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Sunday, August 30, 2026
Saturday, August 29, 2026
Dinosaur
S A U R O P O D
Long neck dinosaurs. They thrived on the Earth for
130 million years. To have a genetic lineage survive
this long requires numerous course corrections in order
to meet the planet's changing reality.
Land masses and bodies of water move about
the Earth's crust. Ancient mountains erode
while new ranges erupt. Wind streams are diverted
by new obstructions. Deserts blossom with new rain
while tropical swamps evaporate in drought.
Context rules the organism. A species conforms
to its changing challenges or it is lost.
A L A M O S A U R U S
The long neck serves to save energy.
The animal can feed off leaves in a tree's canopy
or consume plant fiber from the surrounding
low lying brush. Food is everywhere in reach
without this sauropod having to move its 70 tons.
The Alamosaurus doesn't chew its food.
Everything is swallowed whole and passed
along to a cavernous gut where all phases
of digestion occur. No chewing means the head
doesn't need a big jaw with massive muscles
for chewing. Small pegs are all the teeth
needed to strip leaves from a branch.
Nature does not suspend big heads on the
end of a thirty foot neck.
T R I C E R A T O P S
Triceratops, along with Stegosaurus, represent
a second branch of Jurassic dinosaurs. This
family of species were notable for its use of
bony armor for defense. The Stegosaurus
is known for having large, bony plates along
its back and three spikes at the end of its tail.
Triceratops had a ten foot armored head
with three fierce horns for protection.
T. rex was its most lethal adversary.
But Triceratops was no slouch.
At 8 tons and 30 feet in length, it was
equal in size to an African elephant.
Getting gored was a very real possibility
for even T. rex, the apex of predators.
S P I N O S A U R U S
Built like a dragon with a crocodile skull and conical
teeth to grip slippery fish. It made its living prowling the
ancient rivers of North Africa. Like the hippo and
modern whale, the Spinosaurus bone's were dense,
providing the animal with ballast - weight needed
to prevent bobbing and roll-over actions that counter
the individual's navigational control.
T H E R O P O D
This third branch of dinosaur development
provided the basis for both T. rex, terror of the
ages, as well as the lineage leading to modern
birds. The animals are all bipedal - they run on
their two hind legs. The front limbs are used for
grasping. Note the claws.
The skeleton above illustrates characteristics
basic to both types of animals - bird and terrestrial
predator. The leg is built for speed, with the bones
of its foot fused to extend the leg, much like that
of a cheetah's. The earliest birds used their powerful
legs to launch themselves into flight.
A R C H A E O P T E R Y X
Around 150 million years ago, late in the Jurassic
period, the first birds appeared in the fossil record.
They were reptiles covered in feathers. Other
reptiles also had feathers, but not ones fastened
to wings and designed for flight. Here was a
crow-sized reptile that could fly.
Archaeopteryx was the point when non-avian
dinosaur transitioned into a bird. It wasn't yet
complete. This bird had a jaw with teeth.
It retained a lizard-like tail. There was no large,
keeled breastbone to anchor robust flight muscles.
This primitive bird was underpowered.
Flight control could be a bit clumsy.
We're talking Kitty Hawk.
It's a beginning.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Sunday, August 23, 2026
Saturday, August 22, 2026
Reptile
A T O P O D E N T A T U S
This is one of those I see it but I don't believe it moments.
What advantage is there in having a hammerhead snout
for a mouth? The mass extinction of life at the end of
the Permian, left entire ecosystems drained of the normal
pushback provided by others. Before, you had to fight
for everything you needed. Just taking up space
required conflict with those around you.
Mass extinction has emptied the streets.
You can stroll into Macy's when you like
and take off with what you want. Every day.
Genetically speaking, animal designs developed
in this type of environment that would not
survive the normal competitive stresses
of just existing. These extraordinary times
brought about both innovators as well as
a healthy batch of quacks.
The process of genetics is driven by blindness.
Its course is set only by trial and error.
T A N Y S T R O P H E U S
Genetic design gives clues to the animal's context -
its environment. In this instance, an advantage
was gained by having a neck more than half the
length of its own body. Is this ungainly length used
to reach vegetation high up or does it make grabbing
fish easier when hovering from above?
How do you keep this animal from falling on its face
when out of water? The bones of the neck are hollow
to save weight. To counterbalance the head and neck
the animal has an enormous pelvis with massive
hind legs and a long tail. These are steps taken to
prop up a fundamentally unstable design.
This line of genetics was doomed once the right
species of predator was introduced into its
environment. Carnivores learned to target
the neck, because decapitation was a relatively
easy way to bring the animal down.
Extravagance comes with built-in vulnerability.
P L E S I O S A U R
Here is a classic marine design from the Triassic period.
The plesiosaur survived tens of millions of years, well
into the Jurassic period that followed. Pictured above
is a spectacular fossil from the time preceding the
Age of Dinosaurs. Look at the enormous fins.
They are limbs strengthened with solid bone.
The flipper becomes an oar, one of four,
paddling the animal swiftly through its
watery realm. The tail serves as the rudder.
making its maneuvers sharp enough to
capture elusive prey.
The fin's skeletal structure starts with a single large
bone that divides into several digits, each having
multiple joints to give the fin nuance in its sweep
through water. This sophisticated design enabled
the plesiosaur to maneuver like a sea lion,
or even a dragonfly as needed.
