More Orphaned Concepts - Crocs, Monotremes and Ungulates

Hello again,

I managed to scan some re-draws of very old concepts that I had from more than a decade ago. They cover a few different kinds of animal generally, so I will cover them by group..

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The first are a set of various crocodiles, mostly Ziphosuchian/Notosuchian. The idea was a world or timeline where Crocodiles are the dominant land animals instead of non-avian Dinosaurs or mammals.

 
This is a bipedal browsing Notosuchian, with a tapir-like trunk.

 
This idea was basically one-upping Kaprosuchus, though I am not sure why it would need such long teeth, sexual selection?
 
 
A large, omnivorous land-croc with a bulky head and heterodont teeth.

 
An ungulate-convergent, quadrupedal Notosuchian with a small beak.

 
A giant, theropod-shaped bipedal Sphenosuchian, based partly on Macelognathus as an ancestor.

 
Another ungulate--like Notosuchian descendant, this time with cheeks and heterodont teeth.

 
A wolf-sized predatory Ziphosuchian with a large head and heterodont teeth.

 
Tiny descendants of Anatosuchus, adapted to forage in the shallows for invertebrates such as worms and snails.

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The next lot are a bunch of speculative Monotremes, some may be close to the platypus group, and others more basally derived.

 
This is a long-legged, semi-cursorial forager and predator, with large venom spurs.

 
This is a fast-swimming marine platypus with an elevated metabolism and wing-like forefeet.

 
This is some sort of durophagous monotreme. I was initially intending this as related to the Cancriodonta of The Speculative Dinosaur Project, way back when.

 
A predatory stem-monotreme with sharp teeth and an upright gait.

 
A toothed stem-platypus of enormous size that acts like a crocodile in fresh water.

 
A sensory, nearly blind stem-platypus of large size, that forages along the riverbed for invertebrates living in the mud.

 
Another tail-less, durophagous primitive Cancriodont. With benefit of hindsight, maybe these guys ARE indeed related to Kollikodon.
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And finally, this last group consists of various odd ungulates of various sorts, some more serious and resolved in taxonomic affinity than others.

 
A uni-horned member of the "horned hog" group of Pavel Volkov's Neocene Period.

 
A somewhat un-resolved creature with a long snout made potentially for grazing. Artiodactyl?

 
A sort of Brontothere with an enlarged nose and trunk supported by a nasal-crest, as with Embolotherium.
 
 
A giraffe-descendant with large, incipient-branching ossicones.

A rather oddly shaped rhinoceros with multiple horns, maybe this guy was bred as an ornamental creature in a GMO future in which endangered fauna remains in captivity.

 
An American Brontothere with antler-like horns.

 
Some sort of Rhinoceros-like Perissodactyl with a branching horn-boss on its head.

 
A stem Perissodactyl with a small bony crest, flexible lips and a large diastema.

Some sort of multi-horned Dinoceratan.

 
A bizarre sort of multi-horned Rhinoceros, smaller with cursorial limbs. Perhaps this guy is a descendant of rhinos that prospered from re-wilding projects in future centuries.

 
I assume some sort of Selenodont or Ruminant from an alternate timeline, which has a large bony crest and reduced digits.

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All images, designs and writing on this blog are the property of Timothy Donald Morris (unless otherwise indicated), do not use, reproduce, or copy them without my permission.
© Timothy Donald Morris 2024

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