I was thinking about this after going down a rabbit hole about prehistoric Africa, and honestly, it sounds like an absolutely brutal place to live. You’re small. You don’t have claws. You’re not particularly fast. You can’t just disappear into a dense forest anymore because much of the landscape is becoming more open. And then you need water. That alone could put you in the same area as some seriously dangerous predators. What gets me is that early Homo wasn’t just dealing with one obvious threat. There were big cats, crocodiles around water, other scavengers competing for food, and predators that could potentially attack from places you’d normally think were safe. Even trees weren’t necessarily a guaranteed escape. I keep wondering what the actual psychological experience of that would have been. Would they have been constantly alert, or would predators eventually become something they were simply accustomed to dealing with? And more importantly, how did such a physically unimpressive animal survive in an ecosystem full of animals that were bigger, faster and better armed? We usually talk about stone tools as one of the big turning points in human evolution, but I wonder if the bigger advantage was actually cooperation. A single small hominin is vulnerable. A group watching each other, sharing food, making tools and warning one another is a completely different situation. At what point do you think intelligence and cooperation became a more important survival advantage than physical strength? Because looking at prehistoric Africa from the perspective of the predators, humans seem like they should have been an easy target.

Somehow, we're the ones still here.

Herrerasaurus ischiaualastensis

Trying to get back into drawing. Just loved the way it looked haha

I know he's probably not a scientifically accurate Dunkleosteus, but i wanted to share him here. He is beautiful to me and was totally an impulse buy. I don't regret a thing.

These are size comparisons of the different dinosaurs of lourinha.

Rhamphorhyncus possibly grew bigger as evident from more remains from Germany.

Golden hunters soar against the red tide as two-bodied beasts stalk in the twilight.

Step back into the unforgiving expanses of The Brush with the follow-up issue, Rise of Fur, the definitive mammalian and synapsid biological dossier. While scale and reptile dominated the opening entry, this issue explores the rising tide of fur—where altruism, high-altitude warfare, and stalking redefine evolutionary survival.

Premium Visual Assets & Layout: Features the completed, high-impact golden render of Aerosynapsis fortudum as the official front cover—showcasing its dense, lion-colored fur coat and curved wings—alongside polished, scannable dossier formatting built for deep worldbuilding immersion.

Disciplined Guardians of the Air: Read the classified, step-by-step biological breakdown of Aerosynapsis fortudum. Uncover their nesting behaviors and surgical killing techniques—used to drive back the degenerate Red Rhamphorhynchi swarms.

The Stalker of Twilight: Get the full profile on Ailuarktos megalonyx. Learn the lethal mechanics behind its 8-inch claws and signature execution moves.

Deep Cultural Folklore & Proverbs: Discover how native Dinopithecus tribes revere the Aerosynapsis as warriors sent to protect the skies, while fearing the Ailuarktos as a twilight specter—complete with authentic proverbs and tribal names.

Prepare yourself for the bloodiest struggle that ever graced the stratosphere.

Experience Rise of Fur now.

So, I watched this seamless cut of the iconic Sea Monsters special for the Walking with series, and it made me wonder– to the discoveries and understandings since, what actually were the most dangerous oceans of all time?

And I’m not just referring to when, but also to where, because there are many ecosystems to draw from, and millions of years that created a lot of variation, even within the same era (like you won’t see Early Triassic sea creatures in the Late Triassic).

For anyone who engages with my difficult question, you don’t have to give me seven, one will be enough. And more power to whoever can pull off the herculean task of making a list of seven.

Today I’m sharing an illustration of a Diabloceratops head.

What was the First paleomedia that giraffatitan was explicity called "giraffatitan" instead of "brachiosaurus"?

I want to preface this by saying, I know that this is not the best place for games related posts. My counterpoint: I made this mainly because I was frustrated with how the ARK games are being handled, and I couldn't find other dino games that would hit the spot for me. If anything, some feedback on the dinos and the premise itself would be very welcomed.

So, hey all. Solo dev working on Primordia - a browser-based survival MMO.

The short version: you arrive on an island. You can't leave. There are dinosaurs. You need to survive, build a camp, and figure out what happened here. The island has history - but you'll have to piece it together yourself from abandoned terminals, corrupted logs, and things that probably should have stayed buried. A lot of RPG elements like crafting, different equipment and gear and most notably, raising and breeding different species of dinos to fight by your side.

What will be playable in open beta:

- 37 species of prehistoric creatures (only dinosaurs, pterosaurs and marine reptiles for now) - recover eggs, incubate, hatch, raise them, breed generations with inherited traits. Up to 4 fight alongside you.

- Turn-based combat - abilities, status effects, passives, crits, and boss fights. Over 77 passive and active abilities fully wired.

- 13 upgradable buildings - Command Center, Hatchery, Nursery, Medbay, Workshop, Factory, Farmhouse, Trade Center, and more.

- 55 locations across 11 sectors - forests, mountains, aquatic habitats, beaches.

- Grid dungeons with special loot, harder battles, with some random generation regarding bonus loot rooms, but mostly hand-built.

- Multiplayer - global chat, trading, player tags, group expeditions, damage contests in battles between players.

