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thomastapir — Cephthalmosaur

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Published: 2014-11-24 07:06:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 4128; Favourites: 69; Downloads: 12
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Description This one has kind of a tortured phylomemetic history...My original image for the saurian (left) half was basal ichthyosaur, but I started thinking pliosaur, and eventually thalattosuchian.  By then the flippers had become something fishy, and this more segmented anatomical treatment grew into additional subdermal armor reminiscent of a gar or sturgeon, which put me in mind of a derived placoderm.  Eventually I decided that the "subcutaneous exoskeleton" is composed of articulated bony plates derived from the cephalopod (right) half of the body.  Or whatever.

Panspermic relative of
thomastapir.deviantart.com/gal…
Ceracuttle Study
of course.

Inspiration photocopied from a Dorling Kindersley / Smithsonian handbook on fossils.  The reference image provides a pretty accurate sense of scale here as well.
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Comments: 13

TrilobiteCannibal [2016-02-24 06:35:40 +0000 UTC]

Cool concept!

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thomastapir In reply to TrilobiteCannibal [2016-02-24 07:04:15 +0000 UTC]

Thanks, man!

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TrilobiteCannibal In reply to thomastapir [2016-02-24 07:41:49 +0000 UTC]

Welcome

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PeteriDish [2014-11-24 19:59:37 +0000 UTC]

prehistoric catdog of the seas XD

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thomastapir In reply to PeteriDish [2014-11-25 03:26:23 +0000 UTC]

Now which half is the Cat, and which the Dog...?

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PeteriDish In reply to thomastapir [2014-11-25 16:51:06 +0000 UTC]

well obviously it's a teuthi-saurus... XD

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thomastapir In reply to PeteriDish [2014-11-25 19:24:55 +0000 UTC]

Nature red in teuth and saur.  

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PeteriDish In reply to thomastapir [2014-11-25 20:46:49 +0000 UTC]

XD

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SomeKindaSpy [2014-11-24 17:55:27 +0000 UTC]

SHARKTOPUS!

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thomastapir In reply to SomeKindaSpy [2014-11-24 19:02:27 +0000 UTC]

That too!

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juniorWoodchuck [2014-11-24 13:18:02 +0000 UTC]

I could also imagine a related species with a plesiosaur head and neck instead of the tentacles… or maybe every tentacle is a plesiosaur head and neck

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thomastapir In reply to juniorWoodchuck [2014-11-24 16:22:15 +0000 UTC]

That's where I was going with lower left under
Alternabrates
I have a new variation on that idea in the works, but I don't want to reveal what the heads are yet!  XD

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juniorWoodchuck In reply to thomastapir [2014-11-26 22:35:35 +0000 UTC]

Oh yeah… I knew I had seen something like that before   
Well I can’t wait to see it

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