Hi! This blog is dedicated to posting about the much lesser-known extinct animals from eras long gone that I think deserve as much love as the creatures everybody knows about.
Due to the nature of these animals, publicly available fossils and research may be pretty hard to dig up (or even access at all!), and I am also in college, so posts may be a bit slow sometimes. I’m trying my best!! If you ever think you would be able to contribute access to research or something like that, feel free to let me know :)
I have a long, long list of animals that I choose from to make posts about. This is most often through a spinner wheel for random selection, but sometimes not. Just expect lots of variety! All posts are tagged with the animals' taxonomy (genus, family, order, etc) to make searching easier.
Feel free to drop into the ask box to suggest some of your favorite obscure fossil creatures (or just to talk) and I'll add them to my list :) (this does not mean your request will be fulfilled next).
This blog is run solely by @raingerr <3
All drawings on this blog are free to use with proper credit.
Submission details and guidelines under the cut !
Want to submit an animal? Here’s how to make sure it’s “obscure”!
- What does its Wikipedia page look like? I’ve found that most obscure animals have very sparse wiki pages, if they have one at all.
- When was the last time you heard someone mention this creature, both inside and outside scientific/paleontology spheres?
- Does it have any depictions in popular media? Genera like Tyrannosaurus are everywhere in movies, TV, video games, etc. Typically, media producers like to use creatures that are popular and “cool” to general audiences, so obscure animals are pretty unlikely to be found in media! As a side note, expect a good amount of non-avian dinosaurs to not fall under the category of "obscure". Nowadays, even most newly-described dinosaurs get a good amount of attention!
- Has anybody drawn skeletals or paleoart? Unsurprisingly, most obscure animals I come across have little to no artwork done of them outside of occasionally their original publication.
Not all of these criteria have to be met, or even any of them at all! These are just some things I consider before adding an animal to my list to make sure they aren’t well-known. So if you’re considering requesting a creature, keep these in mind!
