thanks guys, it did help a lot, drawing creatures is something i really enjoy

@reginaldubel @magicalmysteryperson @scriboniuscurio @thehipovercor @dinojagger12 added a few from discord friends and of my own (damn i misspelled sanqiaspis again)

The weird clown is my oc/sona . Since people are calling me Charlie on here well I named them Charlie X)))

Paleovember 2022, Jaekelopterus!

This Early Devonian creature is a member of a group of arthropods called Eurypterids, generally known as ‘sea scorpions’. Despite the common name, Jaekelopterus actually preferred fresh to brackish water as its main habitat. What’s more, it was not just the biggest eurypterid, it was also the largest arthropod EVER, with an estimated length of up to 10 feet.

artfight attack for grovey!

Jaekelopterus (Jaekelopterus spp.)

Family: Pterygotid Family (Pterygotidae)

Time Period: 410-402 Million Years Ago (Early Devonian)

The two species of extremely large aquatic arthropods in the genus Jaekelopterus are examples of Eurypterids, a group of superficially scorpion-like animals that first developed in the oceans around 467 million years ago before gradually transitioning to life in brackish estuaries and potentially large bodies of freshwater until their extinction some 251 million years ago during the Great Dying, a catastrophic extinction event at the end of the Permian period. During their roughly 216 million years on earth the Eurypterids diversified into a variety of shapes and sizes with some growing to be considerably larger than any modern arthropods, and while the smaller of the two Jaekelopterus species, Jaekelopterus howelli, was by no means small (growing to be around 80cm/2.6ft long) the larger species, Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, was quite possibly the largest arthropod to ever live, reaching lengths of up to 2.5 meters/8ft. Arthropods rarely reach large sizes, primarily due to their relatively inefficient respiratory systems (which, in the absence of lungs or a closed circulatory system, would struggle to provide oxygen to a body over a certain size) and the restrictions that come with their exoskeletons (in order to grow arthropods must shed their external skeletons and grow in a new, larger exoskeleton, and the larger the arthropod is the more nutritionally taxing the production of an exoskeleton large and strong enough to support its soft tissues would be), but fossilized remains of Jaekelopterus rhenaniae show that it was able to overcome at least one of these limiting factors: the exoskeleton on almost all of its body was extremely thin, making it much more viable for a new exoskeleton to be produced following each molt and likely having the additional effect of making Jaekelopterus rhenaniae surprisingly light for an animal of its size. How Jaekelopterus rhenaniae was able to respire efficiently despite its enormous size is unknown: it is believed that atmospheric oxygen levels fluctuated considerably throughout the Devonian period and if this was the case it is possible that it lived in a period where oxygen levels were unusually high (with the subsequent fall in oxygen levels possibly explaining its extinction), or it may be that it developed a more efficient system of gas exchange or circulation than modern arthropods, which may also explain the large size of many related eurypterid species. Based on where their fossils have been found both species of Jaekelopterus are believed to have inhabited brackish or coastal freshwater environments in what is now North America and Europe (which at the time were connected as a single continent, known as Laurasia or Euramerica) where they likely lived as relatively agile and fast-moving predators, swimming using their paddle-like hind legs and a tail-like protrusion on their last abdominal section, perceiving their environment with well-developed compound eyes and catching prey such as smaller aquatic arthropods and early jawless fishes using claw-like protrusions from their jaws, which were structurally similar to the chelicerae of modern spiders (with the only known fossil of Lechriaspis patula, an ancient cousin of modern lampreys that also inhabited Laurasia during the early Devonian, being littered puncture-wounds that match the shape and size of Jaekelopterus howelli’s chelicerae.)

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Prehistoric Animal of the Month - February 

Image Sources: Here and Here

For when words aren't enough.

Prehistoric Themed Drawings

Unique playable creatures in dinosaur arcade only available for a limited time this month

Flocking Together

Yangchuanosaurus

Jaekelopterus

Waimanu

Huaxiadraco

I've genuinely never been so fucking disappointed that a creature doesn't exist anymore, I think if they ever manage to revive fossils or whatever then just Seeing one of these would fill me with so much joy that it would immediately fix me.

