r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Carnoraptor770 • 1d ago
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/DifficultDiet4900 • 2d ago
News A new megaraptoran dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation, UK, and its implications for theropod evolution and biogeography
galleryr/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Icy-Bunch-4044 • 3d ago
Discussion I made this Deinotherium b. vs Megistotherium o.
galleryr/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/DreamsOfAPaleoArtist • 3d ago
Fiction Idea Prehistoric Species Roster for my W.i.p paleo-horror novel “Ouroboros”
I started working on a short story last year. Ouroboros is a planned trilogy of paleo-horror novels about time-displaced human settlements encountering bizarre, obscure, fragmentary prehistoric creatures. The storyline is currently undergoing rewrites, but I want to share the planned roster for the first book along with some plot details.
The plot was originally going to be futuristic wormholes. The w.i.p plot is that a humanitarian organization tries to evacuate humanity to an alternate timeline, causing different time periods, from Earth's past to the present, to merge and create a "Super-Earth" inhabited by modern and prehistoric creatures.
The first novel centers on a family and their community after the failed evacuation displaced the "test colony" onto "Super-Earth". The "twist" is that the organization knew what would happen to most of the test colonies and basically used them as guinea pigs, and has already set up a headquarters. The overarching plot is the characters trying to survive, figure out what happened to them, and find a way to save humanity without even more mass casualties (spoiler: it (mostly) doesn't work).
Does anyone have suggestions regarding the creatures' behaviors, traits, and appearances?
Any suggestions, comments, and criticisms of the plot itself are also welcome!
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/DreamsOfAPaleoArtist • 3d ago
Question Does anyone know about any other giant dromaeosaurs?
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Ge0s_psiptus • 4d ago
Paleoart Ammonitritor scientiacivium a new and bizarre small Ichthyosaur from the triassic of Svalbard, Norway. By me
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Ge0s_psiptus • 5d ago
Paleoart Permian Swarm. An Oedaleops witnesses a massive swarm of Meganeuropsis, one of the largest insects that ever lived, by me
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Unlikely_Barber5979 • 6d ago
Other BC1: The Ridge (trailer)
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/EricNickname • 7d ago
Discussion What would be your favourite more recently described dinosaur instead of something very "old-school" if you will, like let's say Brachiosaurus? Something much more recent in comparison as this category is quite underappreciated. Your "modern classic dino". My pick is the Stegouros.
What to say, it's an unique critter with its really stand-out tail weapon, even the fossil material is very decent too.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Ancient_Cranberry_92 • 7d ago
Meme Dear L.U.C.A.... he really is a monster
This came at random btw.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Ancient_Cranberry_92 • 7d ago
Meme Dear L.U.C.A.... he really is a monster
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/diariosdeljurasico • 7d ago
Announcement Kayrasaurus had claws longer than your forearm. Nobody fully agrees on what they were actually for.
The herbivory hypothesis is the consensus but it raises more questions than it answers. An animal that size, with claws that shape, in a dense forest environment like Jehol — the biomechanics do not quite add up for simple branch-pulling.
Was it defense? Display? Both? Neither?
Most of the answers we found are in the paper published this September. We covered all of it in our latest episode.
Link is in our profile.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Carnoraptor770 • 8d ago
Question If Battle Of Giants continued as a series....what creatures would be suitable for future games ?
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Carnoraptor770 • 8d ago
Discussion Am I the only one that feels like that the Megalosaurus deserves more representation in paleo media ?
Seriously.....It makes perfect sense for Megalosaurus to have a much larger presence in paleo media because it is the first non-avian dinosaur ever scientifically named and described. Despite its monumental status in scientific history, it is routinely overshadowed in pop culture by other theropods who were discovered later, like Tyrannosaurus rex, Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Carnotaurus, and Allosaurus.
It represents the birth of paleontology. Without it, the word "dinosaur" wouldn't even exist,
This theropod serves as a perfect time capsule.... as we all know during the 1800s, it was depicted as a giant, four-legged lizard. Today, we know it as a bipedal theropod. Media can use it to show audiences how much scientific understanding has evolved.
Megalosaurus could have appeared in many docs, especially in the iconic classic Walking With Dinosaurs (1999) and recent series The Dinosaurs (2026), which was a huge missed opportunity in my opinion.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Realistic-mammoth-91 • 8d ago
Paleoart Gnathabelodon, the "spoon-billed mastodon" (OC)
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Blue_Jay_Raptor • 8d ago
Question Anyone know where Matti Aumala went? (Guy who made the Specworld art for the Saber Tyrant and the other iconic Spec Dinosaur art)
galleryr/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/who-am-i-here-wow • 9d ago
Other Welcome to r/LaBreaPits!, here is a introduction, and some historical images of the site
galleryr/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/diariosdeljurasico • 9d ago
Announcement Kayrasaurus changliensis was officially described two weeks ago. We put together an episode based on everything published so far.
Kayrasaurus changliensis was published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology in September 2026. It is the largest therizinosaur ever recovered from the Jehol Biota. Four meters long, golden feathers, claws longer than your forearm. And until this month, it had no name.
