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Thursday, January 5, 2006

_Cryolophosaurus ellioti_ Skull

Behold, the skull of Elliot's cold crested reptile:




Drawn 2 July 2005, 7.5"x11" sketchbook paper from a specimen which was roughly 60 cm (24 inches) in length, so this is a fairly large animal. It is an Allosaurid, which means the manus would have had three digits (the larger Tyrannosaurids only got two). As you might gather from its name, this animal was found in Antarctica.

Another thing: just so we're all clear, that large opening just below and to the fore of the crest (the largest hole in the skull) is not the orbit (eyehole). That's the antorbital fenestra. The orbit is behind it, more directly underneath the crest:




(Labels: o. orbit, aof antorbital fenestra, n. nares.)

Incidentally, I also did a morph animation using Elastic Reality with a photo of this particular skull and the Edmontosaurus sp. to show off the bone correlations that skulls have.

Relocated from the old blog on 22 January 2008

1 comment:

Zach said...

There is no way that Cryolophosaurus nests with Allosaurus and Sinraptor, sir. What part of "basal tetanurine" don't you understand?!?