Not a Dinosaur(but still awesome)

A blog featuring those prehistoric critters than often sit in the shadow of those darned terrible lizards.

[notadinosaurr]

Haven't forgotten this. Just busy.

Just letting you know this hasn't been forgotten. I actually made a whole bunch of paleoart for a project. Will use that to make a couple posts soon.

Until then

see ya soon

[notadinosaurr]

Updated Art

Soo I updated the paleoart on the various posts. Now its all clean and shiny and you now have a extra andrewsarchus floating around(because Andrewsarchus's are awesome). Go check them out. Also since its summer and once I'm done with various trades and commissions there will be much more regular posting on here. YAY!

[notadinosaurr]

Opened Up Submissions

I opened up the submissions on here. So send me things, they might get posted. Also just as an update I will probably get back to posting a heck of a lot more regularly in two to three weeks time. But if you guys submit things this hiatus will seem far shorter. And we'll have paleothings to stare at.

[notadinosaurr]

Claws on Birds

Sorry no picture at the moment, been busy. Will get one up ASAP but ASAP might be in a months time.

Little known fact but there are actually quite a few birds in modern times with claws on their wings. Or some semblance of fingers on their wings left over from when they were raptors. All birds have the remains of fingers and hands, but the below feature several cases where the claws/fingers etc are more prevalent. Its actually quite common to have something left over and visible from the time that wings were hands.  The coolest and most functional of these fingers belong to the South American Hoatzin. Their chicks have claws on their wings which they can actually use to climb. As they grow older these claws disappear. But the Hoatzin are not the only birds with claws. A lot of ratites have wing claws hidden on their flightless wings, as well as gamebirds, owls, waterfowl, vultures, storks, and secretary birds have them hidden on their functional wings. The claws on these birds are often on the first digit(see illustration when I get it up) but there are some with two claws on their first and second digits. Some ratites(cassowary's in particular), flamingos and juvenile waterfowl have this. Speaking of waterfowl many have spikes,spurs and clubs on their wings which are weird bony structures formed off of fingers on wings.  These structures can be used to fight.

[notadinosaurr]

Sorry about the recent lack of updates. School has been keeping me busy. Anyway here is the newest feature that some of you may recognize. This is the Coelurosaurus, a creature from the late permian period and more recently from primeval. This unique lizard was smaller than is shown in the show(only 16 inches or so in length) and flies differently from any other extant animal today. Instead of getting wings from elongated ribs like the "flying" lizard of today, the bones in the wings are from dermal ossification. Dermal ossification is skin turning into bone like the plates on armored dinosaurs and scutes on alligators. These guys, by the way, didn't actually fly but glided like sugar gliders. Coelurosaurus probably was arboreal and ate insects for a living.

[notadinosaurr]

Say hello to one of my favorite prehistoric critters, the Andrewsarchus mongoliensis is only known from a massive skull. Said skull is 83cm long(2.5 feet long). The skull was found over a hundred years ago by Roy Chapman Andrews, a famous fossil hunter.  Scaling up from its nearest relative, the Mesonyx, scientists theorize this creature was 12 feet(3-4 meters) in length and as tall as a large horse. This means this guy was the largest or second largest mammalian predator to ever live(the first being the short-faced bear). No one is quite sure what its build was so we don't know if it was the heaviest mammilian predator. Its also not your average carnivore because Andrewsarchus and Mesonyx are part of an order of predatory hooved animals. So it had hooves instead of claws and was more closely related to deer than other modern day predators. Andrewsarchus lived in the Eocene epoch, about 35-45 million years ago.

[notadinosaurr]

Just when you thought Australia couldn't get any scarier they come along with this thing. Similar in size to the South American Terror birds, members of the  Dromornithidae family were big and possibly carnivorous. Convergent evolution is a wonderful thing. These guys aren't rattites(like emu and ostrich)  but are actually more closely related to geese and ducks. This particular species  is known as the  Dromornis stirtoni was probably the biggest bird that ever lived. They grew to around 3 meters(10 feet tall) and weighed more than New Zealand's Moa. These guys are believed to have been able to run fairly quickly, and nested in sand dunes. Their fossils, found in Alcoota Station in the Northern Territory of Australia, are as recent as 30,000 years ago and as ancient as 15 mya. 

[notadinosaurr]

For Your Reference

Just a handy post for any and all of you reading this blog.

Paleontology: The study of fossils. Not to be confused with Archeology.

Archeology: The study of prehistoric people and their cultures(note: prehistoric in this case is loosely defined as the study of Egyptians, Vikings, etc all fall under this science even though they are after prehistory).

Prehistory: History before writing

Fossils: Long dead animals and plants preserved in rock or as rock.

Era: A division of time lasting tens of millions of years.

Period: A division of time lasting several million years. One division smaller than an era

Cenozoic: Era from 65 million years ago to today. Also known as the age of mammals.

Mesozoic: Era From around 252 million years ago to 65 million years ago. This is also known as the age of the dinosaurs.

Paleozoic: Era from about 541 to 252 million years ago. This is the time before the dinosaurs that started with the explosion of multicelled life known as the Cambrian Explosion.

Extinction Event: Major Extinction events in which 50% of species die. This may be caused by volcanic activity, meteorite impact, or extreme and sudden climate change.

Mya: Short hand for millions of years ago.

Convergent Evolution: Two creatures evolve to fit an identical niche/conditions that end up looking similar despite the fact they are not at all related. A couple good modern examples are American vultures vs old world vultures.  Old world vultures are related to raptors, while new world vultures are believed to have evolved from storks and herons.

Niche: A set of conditions, available resources, etc that doesn't overlap with another that one species can occupy. Essentially an animals job.

Extant: Living today, opposite of extinct.

Arboreal: Lives in trees.

Any other definitions will be added as needed.

[notadinosaurr]

Meet the first feature of this blog, smilodon populator. This big kitty lived in South America about 1 million years ago and up until 10,000 years ago. A bigger version of smilidon fatalis, this cat was the size of a small pony. It stood 1.2-1.4 meters(4-4.5 feet) at the shoulder, and had 30(1 foot) cm long fangs. They are most likely the heaviest cats that ever lived and possibly the biggest. Only the American Lion(which may be featured later) is close to its massive size. Unlike other Smilodon, Populator did not have a straight back and actually was more hyena like in build thanks to its short hind legs.  Found in fossil sites in Brazil and Argentina, these cats lived in the plains that covered much of the continent at the time. Like many of the Smilodon genus scientists believe they may have lived in pride like structures, or small family groups.

Also sorry about the quality. My scanner decided not to work.... which is annoying.

[notadinosaurr]

Welcome to Not a Dinosaur(but still Awesome)

Hello everyone.

I'm saph an art student more than a little bit interested in paleontology. Paleontology, for those who don't know, is the study of fossils. I really am fascinated by fossils but most people really only know about the dinosaurs. However there were some really cool creatures that are not dinosaurs that often get neglected in favor of the the terrible lizards. This blog will showcase said creatures from the age of mammals(Cenozoic), and the age before the dinosaurs(Paleozoic). And there will be the occasional critter from the Mesozoic and even a rare dinosaur. A post will consist of some paleo art(often by myself... there will be anatomy errors but thats okay) and whole bunch of fun facts. Occasionally I might feature some living fossils, little known facts about animals with strange leftover evolutionary features, and other cool stuff. I hope you will enjoy the blog and please excuse the dust as this gets set up and rolling.