A few very nice photos of the massive skull of the giant Cretaceous alligatorid Deinosuchus.

https://tsjok45.files.wordpress.com/...utah.jpg?w=890

http://www.baystatereplicas2.com/wp-...SK4_GASTON.jpg

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...ks-d56x1v0.jpg

And some information.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ca-d4w0ass.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinosuchus

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...768325/?no-ist

http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/...inosuchus.html

More to come on this awesome predator soon.

A very nice life-size model of the largest terrestrial lizard ever to exist Varanus priscus (Megalania).

Remember that this animal was still around when the Aboriginal Australians arrived (who then caused the extinction of this massive predator and all the other Megafauna on the continent).

But what an awe-inspiring sight it must have been.

http://www.natureworks.com.au/images...ia_Brown_2.jpg

http://www.natureworks.com.au/images...a_Brown_10.jpg

http://www.natureworks.com.au/images...irl_130056.jpg

http://www.natureworks.com.au/images...ia_Brown_6.jpg

Say hello to the 'Carolina Butcher' - Carnufex carolinensis!

https://news.ncsu.edu/2015/03/zanno-carnufex/

http://www.livescience.com/50185-but...iscovered.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...954636/?no-ist

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....sic-carolinas/

http://www.natureworldnews.com/artic...-dinosaurs.htm

Fifteen evolutionary steps towards Humanity - not one for the Creationists to read.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/bespoke/sto...man/index.html

Interesting that the ability to walk on hind legs alone doesn't seem to be present in modern crocodilia. I wonder if on a genetic level that ability is still there, though, just not expressed.

Yes, it is one hell of a mofo and you sure as hell wouldn't want a modern crocodilian to have that ability!

Revealed: the terrifying 9ft-long crocodile that walked upright
Transported back to the Triassic Period, what would a person experience upon encountering this agile, roughly 9-foot-long (about 3 meter-long), 5-foot-tall (about 1.5 meter-tall) beast with a long skull and blade-like teeth? “Abject terror,” said North Carolina State University paleontologist Lindsay Zanno, who led the research published in the journal Scientific Reports. “Climb up the nearest tree,” advised North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences paleontologist Vince Schneider.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...d-like-a-human

Crocodilians semi-upright gait and 'cold' blood seems to be secondary adaptations for their current freshwater 'sit and wait predatory' lifestyle - but they still possess some of the most advanced hearts in the animal kingdom.

As a group in the past they were astonishingly diverse.

There were plenty of running crocs throughout history.

Some of them very recent indeed - but they are sadly gone now thanks to you know who.

Quinkana from Australia for example.

http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/.../quinkana.html

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20..._u-d60vd6d.jpg

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...28-d5p3wdc.jpg

Or Voay robustus - still alive when the Ceasar's were in power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voay

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...er-d71a63u.png

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...er-d71a5nz.png

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ik-d8jurlq.jpg

A few recent articles that may be of interest.

http://siberiantimes.com/science/cas...in-permafrost/

http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk...saurs-say.html

http://www.pembinavalleyonline.com/i...ews&Itemid=407

http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/80m-year-...seum-1.2281086

http://www.eartharchives.org/article...ek-nyctosaurus

Just a bit of imaginative fun.

This T. rex has been restored with lips (still a controversial topic amongst palaeontologists), owl-like facial disc, feathery feet and ear-tufts.

It must surely be one of the 'cuddliest' renditions of the maniraptoran killing machine that I have ever seen (although not if it was hungry and looking at you).

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...es-d67q9ax.png

A nice illustration of the allometric changes (different parts growing at different rates) changes in the skulls of three specimens of T.rex.

The eye socket (orbit) does not really get very much bigger as the animals grow up. Eyes grow to nearly adult size quickly (this is why baby animals often look so adorable - even a carnivorous dinosaur), but then the rest of the head catches up so that, as growth occurs, the eyes take up relatively less space in the head.

