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coherentsheaf — Deathline
Published: 2013-06-21 21:27:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 1055; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 8
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Description
Long necked plesiosaurs are searching the sediment for food. Little do they realize that a giant Kronosaurus has partly submerged its goliath body in the sand, patiently waiting for a tasty meal.Edit: Modified the texture of the pliosaur and most of the color and shading.
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Comments: 27
Very well drawn, I like it a lot! 
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Thy a lot! There will be an improved version ter, the head of the pliosaur bugs me.
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thx for the feedback. Do you have suggestions how t avoid this in future drawings?
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not really know about digital art and how to improve on it
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You are welcome
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To me this scenario seems realistic. The four-flipper built seems good for accellerating, and as already noted the body is pretty flat. If it has the right camouflage, I see no reason why it should not have been able to hide this way, after all there are modern animals that do it.
Also, there must have been a reason why sauropterygians developed this kind of propulsive system while all other marine tetrapods are axial swimmers like "fish". Maybe an advantage for ambush attacks is among the key evolutionary perks of this?
Also, could it be possible pliosaurs could use their flippers to walk on the ocean floor?
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turtles use their flippers to turn by pushing against the grond:
[link]
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To be honest, I find it hard to imagine something as huge as Kronosaurus hiding in the sand to hunt. It seems more plausible that it simply swam to and decimated it's prey. Great drawing though.
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I don't know how realistic this actually is. Kroosaurus is very flat, so it could be possible. Note that modern day crocodiles despite massive bulk hunt with absolute ambush and additianally note that the limbs of Kronosaurus are proportionally shorter than those of other pliosaurs.
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Well, it would have to dig a pit roughly about a meter deep(going by your size scale), and the fact that it's flippers aren't ideal digging tools doesn't help it either.
If it's gonna ambush from the sea floor, it's rather going to be colored like the sand for camouflage, not submerging itself into the sand.
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depending on consistency of the sand it could have pushed itself in such a position or searched for natural depressions in the sea surface.
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Well, we actually HAVE found huge trenches dug in the seabed for unknown reasons by Jurassic reptiles...
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thx for the response!
Do you know of any documentation of these trenches?
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[link]
Most of these trenches are probably too narrow for the animal that made them to lie in, but who knows?
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That is a really good idea, I should have had it earlier! Pliosaur bodies seem well suited for this type of attack.
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Yeah credit for that partially goes to "All Yesterdays" as they invented the plesiosaurs are ambush predators meme, I just decided to turn it around on them.
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I should really read that book...
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Yeah, it is absolutely great!
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