#ornithopod

[toadalled]

*Island in the Sun plays in the background*

Hyp-hyp

[vickysaurus]

[actual-haise]

The Mists of Lourinhã Eousdryosaurus encounters Lusotitan.

[alex-fictus]

Dinosaur Families poster available now!

Can't decide on one dinosaur family to get from my 17x11 prints? Why not get them all in one! I managed to fit 61 dinosaurs in one poster, which feels so crazy to say!

Preorder ends Nov. 10th :D

[alphynix]

For a long time there were no hadrosaurid fossils known from Africa.

This seemed to mainly be due to the limits of the geography of their time. Hadrosaurs evolved and flourished during the late Cretaceous, when Africa was isolated from all the other continents, and they didn't seem to have ever found their way across the oceanic barriers.

…Until in 2021 a small hadrosaur was discovered in Morocco, a close relative of several European species, showing that some of these dinosaurs did reach northwest Africa just before the end of the Cretaceous - and with no land bridges or nearby island chains to hop along, they must have arrived from Europe via swimming, floating, or rafting directly across several hundred kilometers of deep water.

And now another hadrosaur has just been described from the same time and place.

Minqaria bata lived in Morocco at the very end of the Cretaceous, about 67 million years ago. Only known from a partial skull, its full appearance and body size is unknown, but it probably measured around 3.5m long (~11'6") – slightly larger than its previously discovered relative, but still very small for a hadrosaur. It might represent a case of insular dwarfism, since at the time Morocco may have been an island isolated from the rest of northwest Africa.

Along with its close relative Ajnabia, and at least one other currently-unnamed larger hadrosaur species, Minqaria seems to be part of a rapid diversification of hadrosaurs following their arrival in Morocco, adapting into new ecological niches in their new habitat where the only other herbivorous dinosaur competition was titanosaurian sauropods, and the only large predators were abelisaurs.

If the K-Pg mass extinction hadn't happened just a million years later, who knows what sort of weird African hadrosaurs we could have ended up with?

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

[confusedhadrosaur]

Pararhabdodon isonensis from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian, 66 Ma), Spain It's the end of the dry season and the sky carries the upcoming rain on a late afternoon.

[makairodonx]

Dinovember 2024 Day 2: Iguanodon bernissartensis

[ppaleoartistgallery]

#Paleostream 19/10/2024

here's today's #Paleostream flocking sketches!!! i missed the live today because doing that stream right before took me out and i had to sleep :P

today we sketched Lambeosaurus, Microraptor, Innovatiocaris, and Haplocheirus

[joakinmar]

Thescelosaurus neglectus by Anthony J. Hutchings.

[mesozoicmarket]

A fossilized vertebra of a Levnesovia transoxiana from the Bissekty Formation in Dzharakuduk or Uchkuduk, Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. This early diverging hadrosauromorph belongs to a group that includes the famous "duck-billed" dinosaurs. This relatively small hadrosaur was likely prey for the basal pantyrannosaur Timurlengia and the large theropod Ulughbegsaurus.

[spencerranch]

We all love a good theropod, but I'll always be a Tri-guy at heart. So here's triceratops, covered in quills.

[armadillorollup]

Muttaburrasaurus got added to prehistoric kingdom party

[vickysaurus]

Edmond, the Edmontosaurus mummy.

[knarme-art]

A cute Leaellynasaura character I drew for Art Fight!

Character author: Librarycat

[alex-fictus]

The Ornithopods!

This group can also be called the Hadrosaurs, but that's a group within the ornithopods, and some of the members of this line up don't fit into that box.

Lurdusaurus - Hypsilophodon - Olorotitan

Lambeosaurus - Edmontosaurus / Anatotitan - Iguanodon

Zalmoxes - Corythosaurus - Parasaurolophus

Atlascopcosaurus - Shantungosaurus - Maiasaura

Muttaburrasaurus - Altirhinus

Sticker Group || Shop || Phone Wallpapers

Planned: Leaellynasaura, Tenontosaurus, Ouranosaurus, Brachylophosaurus, Thescelosaurus, Kulindadromeus, Saurolophus, Vectidromeus, Pegomastax, Tianyulong, Heterodontosaurus, Silesaurus, Tietasaura (NEW SPECIES)

(I know some of these are more neornithischians than ornithopods, it's just the best place to fit them in my shop lol)

[alphynix]

Spectember/Spectober 2024 #07: Mole Dino

Today's spec creature is a combination of a couple of submissions – James P. Quick asked for "a post-K/Pg relict dinosaur from pre-glaciation Antarctica", and an anonymous asked for "a subterranean (like, say, Talpa or Spalax) burrowing dinosaur":

At the time of the K/Pg mass extinction some of the small ornithopods that inhabited Late Cretaceous Antarctica had been developing increasingly complex burrowing behavior and a more generalist omnivorous diet than most other ornithischians – and, along with their ability to endure the long dark cold polar winters, this was juuust about enough for them to survive while the rest of their non-avian cohorts vanished.

They were very briefly a fairly successful disaster taxon in the devastated polar forests, but they were quickly displaced by other diversifying survivors and never really got another ecological foothold to regain anything close to the non-avian dinosaurs' former glory.

Instead the little ornithopods specialized even further for burrowing, spending more and more of their lives underground to avoid the increasing competition and predation from mammals and birds.

Now, well into the Cenozoic at the dawning of the Miocene, Cthonireliqua quicki is the very last representative of the non-avian dinosaurs. Small and stocky and mole-like, just 15cm long (~8"), it has muscular forelimbs with large shovel-like claws, a keratinous shield on its head, and a thick bristly tail where large fat reserves are stored.

Its eyes are almost completely absent, only vestigial remnants present under the skin of its face, and it navigates its extensive burrows using sensitive whisker-like filaments and its keen senses of hearing and smell. Still omnivorous like its ancestors, it feeds on whatever it comes across while tunneling – mainly worms, insects, smaller vertebrates, roots, and tubers.

Unfortunately for Cthonireliqua, and the rest of its Antarctic ecosystem, time is running out. Over the last few million years Antarctica's climate has been steadily cooling and drying, the continent has become fully isolated, and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current has formed. Glaciation is well underway in the continental interior, and the once-lush forests are shrinking away and being replaced with tundra.

Soon all evidence of these dinosaurs' existence will be buried under the ice.