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| DK's Conceptualisations | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 16 2013, 09:44 PM (843 Views) | |
| the dark phoenix | Dec 10 2014, 05:13 AM Post #51 |
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the dark phoenix of wonderland
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Maybe they can carve a niche and eat their competitors XD |
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| DK1000 | Jan 27 2015, 07:12 PM Post #52 |
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Adult
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S-S-S-S-S-S-S-SKETCHDUMP. ![]() Rather smudged and spotty, but eh, sketches are sketches. Super-duper close ups and details: ![]() "Dicyrenian": I'm thinking of making this more or less the general body shape for the dicyrenians. I'd originally been toying with using the tail as the main mode of propulsion, and I had sketches of dicyrenians with a very cetacean- or dugong-like tail, with horizontal flukes and having it move up and down vertically. Then I remembered dicynodont spines moved from side to side, not up and down like mammals. I was considering giving them a vertical fluke instead, although I wasn't very fond of that honestly. In the end I The head on this one is a little more specific, the idea in mind being that this dicyrenian is a durophage, with a short, broad, rounded snout like that of walruses or Odobenocetops. The beak shape was inspired by Baby Joe the Parasaurolophus and overgrown turtle beaks, but I think this shape works for such a lifestyle. Some other more general features of the head include raised nostrils and eyes, since you know, aquatic and what not. ![]() "Gallumph": Oh hey, it's the long-headed dicynodont again! Or the gallumph as I've been calling it without ever mentioning before! Not much to say about this one, I just like drawing gallumphs. ![]() "Giant terrestrial drepanosaur": This idea goes fairly far back, and it hasn't particularly changed much so why I never brought it up before is a mystery The inspiration came from sloths. Since tree sloths and drepanosaurs are vaguely similar(?), and since sloths have came down to the ground multiple times, I thought to myself 'Why not terrestrial drepanosaurs?', and thus this thing came into being. As you can tell, it's a knuckle walker to protect its large claws, and like some ground sloths, it walks on the sides of its hindfeet. This is both a deliberate homage as well as trying to keep with drepanosaur anatomy, since their hindfeet are like chameleons, with inverted toes suited for gripping branches rather than walking on flat surfaces. It retains the tail-claw for really no reason other than Rule of Cool, except maybe for defence or something (I have it curled up over the tail to stop it from dragging against the ground and dulling). I pictured this sort as being a large herbivore of sorts (although I can easily picture it scavenging carcasses just because it can), but I can envision related species or totally independently terrestrial lineages being insectivores like anteaters (and since ground sloths and drepanosaurs appear to have made burrows, perhaps some big burrowing terrestrial drepanosaurs too? (Try saying that three times fast)). That bowling-pin looking thing behind its head is supposed to represent a person for scale. ![]() "Parasitic temnospondyl; "Terrestrial lamprey"": A preliminary sketch of that parasitic neotenous temnospondyl I talked about over in Dilo's topic. I'm not particularly happy with this sketch, and I'd have preferred to have had some references to how the mouth should look and the legs and so on, but I think it gets the point across. You can read more about this thing in Dilo's topic, since I'd just be repeating myself if I wrote about this thing. ![]() "Giant filter-feeding temnospondyl": You may recall a long while back I said something about 'giant filter-feeding pleurosaurs'. A slightly-less long while back I took a look over the entire idea, all the crude sketches and doodles I had of the things and realised 'This is really stupid'. The whole thing was convoluted and (to me) pretty implausible; it involved making the assumption marine pleurosaurs were either around by the Triassic or the exact Jurassic forms would evolve here anyway (Chaos Theory pls), their anatomy and evolution was ridiculously convoluted, and the idea was basically stolen from a Specworld mosasaur design that I thought was neat. Those were dark times, and I am ashamed. Naturally the idea was scrapped before it ever saw the light of day (RIP in peaces). Then I got interested in marine temnospondyls and the allure for giant filter-feeders reared its ugly head again, but this time in a much more plausible (and IMO more exciting) way. So what exactly's going on here? For starters, these things don't use baleen plates like the pleurosaurs and whales do for filtering food, they use their gills. Initially, I was held back by the thought that marine temnospondyls would have feathery gills, but apparently some(?) tadpoles do have gill slits as well as/instead of feathery gills, so I think I'm in the clear for this one. Like large filter-feeding sharks, this thing has gill rakers on the inside of its gills to catch food as water passes over the gills. The sketch on the left shows it feeding, mouth open and throat expanded, whilst the bottom right shows it with its mouth closed and looking a bit more like a regular temnospondyl. Sort of. Basically it's like a big ol' basking/whale/megamouth shark, except its an amphibian. ![]() Aaaaand finally, it's everyone's favourite flying, fuzzy crocodylomorph, a dracosuchid...! ...and that's about. Honestly this thing was just to fill in the empty space in the top right corner of the page. But it does show off the fuzz, wing attachment and nifty leg scale things I keep drawing them with, so that's something. >And thus, his contribution completed, DK crawls back into his hole to aestivate for another twenty years. |
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| DK1000 | May 4 2015, 12:07 AM Post #53 |
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Adult
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Twenty years? Make that four months.![]() Full sized image Alright, starting from the top left and moving clockwise:
So there we have it, another sketch dump. If you want me to elaborate on any of these concepts or others I've posted before, just ask, I'm terrible at writing down everything clearly and concisely. |
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| the dark phoenix | May 10 2015, 05:09 AM Post #54 |
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the dark phoenix of wonderland
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I didn't know about azendohsaurids. I guess they'd compete with the giant dicynodonts and the silesaurs. Since they are only known from teeth and a skull, perhaps we can manipulate them into a more therizinosaur niche? I'd honestly would like to see a reptilian non-dinosaur megatherium or chalicotherium. A while back before we redid the site I think I mentioned borrowing aetosaurs before... Just more for the geosuchids to eat unless this thing is huge. Also with the extinction of the poor placos I support this box ribbed croc. Edited by the dark phoenix, May 10 2015, 05:10 AM.