Here was our apex predator of the seas.
S P I N O S A U R U S
Crocodile jaw. Predator. About the height of a
two story home. Neural spines extend five feet
into the air. Could be used for thermoregulation,
much as the ear of an African elephant is used
to disperse heat into the surrounding air
or to absorb energy from the early morning sun.
The hind legs are longer but the front limbs
are more massive, with large pronounced digits
armed with claws. The large vertical tail propels
the animal when swimming.
It's the Creature from the Triassic Swamps.
S P I N O S A U R I D S
The Spinosaurus family gathered together,
all from the same lineage but each from
a different period in time. The crocodile
grin is iconic to this family of species.
In runs on two legs, using its tail for balance.
The shorter forearms are designed for grasping.
Among this group is the Spinosaurus with
the five foot neural crest, splashed with color
imaged by the artist. The use of vibrant color
usually means one of two things: either it is
meant to lure a mate or to be identified as a
member of a particular species.
It's a tribal thing.
T A W A H A L L A E
It's Late Triassic, 215 million years ago,
the first dinosaurs to show up in the
fossil record. The Tawa, Hopi language
for Sun God, was discovered in New Mexico,
Land of Enchantment.
The specimen illustrated here is about the
size of a large dog, thirty-five pounds,
and walks on two legs. Its reptilian head
could well be the basis for the skull of a
modern day raptor, like that of a hawk.
The Tawa had a highly efficient respiratory system
much like the one used by the birds we see daily.
It is possible this early dinosaur had already
come to use feathers for insulation.
These factors don't make this animal a bird
but it is evidence of bird characteristics
found in the earliest known species of dinosaurs.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, August 16, 2026
Saturday, August 15, 2026
Triassic
S A U R I C H T H Y S
The Triassic Period began roughly 250 million years ago,
amidst the ruin left by the mass extinction that occurred
at the end of the Permian. Most of this planet's species
gone forever. Others survived. Their offspring, born into
a chaos that lasted the next few million years, the time
it took for life on Earth to recover.
M A S T O D O N T O S A U R U S
The world's biggest amphibian of all time.
A two ton salamander just crawled out of your lake.
The animal was aquatic, living its life mostly submerged.
What's the tip off? We've got a four thousand pound
pickled piece of luggage being paddled up an incline,
on four puny legs. It's a squirmy snail's pace, at best.
Nonetheless, the animal was a hall of famer of its day.
Our mastodon had a fishlike lateral line system,
sensitive to vibration and water pressure changes.
This enabled the animal to stalk its prey even in
the murkiest of waters.
T R I A D O B A T R A C H U S
Madagascar, 250 million years ago.
Here is our ancestor to the frog.
A diamond in the rough.
It has that flat, broad frog head.
The hind legs have that unique frog stance.
The forearms are ready to buffer a hard landing.
But you're not going to get an explosive spring
from these sadly undersized legs.
And the torso is too big. It's a salamander
with fourteen vertebrae versus as few as
four in the modern, compact frog.
The Triassic frog is still a generic.
Its simple philosophy:
stay hydrated.
L Y S T R O S A U R U S
Plant eater. Mammal-like reptile. Resilient.
Survivor of the Permian mass extinction.
The legs sprawl like most any primitive vertebrate.
The Triassic climate can be both extreme and
volatile. This animal burrows to escape the heat.
It has barrel-chested lung capacity in order
to survive low oxygen situations.
The environment was high mortality.
The favored biological response to this
adversity is to grow up fast and breed early.
There are no individual star performances here.
It's a numbers game with this population.
Make sure you've punched your ticket before
you leave.
C Y N O G N A T H U S
The Middle Triassic apex predator. Wolf size.
Does that skull not remind you of a mammal?
Here is our first look at a future dog or lion's head.
Get a load of those legs. Nearly directly under
the body. Built for speed and power.
Fossil hunters have found this animal's identical
remains in both South Africa and South America.
They were the identical terrestrial species and
yet they were separated by three thousand miles
of the Atlantic. Continental drift supplied the
explanation.
The Earth's crust is not static.
The continents sit atop large plates that collide,
reform and intermingle over the hundreds of
millions of years, a process normally too slow
for us to take notice. Mount Everest grows
about an inch higher every year because
India is slowly colliding into Asia.
Come on. Who would believe that?
D I A D E M O D O N
This guy is about our oldest ancestral mammal,
the stepping stone separating reptiles from mammals.
It eats most anything edible. Your dental work
comes with incisors, two pair of canines, and now with
premolars for slicing and crushing. And they fit
perfectly when you close your mouth. With
the needle teeth of reptiles it is sometimes
hit or miss whether you can close your mouth,
at all. Imagine. Now you can chew the toughest
plants or crunch the biggest bone, thanks to your
massive, powerful jaws and state of the art dentures.
The Diademodon comes complete with an opposing
first digit for better grasping, a highly sensitized nose
and a sophisticated middle ear for excellent hearing.
The animal is the first step in moving from primitive
reptile into the path towards becoming a mammal.
Still, the success of this mammalian progress
was pushed from center stage by an even
bigger story - the dramatic rise of the reptile.
The Triassic would launch entire new branches
of animals into extravagant variations.
It would be a time of behemoths and powered
flight. Cunning would become a predator's tool.
Here would be the introduction into the
Age of Dinosaurs.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
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