#xiaotingia

Specimen #33616

Xiaotingia Zhangi

I had this thought, what if dinosaurs were still around? Would we keep the smaller ones like this guy as bird specimens? (timelapse below)

The Maniraptoran Alphabet (Part 5)

Here’s some of the amazing diversity of Mammaliaformes of Jurassic China. Volaticotherium glides in pursuit of a tasty bug. Agilodocodon, an excellent climber, already got one and brings it back to its young in the trees. Some Docofossors are digging up the lawn. Castorocauda, the largest mammaliaform of the Mesozoic, is going for a swim. With the exception of Volaticotherium, these are all Docodonts, a group closely related to the crown group mammals, having branched off a little before the monotremes did. I wanted to show off how much more diverse and interesting Mesozoic mammals were than we usually imagine. They did a lot more than cowering from dinosaurs and being eaten by them!

i'm honestly so obsessed with dinosaurs i thought about seeing what it would look like to turn all my sonas into dinosaurs themselves of course, most of my aliases are ridiculous hybrids so, it wouldn't be any less of such in dino form xD here i mixed a Terror Bird with a Xiaotingia for Wylie's transformation!

What did the last common ancestor of Velociraptor and modern birds look like? Anchiornithids might give us a clue. These small dinosaurs lived 160 million years ago and are known from incredible fossils, often complete with skin and feathers.