#pterodactylus

[railroadatrox]

DRAGONS OF THE MESOZOIC

I got commissioned to design a pterosaur back tattoo, and decided to use the opportunity to redraw my original dragons of the Mesozoic design.

[haltraveler]

Digitized version of a doodle I made last week to entertain some 3rd graders

[alex-fictus]

P is for...?

All of the P names in my Paleo Party! Are there any I'm missing?

Notes:

Not pictured - Pomatrum and Paradoxides. I ran out of space ;u;

The Paddlefish as a general family are still alive today. I intended to make the Chinese Paddlefish specifically, but turns out I drew a different species! They're still technically a living fossil so they count lol

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[alphynix]

April Fools 2025: When Pterosaurs Were Swimming Gryphons

When it was first described by Cosimo Alessandro Collini in 1784, Pterodactylus wasn't originally interpreted as a flying reptile. The idea that species could go completely extinct wasn't fully understood yet, so fossils were assumed to represent things that still existed somewhere in distant unexplored regions. And so, since the oceans seemed like the best place for undiscovered animals to hide, this strange little creature was initially speculated to be aquatic.

Although it was soon properly recognized as a flying animal with some surprisingly mammal-like early reconstructions, the aquatic idea persisted until at least 1830 when Johann Georg Wagler published a restoration of Pterodactylus with huge membranous paddle-like flippers. He even grouped pterosaurs together with ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and monotremes in a proposed vertebrate class called "Gryphi" (literally "gryphons") and considered them all to be transitional between birds and mammals.

Wagler's whole classification system seems esoteric and improbable by modern standards, but it's a fascinating look at a pre-Darwinian "chain of being" sort of mindset where all organisms were thought to exist in a fixed hierarchy with pre-set roles.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

"Johann Wagler and the Mysteries of Class Gryphi." YouTube, uploaded by cmkosemen, 10 Sep. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_MVpw9Qqow

Sivgin, Timur. "The weirdest things people have thought about pterosaurs" Manospondylus, 2 Jan. 2020, https://www.manospondylus.com/2020/01/the-weirdest-things-people-have-thought.html

Wagler, Johann Georg. Natürliches System der Amphibien: mit vorangehender Classification der Säugethiere und Vögel: ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Zoologie. 1830. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/120243

Wikipedia contributors. “Pterodactylus” Wikipedia, 30 Mar. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterodactylus

[makairodonx]

Jurassic June 2024 Day 24: Pterodactylus antiquus

[prismatixxkhaos]

Finally got the pterodactylus drawing done!! Wasn’t quite sure what the colors or patterns should be for him, so I just did whatever. Anyways, here he is!

[artwithteggy]

this is where im at with the articulated Pterodactylus 3d printable model. This has been the most finiky model to date, and now I have a headache. lol.

[best-fictional-marine-reptile]

Pterodactylus [Hey Clay] vs. Amazon "Zon" Saturday [The Secret Saturdays]

Propaganda (if any) under the cut! Please be civil, and feel free to reblog!

Propaganda for Pterodactylus [Hey Clay]:

"just a strange little guy"

Propaganda for Amazon "Zon" Saturday [The Secret Saturdays]:

"Nominated for being a good girl =)"

[justgoji]

my headspace lost world island didn’t have enough fliers so I made a bunch

[onesecretperson]

A Nice Pretty Character Art Commission drawn for me a bit ago by @bethdehart, who also designed this "Robodactyl!"

Beth also did this very cool VHS filter version below!

[si-nequal-is]

Compsognathus longipes and Pterodactylus antiquus on beach of Solnhofen archipelago

[railroadatrox]

DRAGONS

Hello, I’ve been making more paleoart recently so I’m gonna be updating this blog again after so many years lol.

To begin, some pterosaurs from a while ago.

[reginaldubel]

dinovember day 25: pterodactylus 🧄

[alex-fictus]

My Mesozoic is Sky Blue!

Broomistega - Drepanosaurus - Velociraptor

Diplodocus - Deinocheirus - Shantungosaurus

Pterodactylus - Spinosaurus - Dolichorhynchops

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[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwback Thursday: The Father of Paleontology

This is Jean  Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier better known as simply George Cuvier. He was French naturalist and zoologist who is known for his work in comparative anatomy, specifically in regards to comparing fossils to living organisms. His work is considered the foundation of vertebrate paleontology because he expanded Linnaean taxonomy into phyla and included extinct animals.

In fact, he separated invertebrates and vertebrates which is a HUGE deal in biology. We've all learned the difference between those two major groups.

He also studied strata in the Paris basin Alexandre Brongniart which established the basic principles of biostratigraphy. They concluded that that the layers had been laid down over an extended period during which there clearly had been faunal succession and that the area had been submerged under sea water at times and at other times under fresh water. This led to the law of faunal succession which states that fossils appear and disappear in specific sedimentary rock strata.

He named many famous prehistoric animals we know today such as the Mastodon,

Megatherium,

and Pterodactylus.

He also described Mosasaurus.

He was a big proponent of catastrophism, the idea that the Earth's geological features were shaped by sudden, violent events. He was very against evolution which was primarily proposed by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire at the time.

A deep-rooted source of his opposition to the gradual transformation of species was his goal of creating an accurate taxonomy based on principles of comparative anatomy. (This is why Linnaean taxonomy doesn't work and is not used by paleontologists today).

He was the first person to propose extinction though. His primary evidence for his identifications of mammoths and mastodons as separate, extinct species was the structure of their jaws and teeth. His primary evidence that the Megatherium fossil had belonged to a massive sloth came from his comparison of its skull with those of extant sloth species.

Many famous naturalists opposed his extinction theory including Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. Unlike Cuvier, they didn't believe that extinction was a sudden process; they believed that like the Earth, animals collectively undergo gradual change as a species. This differed widely from Cuvier's theory, which seemed to propose that animal extinction was catastrophic.

We now know that both were right. Some extinctions are gradual while others are catastrophic. Just ask the dinosaurs.

He also speculated that there was a time when reptiles, not mammals were the dominant life forms on earth which was confirmed in the two decades following his death.

There's even more I can go into but for now, those are the big things he contributed to the science. Tune in tomorrow to learn about a well-known group of animals that appeared in the Ordovician Period. Fossilize you later!

[thedrawinggizzard]

More random doodles. I drew a bunch of goobers from the isle.