canada, so many different creatures to see!

Meiolania was a tortoise capable of reaching 8 feet in length. It weighed 450 kilograms and went extinct 50,000 years ago in Australia.

AHH so cool! theres a natural history museum in the city where i grew up that was REALLY good, i loved going there as a kid and later even an adult! i've also been to the Big Museum in Chicago, if you're ever there i recommend going there!

it's almost kind of mind blowing looking at some of that stuff! especially the funny (and massive) mammals that existed in the past!

[tyrannoninja]

After thinking back to these three artworks I did, and I would like to share some of my ideas for a possible King Kong remake should Hollywood decide to do one:

Kong is a giant member of the great ape subfamily Ponginae, making him related to both the modern orangutan and the large extinct ape Gigantopithecus. His native island lies somewhere on the regional crossroads between insular Southeast Asia and Melanesia, with the wildlife being of mixed Asian and Australasian origin. Among the island's other inhabitants are stegodontid proboscideans, giant turtles related to Meiolania, and a giant terrestrial crocodilian related to Australia's Quinkana that is the apex predator.

Some of Skull Island's Melanesian inhabitants have naturally blond hair, and they have a tradition of offering young blonde women as "brides" for Kong. When the American film director Carl Denham and his crew arrive on the island, they see the islanders preparing to offer one of their woman (who is the female lead of our story) to Kong and try to "buy" her out of being sacrificed with trade goods.

Denham invites our heroine aboard his ship to indulge her curiosity about his people's culture, and some chemistry develops between her and the first mate Jack Driscoll. However, there is a faction among her people that want to continue the sacrifice, so they abduct her and offer her to Kong. It is Driscoll who insists on penetrating the island's jungle to rescue our heroine, but Denham sees an opportunity to exploit the situation for his own gain...

Once they capture Kong, they bring both him and his native "bride" to New York City, intending to display them both to paying crowds. Kong escapes, carrying our heroine with him, and he ends up cornered atop the Empire State Building. While the heroine fears for her god's safety, Jack Driscoll decides that the right thing to do is to defend Kong and bring both him and the woman back to their home in Skull Island.

SPOILER ALERT

Our story ends with both Kong and our heroine returning to Skull Island. However, instead of becoming Kong's "bride", our heroine chooses Driscoll to be her partner instead, and they live happily ever after with one another.

Kong's Last Battle

Standing atop the Empire State Building in New York City, the mighty Kong beats his chest and roars to challenge the biplanes attacking him. Watching him from the balcony below is his loyal human bride brought over from Skull Island, who fears for the safety of her simian god and will not be ready for his inevitable tragic downfall…

This is the third in a trilogy of artworks I have done re-imagining the story of King Kong, depicting him as a relative of the giant Asian ape Gigantopithecus. The beauty to go with our beast in these artworks is one of his native island’s Melanesian inhabitants, and she is indeed a natural blonde (as are some Melanesian people in real life).

Below are the previous two artworks in this trilogy:

[radstarsaur]

The small friends trilogy concludes

[oneweirdreptileaday]

Meiolania platyceps