The eyes are still growing but much more slowly. This is called negative allometry, and the brain shows a similar pattern.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...8e9885f92a4ec1

A few very interesting stories from the past couple of days.

http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk...inosaurus.html

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....f-those-saurs/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32016625

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....ak-pycnofiber/

Here is a list of very short (but informative) Dinologue videos on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/dinologue/playlists

More on the new Metoposaurus find.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....nder-boneyard/

As large as this genus was (up to around 3 metres or so) it was very small fry compared to other prehistoric amphibians - the monstrous Prionosuchus plummeri for example was about 9 metres long (note the size of the human diver in this beautiful reconstruction of the animal).

http://cs313616.vk.me/v313616190/44a2/eglzlOLZQqo.jpg

A fossil porpoise with a huge underbite has been discovered.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ceans-science/

Bloody hell Keyser, what have you got me into?

I don't know much about fossils and the like.

I'm more than interested in evolution, but I don't home in on one era to study it. I look at the whole up to the present day and what has been achieved. Your photo's are amazing though.

We have the four kingdom's in nature. One evolve's to the next.

If we look at the conception of a human being right through the nine months, we see all that evolution has achieved so far in the womb. From the mineral kingdom to the vegetable to the animal and then human. And the jump from the animal to human is when the embryo loses the tail at about 4 wks.

So the chosen ones were the animal men/women who stood up on two feet and imbued with the mind (And not some religious thing) We are all the chosen ones. This then seperated us from the animal kingdom. This took hundreds of thousands of years.

Shall I stop now?

I'll no doubt get loads of abuse.

I think you should stop yes!

Evolution has no particular direction, just what adaptations are advantageous for a particular organism at a particular time. In the grand scheme of things we are simply a branch of highly modified Lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) that got very lucky.

Here is the current classification of life in a couple of simplified diagrams.

http://i.imgur.com/mejHFC3.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lified.svg.png

Nothing special - just a very nice illustration of the great Mosasaur Tylosaurus proriger which possibly could exceed 15 metres in length (notice the tail fluke which is a relatively new discovery in Mosasaurs).

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/20...le-d8811l8.png

Is there a name for the apparent pattern of new forms of life reaching large proportions (like the large amphibians), only for those larger species to die off leaving only smaller species?

Not really, the nearest I can think of is Cope's Rule (animals of every clade appear to get larger on average over time)
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cope%27s_rule

This seems to have been backed up by a recent study published this year -

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-animals...ze.html#inlRlv

Gigantism does have it's disadvantages - big animals need a lot of resources and consequently there are far fewer of them.

Thus when conditions change they are often vulnerable to extinction.

The reason we see hardly any land giants at the moment can be summed up in one word - Man - who sadly has been the cause of the extinction of a vast range of massive reptiles, birds and mammals wherever we have arrived.

Terrestrial life has not been so small for many millions of years.

"ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" - now considered an outdated theory popular in the 19th Century - see Wiki

Though I've always been fond of the horseshoe crab's "Trilobite Lavae"

The 'fluffier' dinosaurs get the more interesting they become (Jurassic World should have taken bloody note of that).

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....saur-whiskers/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...12634/abstract

A lovely example of intelligent speculation on unusual dinosaur behaviour by the always excellent Mark Witton.

http://markwitton-com.blogspot.co.uk...s-friends.html

Finally an article that took this poor bloke two months to write and features many of the post Mesozoic giants that I have mentioned on this thread - and quite a few I have not.

The author is not a big fan of non-avian dinosaurs but I can just about forgive him for that.

Be warned though - it will take you a bloody long time to read through!

https://accpaleo.wordpress.com/2015/...han-dinosaurs/

A very nice size comparison between the one of the largest of the sauropod dinosaurs Puertasaurus, the massive Steppe mammoth and the mega-rhino Paraceratherium.

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...13-d89l54n.png

Rather awesome.

Yes in any other context the those two massive land mammals (probably the two heaviest ever to exist at around two to three times the weight of a large bull elephant) would look absolutely gigantic.

But not when compared to a large sauropod dinosaur.

Very late I know - but it seems that all of those Medieval fantasies were true.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/520042a.html

If you can prove unicorns were real I'll be well made up

As people didn't have spectacles 50,000 years ago, I suppose it's possible they could have mistaken the last of the elasmotherium for winged single horned horses.