North America

Acrocanthosaurus

Acrocanthosaurus, meaning “high-spined lizard”, was a large 35 foot long meat-eating dinosaur which lived in North America during the middle of the Cretaceous Period approximately 115-110 million years ago. It is distinctive for the unusually tall neural spines on the… Read More ›

Leucichthyops

Leucichthyops vagans was a species of prehistoric salmonid fish which lived in what’s now western North America during the middle of the Cretaceous Period approximately 100 million years ago. The species was named in 1919 by Theodore D. A. Cockerell,… Read More ›

Erythrinolepis

Erythrinolepis was a prehistoric freshwater fish which lived in western North America during the middle to late Cretaceous Period approximately 100-66 million years ago. The name Erythrinolepis was coined by the paleontologist Theodore D. A. Cockerell in 1919. The name… Read More ›

Dakosaurus

There were numerous kinds of marine reptiles which swam in the oceans during the Mesozoic Era, including the ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs. Less well known are the marine crocodilians, or more accurately, crocodylomorphs. These animals are known as the thalattosuchians,… Read More ›

Orthacanthus

Orthacanthus, meaning “straight spine”, was a 10 foot long freshwater shark-like fish which lived during the late Carboniferous Period and early Permian Period roughly 315-275 million years ago. The genus Orthacanthus is divided into twelve different species, two of which… Read More ›

Kepodactylus

NOTE: This article was originally published on August 3, 2023. It was substantially revised on February 3, 2026. Kepodactylus was a pterosaur which lived in western North America during the late Jurassic Period 155-152 million years ago. In 1992, a nearly-complete Stegosaurus skeleton… Read More ›

Gigantoraptor

Gigantoraptor was a massive 25-30 foot long oviraptorosaurian theropod dinosaur which lived in eastern Asia (and possibly in North America) during the middle of the Cretaceous Period. The fossils of this enormous bird-like dinosaur, consisting of a partial skeleton, were… Read More ›

Toxolophosaurus

Introduction Allow me to introduce you to Toxolophosaurus, “the bow-crested lizard”, which lived in Montana during the early to middle Cretaceous Period approximately 135-115 million years ago. Despite its name, Toxolophosaurus wasn’t either a dinosaur or a lizard. Instead it… Read More ›