Mermay 2023 - Paleontology Based Merfolk

For the final proper batch of Merfolk for this Mermay, did a series of Paleontological themed Merfolk! They also form the foundations of many aspects of Merfolk culture in Beast Fables.

Ixandyr the Sea Lord - Mosasaurus

- Essentially Alexander the Great, but oceanic lizard-man. The man responsible for taming the seas, creating an adminsitrative system that lasted even after his empire was broken up and gone, and waged war against the surface world.

Keresa - Megalodon

- The greatest guardian to ever live, who could single-handedly stop a raid of some of the baddest merfolk to have ever lived. Also a selfless, kind sould beneath the giant muscles and sharp teeth.

Elun the Cleared-Eyed - Odobenocetops

- The guy that made modern merfolk religion as we know it. To him, all things are expressions of the Goddess, from the sands beneath to the water

Runihura - Jaekelopterus

The biggest of the big, the raider of raiders, comparable to even Keresa in size and ferocity.

Kuriosus - Walliserops

The first naturalist of ‘em all. His books are remarkably well preserved!

Kosumi and 'Awha'y, Last of the Primevals - Sabertooth Salmon and Semirostrum

The very last merfolk, without whom, many wouldn’t even KNOW the names of those that came before.

I was looking for info on jaekelopterus because it seemed to have a lot going on I didn't know about. this led me to seeing it had a page on "bloodrayne wiki" where I spent entirely too long browsing and trying to figure out what bloodrayne (a game I have never played and a movie I have never seen) was about and why something like this would appear in it

so it turns out this wiki has nothing to do with bloodrayne at all

Devonian Atmosphere

Featuring Dunkleosteus, Carolowilhelmina, Onychodus, Deiroceras, and Jaekelopterus (see if you can spot them all!)

Music is La Revacholiere from Disco Elysium.

I need some kind of modern Thing that some Jaekelopterus could be playing with. there is a wide range of sizes of them, so I can work with almost any object.

these guys:

Life in the Devonian

(first row: Cladoselache, Titanichthys, Walliserops; second row: Tiktaalik, Dunkleosteus, Ichthyostega; third row: Jaekelopterus, Archaeopteris, Paleocharinus; fourth row: Gondwanascorpio, Ryniella)

Art by:

Walliserops - Richard A. Fortey (The lifestyles of the trilobites)

Cladoselache -Christian Darkin

Tiktaalik - Ntvtiko

Ichthyostega - Davide Bonadonna

Dunkleosteus - Robert Fabiani

Titanichthys - Mark Witton

Jaekelopterus - Dani Navarro

Archaeopteris - Annette Townsend

Gondwanascorpio - Ariel Milani Martine

Ryniella, Paleocharinus - Bizley Art

Welcome to the Age of Fish!

Whatever you‘re looking for, we have the right fish for you. May I interest you in some early shark-cousins like Cladoselache? Or maybe you prefer bony fish over cartilaginous ones. In that case you‘re in luck because they now come in two brand new varieties: The ray-finned fish and the lobe-finned fish. As you might have suspected, their fins work differently: Ray-finned fish have bony spines covered by skin, that form a fan-like fins. Today they make up almost 99 % of fish species and more than 50 % of all vertebrate species. So if you‘re picturing any type of fish right now, that is probably a ray-finned fish.

The only lobe-finned fish that are still around today are the coelacanths and lungfish, but during the Devonian they were much more common. They have fleshy fins that have an extra bone that separates the actual fin-part from the rest of the body.

But before I talk more about fins with extra bones, let‘s give the spotlight to the real stars of the Devonian: The Placoderms. The “armored fish“ got their name from the bony plates that cover their head. They had jaws (and were the first vertebrates to do so), but no real teeth. However, in many species their bony armor had self-sharpening edges at the mouth, that were used similar to teeth (and honestly, that sounds somehow more terrifying than actual teeth).

