I love people almost as much as I love unicorns.
Which is a lot.
Posts tagged: reptile
Illustration of the males of several species of Venezuelan Anoles
by Gabriel Ugueto
(read more: Anole Annals)
Cuvier’s Dwarf Caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus)
… or “Musky Caiman”, is a relatively small crocodilian from northern and central South America. It lives primarily near fast stretches of stream, but also in nutrient-deficient waters. With a total length of up to 1.6 m (5.2 ft) in males and typically up to 1.2m (4 ft) in females, it is the smallest extant species of crocodilian.Juvenile dwarf caimans eat invertebrates, while adult caimans eat both fish and invertebrates. It uses burrows as shelter during the day, and lays eggs on a mounded nest which hatch in about three months.
(via: Wikipedia) (photos: T - juvenile by Josh More, B - Factumquintus)
Euhelopus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period, between 130 - 112 million years ago. It lived in what is now Shandong Province in China. A large herbivore, it weighed approximately 15 - 20 tons and attained an adult length of 15m (50 ft). Unlike most other sauropods, Euhelopus had longer fore legs than hind legs…
(read more: Wikipedia) (image: Dmitry Bogdanov)
Anatosuchus (“duck crocodile”, for the broad, duck-like snout) is an extinct genus of notosuchian crocodylomorph discovered in Gadoufaoua, Niger, and described by a team of palaeontologists led by the American Paul Sereno in 2003, in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.As the specific name indicates, A. minor was a very small crocodylomorph, with an adult body length estimated at around 70 centimeters. It had a very broad, duck-like snout…
(read more: Wikipedia)
(top image and bttm image: Sereno PC, Larsson HCE (2009) Cretaceous Crocodyliforms from the Sahara. ZooKeys 28: 1–143. doi:10.3897/zookeys.28.325)
I started going through the accession records and got distracted by the light refracting through the wet specimens, and couldn’t help but take some more pictures of them!
Velociraptor’s Last Meal Reavealed
by Jeanna Bryner
A lightweight Velociraptor dinosaur may have chowed down on the carcass of a much larger flying reptile not long before meeting his own demise some 75 million years ago.
The evidence comes from a pterosaur bone discovered in the gut of the skeletal remains of what was likely a Velociraptor mongoliensis that lived in what is now the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The fossil, the first pterosaur bone to be found inside dinosaur guts, was discovered in 1994 but not fully analyzed and detailed in a scientific publication until now.
Velociraptor was known to have fearsome sickle-shaped talons on the second toe of each foot; it kept these talons off the ground like foldable switchblades. Past research has shown these theropod dinosaurs used their talons to slash live prey and hook them to keep them from escaping.
The new study, which says the pterosaur may have been dead before the predator found it, adds to research suggesting the fierce carnivores wouldn’t turn their back on a free meal, either. A study published in 2010 reported the discovery of a Velociraptor frozen in time, scavenging the corpse of a larger dinosaur…
(read more: Live Science)
(top illustration by Brett Booth, bottom photo: David Hone)
I’m loving all these dinosaur illustrations
also personally I think velociraptors look even more ferocious with feathers
Flying Snakes (Chrysopelia spp.)
by National Geo staff
The image of airborne snakes may seem like the stuff of nightmares (or a certain Hollywood movie), but in the jungles of South and Southeast Asia it is reality. Flying snake is a misnomer, since, barring a strong updraft, these animals can’t actually gain altitude. They’re gliders, using the speed of free fall and contortions of their bodies to catch the air and generate lift.
Once thought to be more parachuters than gliders, recent scientific studies have revealed intricate details about how these limbless, tube-shaped creatures turn plummeting into piloting. To prepare for take-off, a flying snake will slither to the end of a branch, and dangle in a J shape. It propels itself from the branch with the lower half of its body, forms quickly into an S, and flattens to about twice its normal width, giving its normally round body a concave C shape, which can trap air. By undulating back and forth, the snake can actually make turns. Flying snakes are technically better gliders than their more popular mammalian equivalents, the flying squirrels.
There are five recognized species of flying snake, found from western India to the Indonesian archipelago. Knowledge of their behavior in the wild is limited, but they are thought to be highly arboreal, rarely descending from the canopy. The smallest species reach about 2 feet (61 centimeters) in length and the largest grow to 4 feet (1.2 meters)…
(read more: National Geo) (photo: Jake Socha)
New Research Provides Clear Answer to Debate About Dinosaur Posture
provided by Royal Veterinary College
Research published today (22 - Feb.) provides, for the first time, a clear answer to the debate as to whether Triceratops and other extinct creatures took on a more mammal-like or more reptile like posture.
Dr. Shin-ichi Fujiwara from the University of Tokyo and Professor John Hutchinson from the Royal Veterinary College have developed a new, advanced method that provides insight into the kinds of forelimb postures animals might use, derived from simple measurements on bones.
Findings using the new method show that, contrary to popular belief, Triceratops had quite upright forelimbs like larger mammals, not splayed out to the sides like most reptiles and amphibians. This understanding changes the way we visualise the posture and motion of Triceratops, and also suggests that the animal might have been more athletic than previously thought…
(read more: PhysOrg)
(image: Shin-ichi Fujiwara (drawing grayscale) and Soichiro Kawabe (color) from the Univ. of Tokyo)
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More information: Fujiwara, S; Hutchinson, J, Elbow joint adductor moment arm as an indicator of forelimb posture in extinct quadrupedal tetrapods , Proc. R. Soc. B; published ahead of print February 22, 2012, doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0190
Not to ruin the mood of discovery but
is anyone really surprised by this anymore?
I thought nearly everyone had agreed that the whole “lizard posture” thing was bogus like 20-30 years ago
Ball Python (Python regius)
Green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) await release into the sea :3