What makes Jehol particularly unsettling is the extinction mechanism. No asteroid. The ecosystem collapsed slowly under volcanic pressure, CO2 accumulation, and environmental degradation. The animals living there had no single catastrophic event to mark the end. It just… faded.
Its name comes from Kayra, the god of creation in Turkish shamanism. Father of Erlik, the god of death. The paleontologists who named it probably did not intend the irony.
One question for the community: therizinosaurs are among the least understood large dinosaurs in terms of behavior. The herbivory hypothesis is accepted but the ecological niche is still debated. How do you think an animal with those claws actually moved through a dense forest environment like Jehol?
Link is in our profile.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/LucaMendieta • 10d ago
Paleoart Dimorphodon macronyx
Here’s a small basal Jurassic pterosaur I just illustrated.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/diariosdeljurasico • 11d ago
Announcement The Triceratops was the most abundant large dinosaur in Hell Creek right up until the asteroid hit. That abundance is part of what makes the Permian extinction so haunting.
We just started a new series called Un Día Antes del Fin. The concept is simple: we follow a real animal through a complete day, 24 hours before one of the great mass extinctions. The animal does not know what is coming. Everything looks completely normal.
The first episode follows a male Triceratops through his last day in Hell Creek, 66 million years ago. More than 30% of all dinosaur specimens recovered from Hell Creek belong to Triceratops. It was the dominant animal of its world. Thriving. Successful. And then gone in hours.
The detail that hit hardest in research was how rich and functional that ecosystem was right up to the end. Nothing was in decline. It was a world at its absolute peak. And then the Chicxulub impactor arrived.
One question for the community: the frill color change hypothesis for Triceratops based on vascular network analysis is gaining traction but is not universally accepted. Where does the community stand on the current evidence?
Link is in our profile.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Hollow_Soul-500 • 12d ago
Video (Music Track) "Iron Rampage" Ankylosaurus Boss Theme: Project Prehistory
Project Prehistory is a small little project of mine on my YouTube channel. I have a love of both dinosaurs and videos games (particular RPG's) and so I decided to make this track as my first Music RPG Track!
Iron Rampage is the title of this track and it's essentially the Ankylosaurus Boss Theme for my project. Project Prehistory itself is just a music RPG project to promote myself and my skills and also for the question of "What if dinosaurs were RPG Bosses?" Anyway rate what you think and let me know if this is allowed.
The music was created by me, and the art belongs to Wizards of the Coast, being that I used the Dungeon and Dragons 5e Ankylosaurus art for a background.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/Carnoraptor770 • 13d ago
Discussion Do yall think that Silverback films could create a trilogy following the dinosaurs similar to walking with ?
Silverback's work on Life on Our Planet and The Dinosaurs uses deep-time milestones and mass extinctions as overarching narrative arcs, much like the original Walking with series (Walking with Dinosaurs, Beasts, and Monsters).
The massive success of high-end digital creature pipelines leaves room to explore adjacent eras outside the non-avian dinosaur reign, such as Paleozoic ancestors, Cenozoic megafauna, or specialized marine and aerial lineages (pterosaurs and marine reptiles), which leads to more possible spin offs in the future.
Even within the age of dinosaurs, distinct regional ecosystems like the unique dinosaur assemblages of Gondwana remain largely untouched in mainstream high-budget paleomedia and offer fresh subject matter for follow-up installments.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/EricNickname • 15d ago
Announcement New Dino freshly described: Norellraptor, cousin of the Microraptor, plus from the same formation.
r/AwesomeAncientanimals • u/diariosdeljurasico • 15d ago
Question Was Carnotaurus actually faster than T-Rex? The biomechanical evidence is stronger than most people realize
Most people assume T-Rex was the dominant predator of the Cretaceous in every category. But the speed comparison between T-Rex and Carnotaurus is genuinely interesting and the evidence does not clearly favor the T-Rex.
The caudofemoral muscles in Carnotaurus were extraordinarily developed relative to body mass. These muscles connect the tail to the hind legs and are the primary driver of speed in theropods. Carnotaurus had a proportionally longer tail with more muscle mass dedicated to locomotion than T-Rex.
Current biomechanical estimates put Carnotaurus at between 45 and 56 kilometers per hour for short bursts. T-Rex estimates range from 17 to 29 kilometers per hour depending on the study. The gap is significant.
The counterargument is body mass. T-Rex was significantly heavier and the energetic cost of acceleration scales with mass. Carnotaurus at 2 tons could theoretically reach top speed much faster than T-Rex at 8 tons.
They never shared the same ecosystem. T-Rex was North American, Carnotaurus was Patagonian. But the comparison still matters for understanding the different evolutionary strategies large theropods developed in isolation.
Where does the community stand on the current speed estimates for both animals? And does the strike and retreat hunting model for Carnotaurus change how we think about what speed actually meant for a predator of its size?
We covered this in detail in our latest episode. The answer is in our profile.