Jul 24
doodle of Coccosteus, a roughly goldfish-sized arthrodire (plate-jawed armoured fish)
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doodle of Coccosteus, a roughly goldfish-sized arthrodire (plate-jawed armoured fish)
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With its armored head and blade-like jaws, the placoderm fish Dunkleosteus terrelli is an iconic Paleozoic animal.
Living during the Late Devonian, about 375-359 million years ago, in subtropical waters covering parts of what are now North America and Europe, this species is known mostly just from the bony plates that covered its head and thorax. The rest of its skeleton was cartilaginous and rarely ever fossilized (only a few vertebrae and the pectoral fin are currently known), so its full body shape and size is poorly understood, and previous length estimates have ranged all the way up to 10m (33').
…Except it turns out it wasn't nearly that big.
Based on its head proportions, along with comparisons to more complete remains of other arthrodire placoderms, recent studies instead come up with a maximum length of about 4m (~13ft) – giving Dunkleosteus a much shorter-but-heavier chunky body shape, more like a tuna than a shark.
But even after this size revision Dunkleosteus would have still been one of the largest animals around at the time, with the ability to snap its jaws open at high speed and an incredibly strong bite force. It was probably specialized to mainly prey on other heavily-armored animals such as other placoderms and shelled cephalopods, and was likely a strong swimmer with a shark-like tail fin.
Preserved stomach contents in one fossil show remains of the fast-swimming cartilaginous fish Orodus – suggesting that much like the modern tuna it resembled, Dunkleosteus was also capable of bursts of high speed.
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2-6-23
Groenlandaspis, pencil on paper (click for better quality)
Dunkleosteus
Late Devonian I had the great opportunity to work on this image for the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston, SC, with guidance from paleontologist Dr. Scott Persons. You can watch a virtual tour of the Museum's exhibits at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZ9NcUeXAA&list=PL4-bAC0oaWu445vvKgvIqIxP8OCndikoV
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My colour palettes change pretty consistently across screens and the computer I do these on doesn’t match my other devices, which sucks. Usually I can live with it and the changes aren’t too drastic but these guys are some of my favourites and they suffered quite a bit. Not much to say beyond that but in this particular case I am bothered and I just wanted to rant a bit, I guess. Anyway... These are my “Arctic Giants” and would be exceedingly rare end-game pokemon, probably version exclusive or maybe North/South exclusive. Ningant always looked like a haunted parka but I was inspired to add a dash of Umibozu, which you can see in action in the little vignette. Bergantic was made around ten years ago but to my relief wasn’t so similar to the current Ice/Water Dunkleosteus, Arctovish, as to be redundant or derivative. Following on from that thread i’m not such a masochist that I would give a pokemon with 160 Attack a move like Fishious Rend. Ningant have been rumored in myth for centuries, if not millennia. Only recently were they confirmed to exist in reality, in the deepest reaches of the coldest oceans. The oceanographers that encountered the creature, deep in the inky blackness, confined to their tiny submersible described the encounter as terror in its most primal form. Two eyes, set in a face as big as the craft itself peered into the cockpit, into the pilots and froze their souls with a feeling of insignificance and helplessness one could only feel in the utter darkness of the coldest sea, alone and unreachable, under the gaze of a true giant. Bergantic reside mostly in the upper reaches of the polar oceans, resting amongst the icebergs they are almost indistinguishable. Their enormous size and vicious nature allow them to dominate their environment where they typically prey on Walrein and Wailord, some of the few pokemon large enough to provide a suitable meal for the arctic giant. In more recent years, as tourism has made its way into the polar seas a new opportunity has presented itself for the Bergantic. Easily capable of ripping through the hull of any tourist liner the security on board these leisure cruises is taken with a deathly seriousness. — Ability Info — — Attack Info —
DUNK! DON'T EAT THE FLOWERS! There's a wedding at the Museum tonight and these HUGE arthrodire fish will eat just about anything! Time to get the spray bottle. Fun fact: Angiosperms (flowering plants) wouldn't evolve for another 100 million years during the Early Cretaceous Period. #fossilfriday #arthrodire #dunkleosteus #cleveland #cle #fossil #friday #fishyfriday #museumlife #notashark #bouquet #museumwedding #wedding #flower #whenyouworkatamuseum #wearestemsquad (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)
The armor-headed placoderms were the dominant fish during the Devonian period, evolving a wonderfully diverse range of shapes and sizes, and occupying ecological niches in both marine and freshwater habitats.
Groenlandaspis antarctica here lived during the mid-to-late Devonian, about 383 million years ago, in the Oates Land region of Antarctica – at that time located further north than it is today, with the local climate being warm and subtropical.
It was a moderately-sized river-dwelling placoderm, around 50cm long (1'8"), and its bony armor formed a sort of pyramid shape with wing-like projections at its sides, a structure that would have acted as a hydrofoil and made it an efficient swimmer. Most of the armor plates were rigidly fused together, except for a hinge point between its head and thorax that allowed it to open its jaws, but unlike its more famous relative Dunkleosteus it couldn't gape its mouth open particularly wide. It may have been a bottom-feeder, grubbing around in muddy riverbeds and using its small but strong jaws to crush hard-shelled prey.
Various other species of the Groenlandaspis genus have been found all around the world, but there's something incredibly rare and special about Groenlandaspis antarctica in particular:
We actually know what color it was.
Preserved pigment cells in its fossils indicate that it was red on top and silvery-white on its underside in a countershaded pattern, camouflaging it in the murky silty waters of the ancient Antarctic rivers.
...And also made it look a bit like a prehistoric goldfish.
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