#miocene

I have to thank a team of friends and colleagues who help behind the scenes with research, creation of size charts and conversation partners when it comes to deciding on the compositions of these pieces. Their help has been invaluable!

9.5" Polished Petrified Wood (Oak) End-Cut - Swartz Canyon, Oregon

We know that Allodesmus had sexual dimorphism like other seal species. The canines on bulls were large and strong suggesting that they fought for and defended their harems from rivals.

Petrified wood, quite literally “wood turned to stone,” is created when the structure of a tree is slowly replaced by minerals, preserving it in stunning three-dimensional detail. Unlike most fossil plants, which survive only as impressions, each piece of petrified wood retains the intricate architecture of the original, with colors and patterns shaped by the tree’s lifetime, the conditions of its burial, and the final polish that reveals its beauty.

Scene from the Late Miocene of Pikermi in Attica, Greece. A group of storks (Ciconia gaudryi) takes flight as an Amphimachairodus giganteus approaches the water’s edge to quench its thirst. A pair of hornless rhinocerotids (Acerorhinus neleus) keep a watchful eye on the big cat whilst two enormous Deinotherium proavum prepare for a bath. In the background, a herd of Cremohipparion mediterraneum can be seen.

A pair of kelenken in miocene patagonia

Argentavis was the heaviest flying bird ever to exist. The greatest of the teratorns, it had a wingspan of almost twenty feet, which it could have used to effortlessly soar over the plains. Now, teratorns are popularly believed to be scavengers; for most of them, however, it's probably not the case owing to skull morphology more suited to gulping down small prey. Long, strong limbs allowed them to stalk the plains while simultaneously allowing them to spring their heavy bodies straight into the air if needed. Argentavis presumably shares a lot of these adaptations, but recent studies of its neuroanatomy imply that it had a brain more similar to a scavenger bird. I've chosen to depict it engaging in an act of kleptoparasitism, deploying a variety of bells and whistles to intimidate even the top predators of the environment, but I like to think this guy can retract her yellow tassels into her aeroshell feathers to overall reduce her obviousness when stalking prey. Babourofelis is the not-cat here, a big nimravid, rather. It convergently evolved saber teeth just like so many other predators who found it advantageous to shank prey with a pair of knives, and likely lived in family groups. While Babourofelis is a North American animal, birds are very much capable of travelling long distances in the wrong direction, and that's exactly what is happening here. Next up: Slothtime.