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Olmagon — Razor Leaf

#digitalart #fish #fruit #leaf #plant #tapejara #yucca #ludodactylus #tupandactylus #dastilbe #cretaceous #digitaldrawing #digitalillustration #digitalpainting #dinosaur #fossil #mesozoic #paleoart #paleontology #pteranodon #pterosaur #paleoillustration
Published: 2020-09-08 11:16:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 3268; Favourites: 54; Downloads: 2
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Description 112 million years ago in the Aptian of the early Cretaceous period in what will become the Crato formation in Brazil, a small flock of Tupandactylus navigans, a species of fruit-eating pterosaurs, find a fruiting yucca plant and enjoy themselves on the rich meal of its fruits. Nearby is a Ludodactylus sibbicki, a fish-hunting pterosaur, that has returned from a flight out at sea in search of fish. The Ludodactylus sees what its distant relatives are doing and out of curiosity gets closer. It watched them eat the fruit and then playfully it decides to mimic them and pluck a leaf, what could go wrong? Well this apparently. The leaf’s sharp tip pierces the throat pouch of the Ludodactylus as it pulled the leaf off with its beak and tried swallowing it. The throat pouch is just a thin structure made of skin and the leaf broke straight through, causing it to bleed. In its panic the Ludodactylus frantically runs around hoping it would dislodge the leaf. It won’t. The Tupandactylus flock watches the careless moron run about and just keep eating fruit. Even if the Ludodactylus does not die immediately from this impalement, the sharp object lodged in its jaw will cause it trouble eating and the wound can get infected, and it would not have long to live. 

Based on an actual fossil find: Ludodactylus is known only from a nearly complete skull and it was so well preserved that the leaf of a yucca plant can be seen lodged in its lower jaw. The pterosaur probably died from the leaf impaling it or some complications caused by it. The edges of the leaf are frayed, suggesting that the animal made an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge it. And somehow there are very few (if any) depictions of this, like, every drawing of a Ludodactylus has it just standing or flying there. Other fossils capturing direct evidence of such events like the Velociraptor fighting a Protoceratops or the gluttonous fish-in-a-fish Xiphactinus get quite a few drawings of them, so here I’m just gonna draw a depiction of the animal getting impaled. 

Fish in the water are Dastilbe crandalli. Colours of the Tupandactylus are based on the Guianan toucanet (Selenidera piperivora) and those of the Ludodactylus are partly based on the Nazca booby (Sula granti).

Edit around an hour after original posting: I realized I had made a scientific inaccuracy in the Tupa flock, that they had no propatagium, so I added them back on.
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Comments: 10

MicromirOfTheNorth [2021-03-18 11:34:44 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Olmagon In reply to MicromirOfTheNorth [2021-03-18 15:23:10 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

dinofoxy5 In reply to Olmagon [2022-05-10 01:37:32 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Artapon [2020-09-08 18:05:36 +0000 UTC]

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Olmagon In reply to Artapon [2020-09-09 05:17:45 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Artapon In reply to Olmagon [2020-09-09 12:57:51 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Olmagon In reply to Artapon [2020-09-09 15:24:04 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Artapon In reply to Olmagon [2020-09-09 15:37:55 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Tigerstar82 [2020-09-08 12:49:48 +0000 UTC]

Yep. Add this to the prehistoric animal death list caught on the fossil record. And I think this is a plausible scenario too

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Olmagon In reply to Tigerstar82 [2020-09-09 05:18:10 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0