Extinct

2023 - 1 - 12

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Image courtesy of "Bored Panda"

This Artist Shows What Long-Extinct Animals Might've Looked Like ... (Bored Panda)

Oviraptor was a small, lightly built predatory or omnivorous dinosaur that brooded its eggs in a manner similar to birds. It lived in the Late Cretaceous Period ...

It was flexible and three times as long as the rest of the body combined. Its most striking feature was its large ornamental crest, which was located on the top of its skull and resembled that of a modern cassowary. It is one of the closest relatives to the mighty T-Rex, with some experts even suggesting it as its direct ancestor. It was a relatively large member of the Oviraptoridae family, reaching up to 1.6 meters in length, and was likely an omnivore. The snout was narrow, and the upper jaw had a noticeable gap below the nostrils. Ornithomimus (meaning "bird mimic") was a genus of ornithomimid dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous period of what is now North America. It was one of the few that lived during the Jurassic period. Dromaeosaurus is a genus of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur which lived during the Late Cretaceous period, between 80 and 69 million years ago, in Alberta, Canada, and the western United States. Tapejara's crest consisted of a semicircular crest over the snout, and a bony prong that extended back behind the head. Members of its single species Compsognathus longipes could grow to around the size of a turkey. Carnotaurus was one of the most bizarre meat-eating dinosaurs of the Cretaceous. Its skull was short, with a pair of knobby horns over its small eyes.

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Image courtesy of "EastMojo"

How did giant, extinct 'thunderbirds' grew in size? (EastMojo)

The largest flightless bird found anywhere in the world today is the ostrich. It stands about 2.5 metres tall and can weigh up to 240kg.

[The Conversation](https://theconversation.com) under a Creative Commons license. Genyornis simply couldn’t lay enough eggs and its offspring simply didn’t grow fast enough to keep up with this pressure on their species; they were eventually driven to extinction by about 40,000 years ago. By 49,000 years ago, they had reached the Flinders Ranges, well within view of Lake Callabonna, where they would have encountered both Genyornis and emus. Despite being fossilised for millions of years, the microscopic structure of bone (histology) is preserved intact and gives us a unique glimpse at how the animal grew when it was alive. We found that the young individuals experienced rapid growth but that this was followed by a period of arrested growth. Emus are about six times smaller than Genyornis, and have faster growth rates without any interruptions in their growth. My involvement in this research stems from the work I have done on the bone histology and growth patterns of a number of extinct species. Instead of taking so long to grow up they would have been able to reach adult size more quickly and reproduce sooner. Our results showed that Genyornis, which was about 2.5 metres tall and probably weighed about 240kg, grew much more quickly than Dromornis. It lived in the late Miocene period of Australia, about 8 million years ago. This allowed us first to pinpoint the size differences between males and females. The largest flightless bird found anywhere in the world today is the ostrich.

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