Monday, November 16, 2015

Antiquarian Amphibians

For a few months of my sophomore year of college (Fall 2008-Spring 2009), I endeavored to fill a blank, hardcover drawing book with animals predating the dinosaurs. I had already completed similar projects with Mesozoic and Cenozoic fauna, but this one was to be more ambitious: Not only would I draw and color over a hundred animals belonging to groups alien to me, but this time, I would depict each organism's habitat in full color as well. Unfortunately, my workload only mounted while my interest in the Paleozoic (and sadly, drawing environments) waned.

However, when my enthusiasm was high, I did manage to complete a set of drawings focusing on early amphibians, specifically the temnospondyls and the lepospondyls. Both of these groups arose and diversified during the Carboniferous period (roughly 360 to 300 million years ago) but eventually died out during the early Cretaceous period (around 120 million years ago).

TEMNOSPONDYLS:

 Greererpeton
5 ft long
West Virginia

 Dendrerpeton
3.3 ft long
Nova Scotia

 Cochleosaurus
4-5.2 ft long
Czech Republic

LEPOSPONDYLS:

(Clockwise from left)
Phlegethontia
 3.3 ft long
 Czech Republic, Illinois, and Ohio

Microbrachis
 6 in long
 Czech Republic

Keraterpeton
1 ft long
Czech Republic and Ohio

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