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| Dilophoraptor | May 10 2015, 05:14 AM Post #55 |
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Reader of Minds and Stealer of Souls
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they can always be in different areas. |
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| the dark phoenix | May 10 2015, 03:59 PM Post #56 |
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the dark phoenix of wonderland
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I think we said Silesaurs would live in the Americas while the rest of the world had the gallumphs. |
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| DK1000 | May 10 2015, 07:38 PM Post #57 |
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Adult
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I think you'e exaggerating the level of competition that would be present between large herbivores in an ecosystem. "Large herbivore" isn't all that specific of a niche, and there are numerous ways that large herbivores are able to partition their niches within ecosystem so that they can coexist. The ridiculously high number of sauropods present in the Morrison Formation and the high diversity of species in the Dinosaur Park Formation are examples of this, where numerous large herbivores are able to coexist by adapting to different methods of feeding. In the Dinosaur Park Formation, for example, hadrosaurs like Lambeosaurus and Saurolophus were high browsers, ceratopsians like Chasmosaurus and Styracosaurus were low browsers, and ankylosaurs like Euoplocephalus and Panoplosaurus were grazers. Furthermore, these herbivores all had varied sets of teeth, beaks, jaw strength, etc. that means they were feeding on different plants and so would further avoid direct competition (compare the masticating jaws of hadrosaurs to the shearing jaws of ceratopsians, or the broad mouth of Euoplocephalus to the narrow-snouted Panoplosaurus). Likewise, large herbivores in MN would be able to coexist with each other by partitioning their niches. Silesaurs, dicynodonts and azendohsaurids already have quite varied jaws and teeth that imply distinct feeding methods, so partitioning their niches should be fairly easy. This illustration by Dilo illustrates the concept rather well, with a high browsing "silesauropod", a low-to-mid level browsing aetosaur feeding on vegetation and a dicynodont tucking into a log (based on the presence of wood in dicynodont coprolites). Azendohsaurus is actually known from rather complete remains discovered in Madagascar which were described as: "Azendohsaurus madagaskarensis possessed an elongated neck, short tail, and stocky limbs. The manus and pes have unexpectedly short digits, terminating in large, recurved ungual phalanges. Together with the skull, knowledge of the postcranial skeleton elevates A. madagaskarensis to another highly apomorphic and bizarre Triassic archosauromorph." This description more or less resembles the mid-Triassic archosauriform Pamelaria, and it may be related to Azendohsaurus, so that would probably be an alright frame of reference. As for reptilian, herbivorous knuckle-walkers, I think I've got you covered. I was thinking that burrowing aetosaurs of this sort would be pretty small, around the same size as modern moles and the like. Don't fret, the placodonts will live on with the henodontids. |
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| the dark phoenix | May 12 2015, 04:24 AM Post #58 |
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the dark phoenix of wonderland
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As much as I'd like to add some ideas to these or make animals out of these, I think I'm just gonna stick with the animals I am working on and know a bit better. |
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| DK1000 | Jun 1 2015, 04:15 AM Post #59 |
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Adult
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![]() An entelodont/Andrewsarchus-esque traversodont of some sort, modelled after the frightfully badarse skull of Diademodon with (what's intended to be) a more carnivorous set of nashers and a very wide-gape (a la entelodonts). |
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| the dark phoenix | Jun 1 2015, 01:05 PM Post #60 |
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the dark phoenix of wonderland
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Would the proto-mammals get a chance to use this form? |
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| DK1000 | Jun 6 2015, 06:09 PM Post #61 |
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Adult
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I can't think of anything preventing such a morphology and lifestyle off the top of my head. Traversodonts were already reaching large sizes during the late Triassic, so they're already established as large animals in their ecosystems. Granted, traversodonts were mostly, if not all herbivores, but the common ancestor of cynogathians appears to have been a carnivore, and large carnivores are known from this branch of the cynodont tree (*coughcoughCynognathuscoughcough*). Plus, it wouldn't be the first time a group of classically herbivorous animals (e.g. artiodactyls) has produced carnivores (looking at you, cetancodontomorpha!) |
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| the dark phoenix | Jun 7 2015, 07:13 AM Post #62 |
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the dark phoenix of wonderland
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I think we should have some guys that specialize in killing proto-mammals. All I picture at the moment is these guys slowly getting into bigger niches until we get reptilian bears and wolves instead of retrosaurs, false dinos, and rauchies. |
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