Tim Morris' Art and Project Blog

 Our final post in this series is based in the Late Cretaceous. A relative of  Halszkaraptor which has a flattened, duck-like snout.  Halszkaraptorinae. A relative of Leptoceratops inhabiting the Arctic, which has a coat of shaggy protofeathers. Leptoceratopsidae. A relative of Triceratops, which is an insular dwarf, inhabiting an island chain in the Bearpaw sea. Triceratopsini. A mid-sized Titanosaur which has a large fatty hump at the base of its tail. Saltasauridae. A relative of Saurolphus with a branching crest. Saurolophini. A Noasaur which has a sickle-like claw on each foot. Noasaurinae. A dromaeosaur which has a straight, defensive kicking claw on its foot, and feeds mainly on fruit. Dromaeosauridae novis. A late-surviving primitive Therizinosaur which is omnivorous. Therizinosauria. An insular European Nodosaur with reduced armor. Struthiosaurini. A Pachycephalosaur which has a paedomorphic, flat spiky skull. Pachycephalosaurinae. A mid-sized, very slender Titan...

 Next in Our Potential Yesterdays series is forms from the Early and Mid Cretaceous. A Spinosaur whose back sail is entirely made of soft-tissue, like an Iguana. Spinosauridae. A Megaraptorid with a modest sail down its back. Megaraptoridae. A dwarf Spinosaur inhabiting an island in the Tethys, hunting mainly on land. Spinosauridae. A Spinosaur with a very long, slender snout like a Gharial. Spinosauridae. A Spinosaur with a pelican-like gular pouch. Spinosauridae. A relative of Yi which has 2 sets of membranous "wings" fore and hind. Scansoriopterygidae. A relative of Yi which is fully able to fly like a bat or bird. Scansoriopterygidae. A primitive Ankylosaur which has a tail that resembles a second head. Stem-Ankylosauridae. A Carcharodontosaur which has a large back sail. Carcharodontosauridae. A stem-Oviraptorosaur which has many teeth and barely any beak. Stem-Oviraptoroisauria. A flamingo-like, filter-feeding Ornithomimosaur. Stem-Ornithomimosauria. A very deep-bodied,...

 For this next series of blog posts, I am sharing images I have just made within the paradigm of my "Potential Yesterdays" project. These in particular are based on suggestions by many of my friends and colleagues. The premise of "Potential Yesterdays" and "Our Potential Yesterdays", is to draw fossil creatures that have not been discovered, but may in fact exist undiscovered as fossils. All of the suggestions I chose are Non-avian Dinosaurs. Starting here with the Jurassic: A Dilophosaur-like theropod whose crest is a resonating chamber in vocalization. Stem-Neotherapoda. A stem-Ornithischian which feeds mostly on insects. Stem-Ornithischia. A sabre-tusked Heterodontosaur. Heterodontosauridae. A Diplodocoid whose skull is transitional between derived forms and the ancestral condition. Stem Diplodocoidea. A megalosauroid whose skull is transitional between Megalosaur and Spinosaur. Stem-Spinosauridae. All images and writing on this website are the property...

We all know Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs, those two ruling reptile groups that dominated much of the Mesozoic. They are descended from a common ancestor, and both groups have distinct features. But what if this common ancestor went through an alternate scenario during the Mesozoic? Maybe the Triassic was completely ruled on land by Therapsids, and the Ornithodirans only ruled the air? We might see a form not quite pterosaur and not quite dinosaur, like this: Perhaps this form then gave rise to the new ruling group after the large Therapsida died out in the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction. We would see dinosaurish, and non-dinosaurish froms dominate for the whole of the Jurassic and Cretaceous, on land and in the air, but none are exactly like Pterosaurs or Dinosaurs. The herbivores, for a start, are all quadrupedal, secondarily flightless, and vary from scaly to feathery, with only 2 functioning front toes. Skull. Smaller, agile form. Iguanodont-like form. Hadrosaur-like form. Giant, sau...