T.rex quarreling in the rain

67 million years ago as a storm quickly approaches a riverine forest in what is now the Hell Creek a formation of Montana, two Tyannosauris rex right over a Triceratops carcass while a lone Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis watches from behind a fallen log.

Tyrannosaurus

Tyrannosaurus is a large North American theropod, and the last known tyrannosaurid living before the end-Cretaceous extinction event. One of the largest land carnivores of all time, Tyrannosaurus grew to about 12 m long, weighing up to 9 t. The massive skull bones were fused and pneumatized, allowing for an extremely powerful bite. The tip of the snout was U-shaped, which increased the amount of tissue a tyrannosaur could bite off its prey. The skull of Tyrannosaurus was wide at the rear but had a narrow snout, allowing unusually good binocular vision. It was likely both an active predator and a scavenger, but the specifics of its feeding behavior and lifestyle are still debated.

A storm rolls over Late Cretaceous Hateg island, nourishing the land and drenching the local wildlife. Featuring: Tethyshadros, Hatzegopteryx, Paludititan, Balaur bondoc, an Enantiornithine, Sabresuchus, and many other critters.

little cretaceous guys + guest appearance of our even older friend the gorgonpsid (triceratops, pteradon, carnotaurus, parasaurolophus, deinonychus, ichthyosaur, gorgonopsid, repenomamus)

We know little about the deep sea environments of the Mesozoic but one place where we can get a glimpse into this world is the Münsterland basin. We have here several localities that preserved shallow and deep water animals side by side, caused by underwater landslides. These carried stuff from the rim of the basin and buried them in the deep with other material that was down there.

Tachynectes here is a very early lanternfish. Flattened lanternfishes are no longer a thing these days and we actually have lanternfishes from these localities that show their photophores preserved. We know where they glowed!

whenever i can't picture dinosaurs existing i just humble myself by looking at birds alive today. what the actual fuck is that thing

Lucky Find

A Tyrannosaurus finds the recently deceased body of an Edmontosaurus slumped into a creek in the forest. Around them are a softshell turtle, a salamander, a dragonfly, an enantiornithine bird and two small arboreal mammals fighting each other.

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A good boi.

Purgatorius and Tyrannosaurus by Bush Viper 165.

Dinosaur with most grotesquely deep jaw proportion to its own head (not mention a huge head compared to rest body)

Only after a while I realized that barrel ones look like snapping turtles (Chelydridae). Very shape dudes, and they aren't related to Protoceratops.

💗🪷 a Hadrosaur who had a long nap under the camellias and a bonus on my base :]

[ The skull is mounted on a custom steel armature, which allows for it to be seen all the way around. ]

"After seven years of work, the best preserved and most complete triceratops skull coming from Canada — also known as the "Calli" specimen — is on display for the first time since being found in 2014 at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. A museum news release calls the specimen "unique" because of where it was discovered, the age of the rock around it, and how well it was preserved. Following the floods that tore through Alberta about 10 years ago, the Royal Tyrrell staff were engaged in flood mitigation paleontology work when the triceratops skull was discovered in 2014. Triceratops fossils are rare in Canada. This skull was found in the foothills of southwestern Alberta — an area where dinosaur fossils in general are uncommon — and nicknamed "Calli" after Callum Creek, the stream where it was discovered. Transported via helicopter in giant, heavy chunks, the skull and most of the jaw pieces were extracted over the course of a month in 2015. The rest of the triceratops' skeleton was not found. Roaming the earth roughly 68 to 69 million years ago, the museum says this skull was buried in stages, evident by the fossilization process.  "Paleontologists know this because the specimen was found in different rock layers, and the poorly preserved horn tips suggest they were exposed to additional weathering and erosion," reads a museum blog about the triceratops skull.  "The rest of the skeleton likely washed away," noting that the lower jaws were found downstream. From 2016 to 2023, Royal Tyrrell technician Ian Macdonald spent over 6,500 hours preparing this fossil, removing over 815 kilograms of rock that encased the skull. This triceratops skull is the largest skull ever prepared at the museum and its third largest on display."

Read more: "Canada's biggest and best triceratops skull on display in Alberta" by Lily Dupuis.

It's time for Fossil Friday! Meet Cryptocleidus oxoniensis, a short-necked plesiosaur. Plesiosaurs were large marine reptiles that lived from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous. The plesiosaurs had extensive modifications to the shoulder and pelvic girdles: these elements form large, flat sheets of bone, presumably for the attachment of swimming muscles. Cryptocleidus' trunk was very rigid and short, and the short tail could only function as a rudder, leaving the limbs as its main organ of propulsion.

Photos: © AMNH

Image 1: Cryptocleidus on display in the Museum.

Image 2: Photographic negative of the fossilized remains of Cryptocleidus, circa 1910.

maybe in another life, we could have been friends

Spinosaurus drama is cool and things, but do you know what's even cooler? Better fossils of animals that lived with Spinosaurus!

There is a new specimen of Concavotectum currently on display in Tuscon. BigSkyFossils took some photos of it and I had to doodle it! It's been a while since I did a tselfatiform and now we have finally an idea how the postcranium looked like!

So far we only had a few fragments and this pretty good skull. As some people noted though, the eye is reconstructed in the wrong corner.