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The leap for food

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Well, this is another drawing that took me an incredible lot of time. It shows a small dyrosaurid jumping out of the water and leaping for the giant bat Witwatia, with the scene playing in Libya in the Late-Eocene/Early-Oligocene. Especially the half-below and half-above the water surface part was tricky in this one. And again this drawing contains some interesting information.

Let’s start with Witwatia. This was a giant bat, well to be honest there are bigger bats today, but it’s certainly large, with a wingspan of around 80 centimeters. Fossils have been found in Egypt (yes indeed, the Fayum-valley), but I can imagine that it was also present in Libya as the fauna of the two sites are in great aspect similar. Witwatia is, if I’m not mistaking, rather poorly-known. Just a few loose fragments from both species have been found, from which I believe a lower jaw was the biggest fossil. What it ate remains thus rather unclear, but scientists are almost sure that it was no vampire-bat. A more likely possibility is that it dined on fish, for which it had to fly low and thus was a potential source of prey for crocodilians, maybe sharks and in this case a dyrosaurid.

Witwatia is a far more inspiring creature than the dyrosaurid, but for paleontologists the story behind the dyrosaurid-fossils is far more interesting. This dyrosaurid is by some sources, amongst which is the paleobiology database, said to have been of the genus Dyrosaurus, although I’m not sure if the material was good enough to clearly identify that, so that’s why I’m calling it a dyrosaurid.

But let’s assume these sources are right, for a moment, this would mean that dyrosaurids survived actually much longer than thought before. Dyrosaurids are no crocodilians, but distant relatives (within the Crocodylomorpha, though), which explains some of the differences with modern crocodilians like the osteoderm pattern, which is arranged in a different way. They are mainly known from the Paleocene of Africa and South-America, though a few Cretaceous en Early-Eocene forms from other continents are also known. Some of the youngest species were the giant Phosphatosaurus (up to nine meters in length, far larger than any modern crocodilian) and the six meter long Dyrosaurus, both from the same site in Morocco, which contains fossils from Early-Eocene strata. There is just one dyrosaurid-fossil that is from younger strata: this fossil.

This is by far the youngest dyrosaurid-fossil and is therefore unique. It shows some similarities to Dyrosaurus and was therefore named Dyrosaurus sp. It confirms the little known fact that dyrosaurids actually continued to live into the Early-Oligocene. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you’re here looking at the youngest known fossil of a non-eusuchian Neosuchian (if we consider sebecids to be notosuchians)! The individual here is rather small, probably not larger than three meters, although some large individuals may have grown up to lengths of six meters or even more. It shows that the dyrosaurids actually didn’t die out because of the competition with archaeocetans, crocodiles and gharials, as they would already have gone extinct by that time. I find it very intriguing that dyrosaurids actually lived much longer than originally expected, as it again proves the surprises you can come across in the paleontology. :lol:

For this deviation I’d really like to thank user Kkic at the Polish Wikipedia for the photograph of the water surface and David Brühlmeier for the picture of the trees in the distance. So if you have any comments, requests, feedback or suggestions for other drawings, you’re welcome to share in the comments. Now I wish you all a good day (for me it’s gonna be night now) and I hope to come up with some new stuff soon! Regards!
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Comments23
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deathmango's avatar
I agree with the previously mentioned points about the great splash, and how fun it is to see obscure animals (and learn about some we never knew of). I like the blurring in the distance, and the sharp foreground, which also helps your drawings (sharper) fit in the image. And I like the composition, with Witwatia almost escaping the frame (and our view), as it slips away from the dryosaurid.