an ancient relative of modern narwhals and beluga measuring 5 meters long. at the end of the Miocene Epoch, the Meditteranean sea was cut off from the rest of the atlantic in an event called the Messinian salinity crisis, this created land bridges and with new arrivals, some native species vanished.
in search of food while Crocs and the local otters might have been hunting it. while Grossetto was an island environment, it may have had visitors from the sea for food or out of curiosity. the dugong species, Metaxytherium subapenninum swam in waters shared other aquatic creatures like casatia-
duck called Bambolinetta. once thought to have been a kind of dabbling duck, it was quickly reexamined in 2014 by Gerald mayr and Marco Pavia who took notice that it's wings were more for propelling itself below water much like a penguin rather than flying in the air. this enabled it to dive down-
to find such a creature here, but it's jaws show it was a specialized omnivore with a diet consisting of invertebrates like insects and snails and it possibly scavenged whatever it could find. this adaptation allows it to survive the constraints of its island home. among the many species is a kind-
possibly having to share the food with Umbrotherium, a relative of the giraffe, and Maremmia, an ancient bovid, both of which are also adapted to their island home. another creature that is specialize for its environment is Indarctos anthracitis, also known as an Insular Bear. it might seem strange-
adapted for a life in a swampy home is Oreopithecus. Apes are rare and few in between in the Miocene fossil record, having just recently evolved. Oreopithecus was a species adapted to an arboreal life, able to climb up branches and swing from different trees in search of leaves fruit and nuts, only-
and freshwater environments akin to what can be found in swamps. such a place is where you'd find Tyrrhenolutra, an enigmatic species of Otter that like it's modern relatives, was semiaquatic, likely hunted fish and other aquatic animals, and possibly lived in groups. another kind of mammal that is-
time when much of Italy was covered by water and the Grosseto Province was part of a chain of islands that stretched from central europe to northern africa in the forming meditteranean sea. the creatures found here lived in a warm and variable climate and a landscape defined by Continental basins-
#paleostream#paleoart#dinosaurs#palaeontology#prehistoric Baccinello is a village that sits within tuscany, central Italy. valued for its mines that supply Lignite/brown coal, its mines also hide ancient fossils. in this case, fossils that date back to the Miocene Epoch, 7 million years ago. a-
Cryptodiran turtle. but the most recent find is that of an mammal called Kryoryctes. it and its modern relatives, Platypus and Echidna's are all Monotremes, the only known mammals to use a different reproduction method, while almost all modern mammals give birth to live young, Monotremes lay eggs.
coiling around its body like an arctic fox would to keep warm. a diverse array of theropods have also been found in Eumerella, as well as Atlascoposaurus and Diluvicursor, two species of ornithopoda. among the other animal remains are a Pterosaur, a Plesiosaur, a Mesoeucrocodylian, and Otwayemys, a-
what is truly amazing about Leallynasaura is the length of its tail, this 3 meter long dinosaur had a tail that made up 2.25 meters of its whole body, it also has the most tail vertebrae of any Ornithopod, and its lack of ossified tendons means that it was very flexible, possibly for display or for-
may not know for sure until we find more of its remains. Leaellynasaura is a dinosaur that is thought to have been adapted to it's home, its teeth shows that it fed on the horsetails, cycads, and ferns in its environment, and it may have been covered in a coat of feathers to help it keep warm. but-
of them have a special history, the Palaeontologist couple Tom rich and Patricia Vickers-rich named them Timimus and Leaellynasaura, after their son Tim and their daughter Leaelynn. Timimus is a mysterious dinosaur of the order Theropoda, thought to be an ornithomimosaur and a tyrannosauroid, we-
little to no development called Entisol. these soils are characteristic to a Taiga biome, also known as a Boreal Forest. horsetails, cycads, and conifers cover the ground and many of the animals that live here give the locality that the Eumerella Formation is a part of its name, Dinosaur Cove, two-
only split apart by the time the Late Cretaceous arrived. the land was subjected to variations between warm and cool temperatures. warm temperate periods are represented by Ultisol or red clay soil, while cooler intervals are associated with partially developed soil called Inceptisol and soil with-
#paleostream#paleoart#dinosaurs#palaeontology#prehistoric Eumerella sits in modern day victoria in what is now Australia and dates back 106 million years ago in the early cretaceous. at that time Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica were connected as part of the supercontinent Gondwana, they-
while I do love this movie, there were several different things they could have done with it, given it some more screentime, given the human characters more scenes, a lot of deleted scenes could have made it in, but for what it is, Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken is an okay movie to watch with family.
our final creature is a recently discovered Azhdarchoid Pterosaur called Inabtanin, standing 6 feet in height and with a wingspan of 33 feet, Inabtanin was big, but like its giant cousins, it was no airborne predator, but it would land on the ground to either scavenge or hunt whatever it could find.
as well as Rarosaurus, a reptile who's identity is still a mystery, it was once thought to have been a Polycotylid, a family of Plesiosaurs recognizable from their short necks and long snouts, but more recently its thought to have been a kind of crocodylomorph, the mystery of it may be solved yet-
then darting towards it with an incredible speed, using its mouth full of sharp teeth to slice its quarry into bite sized chunks and the ventral extension of the upper jaw deep unto the sides of the lower jaw helped to make them work like meat slicers. many different Mosasaurs swam in these waters-
measuring around 2 meters long, Harranahynchus uses it's characteristic rostrum covered with specially modified scales called Rostral denticles that line it's snout. Saurocephalus longicormus, this 3 meter long fish probably hunted like modern Barracuda, first ambushing it's prey from below and-
and in turn, these shoaling fish attract a whole menagerie of animals, Mosasaurs, Larger Fish, Giant Sea Turtles, Sharks, Pterosaurs, I don't think i'll list every species down, but I will tackle a few of them, like Harranahynchus, an extinct Sawskate part of the extinct group called Schizorhizids-
