Re: Speculative dino species

["Matti Aumala" <mjaumala@nettilinja.fi>]

From: Daniel Bensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>
> Okay, I've stayed up far too late into the night, and put up a few
rough
> sketches (and explainations) on the web.  These are all North
American
> critters, because you have to start somewhere.
>
> http://members.gotnet.net/maier/Spec.html

These really look realistic! It's funny how much your dinosaurs remind
me of the speculative dinosaur species I made up just last spring. I
was toying around with an idea about a book titled "The Dinosaurs of
the Ice Age" which would be about a parallel Earth where dinosaurs -
mostly maniraptorans - had survived to the Cenozoic and still
dominated the world during the Ice Ages. I did this mostly just for
fun, so some of the critters were more than a bit unlikely, but I've
scanned some of the sketches of the more realistic animals, so you can
see for yourself what to think of them.

First the most obvious similarities, the Therizinosaurs. I had these
large herbivores split into two different lineages, the long-necked
ones that resemble giant herbivorous birds like moas, and the
"knuckle-walking" facultatively quadrapedla short-necked ones with
nose crests:
http://nettilinja.saunalahti.fi/~mjaumala/Dinosaur/DIA/therizino.jpg
(Unfortunately I couldn't find just now any good sketches of the
boreal therizinosaurs, which have down-covered toes and use their long
claws to dig for food from under the snow.)

I didn't have too many other dinosaurs survive besides maniraptorans,
with the notable exception of hadrosaurs, which I had evolving into
more massive "hadrosauropods" (the one seen here is a high-browsing
species):
http://nettilinja.saunalahti.fi/~mjaumala/Dinosaur/DIA/hadrosauropod.j
pg

A few small arboreal forms, an oviraptor that is like a cross between
a monkey and a parrot, and a deinonychosaur "woodpecker", with a long
modified third finger for reaching for the grubs from their tunnels
under the bark:
http://nettilinja.saunalahti.fi/~mjaumala/Dinosaur/DIA/arboreal.jpg

Dinosaurs also occupy some shorebird niches, like the flamingo-like
oviraptorosaur, and the the less well defined maniraptorans (possibly
evolved from troodontids or dromaeosaurids):
http://nettilinja.saunalahti.fi/~mjaumala/Dinosaur/DIA/shoreraptors.jp
g

Besides evolving into larger forms my deinonychosaur and troodontid
predators didn't change that much (expcept for their plumage in
northern areas). An exception of this were the owl-mimics, small
creatures that evolved (probably) from dromaeosaurids, but became
small nocturnal predators specializing in mammals. They evolved into
more owl-like forms with perfect stereoscopic vision, acute hearing
and short jaws with a curved beak (the one with the puffy plumage and
fluffy feet is an arctic species):
http://nettilinja.saunalahti.fi/~mjaumala/Dinosaur/DIA/owlsaur.jpg

Too bad I'll be unable to contribute to this project for the next 5
days, but I look forward to seeing what you come up with, while I'm
gone. :)

--
Matti Aumala
mjaumala@nettilinja.fi