What are some of your favorite animals from each period in prehistory?
Oh my god. What an AWESOME question
First for the Cambrian period, kinda simple but I love anomalacarus, I did a presentation on it in university and I just love how they look, close second would be hallucigenia bc as a kid they freaked me out.
Next would be the Ordivician period, honestly not a lotta animals I was into too much here, but if I had to pick one itβd be aegirocassis, one of the earliest giant filter feeders, and it was an arthropod too!
Next is the silurian period, for this one I rlly like all the sea scorpions, eurypterids, of the time, especially eurypterus
For the Devonian period I really like scaumenacia! Like for the ordivician, not too many creatures here that I have strong feelings about, however I do love lobe finned fish, and one of my favorite fishes of today is the Australian lungfish, and scaumenacia reminds me of them
Carboniferous is easy, arthropleura. A gentle giant millipede? Man I wish they were still alive today
For the Permian I absolutely love gorgonopsids, synapsids in general I really like a lot, and gorgonopsids are just super unique looking predators
For the Triassic I rlly like tanystropheus. When I was a kid I didnβt know the name for them, but I knew about this freakish aquatic reptile that had a super long neck and rested on land like a seal. I only ended up finding their name recently
For the Jurassic I absolutely love the yi qi. Early birds in general like anchiornis and archeoptyryx are awesome, but the yi qi is so interesting to me bc unlike those other early birds it had webbed wings like a bat or pterosaur. Also it has the record of the shortest dinosaur name yet!
For the Cretaceous, itβd have to be my all time favorite Dino the yutyrannus, Iβm a big fan of polar animals, so a polar dinosaur is extra awesome. Plus itβs the biggest animal with evidence of feathers. Just imagining a giant feathery white T. rex lookin thing is epic to me
In the paleogene Iβd have to go for andrewsarchus, itβs a very cool animal and it has the record for being the largest land predator! Despite that though, it has hooves! Like a rhino or deer.
For the neogene I have a fascination with giant sloths like megatherium, theyβre such freaky looking guys and rlly rlly big, thereβs a museum near where I live that has a full skeleton of a megatherium and they are BIG big.
For the quarternary period, our current period, Iβd choose the moa and Tasmanian tiger. The Tasmanian tiger I liked to research a lot when I was in elementary, and I remenber believing for sure they were still out there. As for the moa itβs a more recent appreciation, not just bc they were giant birds but also I thought it was so cool they didnβt have any arms. Theyβre like the whales of the land, but instead of losing their back legs they lost their arms.
Sorry I couldnβt add more images Iβm on mobile