Although most of them were mid-sized, the biggest ones like Dunkleosteus and Titanichthys reached sizes similar to a modern white shark (4-6 m), maybe even bigger. Titanichthys is assumed to be a filter feeder, while Dunkleosteus was an active hunter marking the first time vertebrates took over the roles of apex predators.

Placoderms in general were pretty big on being the first vertebrates to do things: They were among the first to colonize the open ocean as well as freshwater (I don‘t spend enough time appreciating that water is not just water, but has tons of different habitats). They were also the first ones to have clasper-like structures, which is the fish version of a penis. With that they were able to have internal fertilization or, as the non-scientist call it, sex. Before the placoderms came around, vertebrates weren‘t doing that. Related to that, placoderms are the oldest known case of an animal giving live birth.

One more cool thing about placoderms is that they are the oldest known case of fossilized pigment in vertebrates. Personally, I absolutely love everything that has to do with coloration in prehistoric animals, so I will bring it up as often as I possibly can. This particular fish supposedly had a silvery iridescent belly and a red-ish back. Not only is this cool, because that‘s a very pretty fish, but also because it might hint towards placoderms having color vision.

Since the placoderms were terrorizing the oceans, some of those lobe-finned fish I talked about had quite a bit of motivation to get away from them. This is where those extra bones I mentioned came in handy, because they evolved into leg-like structures. Air bladders, which were originally used for buoyancy, were repurposed into lungs for breathing. This new group of vertebrate was able to invade the land. Animals like Ichthyostega and Tiktaalik were among the very first tetrapods (that translates to “four legs“), a group that today includes amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals (that‘s us!).

The tetrapods were however not the first life on land, in fact they were pretty late to the party. By this time there were already many plants on land, including the very first trees like Archeopteris, the very first insects, scorpions and other arachnids like Paleocharinus (which is not a true spider, but a close cousin. Reading about them did however gave me a nightmare, so it‘s close enough to spiders to trigger my arachnophobia).

The last mention should probably go to Jaekelopterus, the biggest eurypterid (“sea scorpion“), and therefore biggest arthropod ever, with a size of over 2.5 m. Just imagine a fucking 2.5 me long bug. I kinda hate it. And I‘m impressed.

Majority of cast as bugs:

Arthur: Yellowjacket

Rikaad: Fire ant

Robin: [FATAL ERROR]

Donovan: Arthropleura

Nea: Tarantula

Ronan: Jumping spider

Iimik: Water bug

Jamie: Carpenter bee

Imugi: Jaekelopterus rhenaniae

Oakley: Dragonfly

Winton: Carpenter ant

Akeem: Rhinoceros beetle

ohh nice, though i barely know anything about bugs!

Arthur: Yellowjacket

Yellowjackets are some sort of wasp and wasps can sting more than once but only do so when they or their nest is threatened, so yeah it fits.

Rikaad: Fire ant

Fire ants apparently have one of the most painful stings in the bug kingdom so yeah you don't want to piss that off, also where there is one ant there is usually more so careful!

Robin: [FATAL ERROR]

he'd probably be some sort of fluffy moth, maybe a clearwing moth? they are pollinator species (also funky wings)

Donovan: Arthropleura

big extinct bug with many legs, also pretty funky!

Nea: Tarantula

big and the females eat the males if they arent fast enough, also make webs which are basically invisible traps.

Ronan: Jumping spider

small and actually the smartest spider species! curious little guys

Iimik: Water bug

yup! also the males carry their eggs on their back which is pretty cool!

Jamie: Carpenter bee

blue bee blue bee!

Imugi: Jaekelopterus rhenaniae

finky prehistoric water bug! that does fit her!

Oakley:Dragonfly

fast and zipping around everywhere, also predatory species. yeah it kinda fits him.

Winton: Carpenter ant

burrow into homes and steal stuff, yeah thats him.

Akeem: Rhinoceros beetle

biiig tanky bug with a strong black(ish) chitin shell

yup! fits him!