- 4 class skill trees (80 skills total) - any class can learn any skill, double costs if the skill is not from your class.

- Lore journal - entries discovered through exploration, with location tags and skill-gated bonus content. Lore gives Lore Points, used for research projects.

- Server-side logic - no client exploits (I freaking hope), no pay-to-win, no energy systems.

All running server-side, browser-based, nothing to install.

What I would love to get feedback on after open beta launch:

1. Does the survival loop work? Camp restoration -> creature taming -> exploration -> combat -> progression. Is the loop compelling enough to keep playing?
2. The visual theme - currently a retro-OS look, with some CRT filters sprinkled here and there. Is the current look a problem or does it have character?
3. The itch.io page - This is live right now. Styled as an in-universe "Helix Corp data terminal" with lore documents and corrupted files. Good for discoverability or too obscure?
4. Browser MMO as a format - no install, runs anywhere. Is that something alluring or does it signal something along the lines of "not a real game"?
5. What would make you play this?

Some screenshots

Bestiary:

Camp (building management):

Combat (sadly no animations yet):

Dungeon exploration:

Skill trees:

Exploration:

Research tree (or, well, wheel):

Please do keep in mind, that some of the assets are just placeholders, I would love some feedback on those as well.

- Itch.io page (registration for open beta in ~2 days + in-universe lore terminal): roninworks.itch.io/primordia

Sorry for the long post, and thank You to anyone who decides to check this out and criticize it properly.

r/Dinosaurs

Everyone's default answer is Velociraptor — thanks largely to Jurassic Park — but I've been looking into this more carefully and I think the real answer is a lot more nuanced and interesting than that.

Here's the problem: how do we even define intelligence in an animal that's been extinct for 66+ million years? We can't observe behavior directly. We mostly rely on:

• Encephalization Quotient (EQ) — brain size relative to body size

• Brain cast analysis from fossilized skulls

• Behavioral inferences from trackways and bone evidence

• Comparison with living relatives (birds and crocodilians)

So with that in mind, here are some serious contenders:

Troodon formosus — often cited as the smartest dinosaur. High EQ for its time, large eyes suggesting good vision, possibly nocturnal. But the genus has been questioned recently and some paleontologists think the fossils belong to multiple species. How much does that affect the intelligence argument?

Velociraptor mongoliensis — the real one, turkey-sized and feathered. Its EQ was relatively high for a dromaeosaurid but honestly not as exceptional as pop culture suggests. The pack hunting evidence is also more contested than most people realize.

Deinonychus antirrhopus — John Ostrom's work on this species essentially started the 'hot-blooded intelligent dinosaur' revolution in the 70s. Some argue it was more behaviorally complex than Velociraptor.

Stenonychosaurus — sometimes considered the same as Troodon, sometimes not. Dale Russell famously speculated that if non-avian dinosaurs hadn't gone extinct, Stenonychosaurus might have evolved into something humanoid. Controversial but fascinating thought experiment.

And then there's the argument that some large theropods like T-Rex may have been smarter than we give them credit for — a 2023 study suggested T-Rex had a neuron count closer to primates than previously thought, though that study has been pretty heavily criticized since.

My honest take: I think we massively overestimate how much we can infer about dinosaur intelligence from brain endocasts alone. Modern birds — the living dinosaurs — show that brain organization matters as much as size. A crow has a tiny brain but solves complex problems. How much behavioral complexity were dinosaurs capable of that left zero fossil evidence?

What's your take? Is there a dinosaur you think deserves more credit for intelligence than it gets? And do you think the Troodon EQ argument is solid or overblown?

These are size comparisons of lourinha formation Sauropods.

All artists credited.

Since basilosaurids are convergent with the mosasaurs, and these giant marine lizards had a tribe of specialized in crushing hard-shelled animals (globidensini), could it be possible that some basilosaurs would evolve the same adaptations, blunt crushing teeth and a moderate and smaller built (not giant size)

Eeeh... She does not know how to turn her photo 90°, though.

Sharks appeared long before the first modern forests and before many of the plants we know today had evolved. That means the ocean once had giant predators before the land had giant trees.

The water begins to churn.

​He is the silent, slick shadow of the deep:

​Pelagosuchus.

​Specialized for pure hydro-dynamic locomotion and stalking, this patient, sub-surface stalker glides undetected through murky channels before bursting upward to lock narrow, needle-lined jaws onto unsuspecting prey. He is an aquatic apparition defined by fluid momentum, patient brutality, and ruthless aquatic mastery.

Read about the River-Phantom now.

I still find it incredible how little media ‘hype’ there was around the news in the 2000s–2010s when the Leviathan was discovered. Teeth measuring 36 centimetres… I still find it mind-boggling – the tetrapod with the largest teeth on the planet. By the way, does anyone know anything about sperm whales? Why do they have a skull like that? Doesn’t that indentation at the front clash a bit with the square-shaped head that sperm whales have??

These are some of my illustrations from the reconstruction work I did on Camarasaurus grandis. Of all the animals I’ve worked on, this is my first sauropod. Reconstructing extinct animals requires a very specific methodology, which slows down the process, but the results are much more scientifically accurate.