#desmatosuchus

Desmatosuchus 🌧️

les animaux de l'histoire

I actually have most of these tames in-game, with the exceptions being Leshy's theri and coelo! I did npc-ify some of their designs though, just to make them feel a bit more unique. Nikola's design had to be simplified for obvious reasons, although I did slightly redesign Leshy as well (mostly changing his tail spikes as though are a pain to draw).

A unorganized gang of Coelophysis bauri hunt down a lone Trilophosaurus buettneri, a distant North American relative of the double-horned archosauromorph Sheingasaurus, across a shallow river in what is now the Chine Formation of the American southwest as a Desmatosuchus drinks and a Postosuchus passes by in the background. Coelophysis possessed many anatomical adaptations for fast-pursuit hunting, such as stereoscopic vision, tall leg bones and a long tail which acted as a counterbalance when the dinosaur ran, and its highly serrated teeth enabled it to make short work of captured prey items. And although its social behaviour certainyl did not look like those of canids as with most other theropods, the finds at the Ghost Ranch fossil site in New Mexico, which records a large mob of Coelophysis of all ages getting killed by a catastrophic flash flood, indicate that it is possible for otherwise solitary individuals of this basal theropod may have joined forces from time to time in order to take down potentially larger, more dangerous prey animals, in a similar manner to present-day scenarios of a pack of hounds chasing a deer, fox, rabbit or a wild boar, and rip them apart in feeding frenzies that are similar to those of crocodiles, Komodo dragons or vultures, not to mention the strong parental bonds that Coelophysis parents may have had with their offspring. So Coelophysis was capable of occasionally forming small, loose congregations, whether they be families, creches of variously-aged individuals, or hungry/thirsty adults, to hunt down certain prey animals or to gather around any prey-abundant water hole areas during the dry season, but was nevertheless a usually solitary animal like most other diapsids.

Desmatosuchus was an aetosaur - a crocodile relative that died off after the Triassic as well. An armored back and spikes on its sides would have made for an effective defense against any predator, and it likely rooted around for plants and invertebrates in the muddy ground where it lived. Although its low profile might be effective in a predation scenario, however....this is no predation scenario.

A little result from tonights #paleostream. We looked into the diversity of aetosaurs, Triassic tanks that are actually related to crocodiles.

Things got a little out of order ^^'