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| Gastonia |
First up, a dinosaur that may not even be from Texas! Somewhere along the way, I thought I'd heard it was found around here somewhere, but now I can only find references to it as being from Utah and Colorado. Oops! Well, it's my favorite of this batch, so I'm including it anyway. Ankylosaurs are always a pain to draw, what with all the knobs and spikes all over the place, so I'm pretty pleased with myself for sticking with it and producing something that looks halfway decent. I think I managed to hit upon a reasonable-but-interesting-looking color scheme to go with it as well. (To justify myself somewhat, even if Gastonia never made it down to Texas, it did cross paths with the next dinosaur in this post, which HAS been found in Texas, so there.)
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| Acrocanthosaurus |
Acrocanthosaurus was originally dicsovered in Oklahoma, and is the official State Dinosaur there, but it also ranged through Wyoming and Texas, and perhaps even further afield. It's most well-known for its distinctive ridge-back, and it was the top predator in its time. Most believe it was responsible for the large theropod tracks at the famous Paluxy River dinosaur trackway site. I'm not sure I like how the color scheme came out on my drawing here. I think I should have made the colors grade into each other a little more gradually perhaps.
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| Alamosaurus |
Remember the Alamosaurus!!! Actually, contrary to popular belief, Alamosaurus was not named for the site of the famed Texas battle, but rather for the Ojo Alamo formation in New Mexico where it was originally discovered. By happy coincidence, it was later discovered in Texas as well, though still not particularly close to the Alamo of historic legend. The interesting thing about Alamosaurus is that it appeared rather suddenly in North America after an apparent 40 million year absence of sauropod ("brontosaur") dinosaurs from the continent, leading some to suspect it had migrated from South America where the sauropod lineage was still going strong. It appears to have had pebbly "armor" in the form of small bony knobs speckled across its back. For my drawing, I attempted to avoid the old trope of the boring grey long-neck, and added some fancy colors to the neck and tail for a mating display (a good use of all that advertising space). I'm not sure I like the end result however; I feel like I could've made it look more realistic somehow while still keeping it interesting. Oh well. Next time, maybe.
Hope you liked these! Stay tuned for more.
