Metoposaurus

One of my goals for this blog is to start consistently updating with drawings and information on a some of the fascinating extinct animals, folkloric monsters, cryptids and mythic figures I stumble upon. So for my first of what will hopefully be an ongoing thing is the ancient amphibian metoposaurus.



The metoposaur family was an extremely prolific group of amphibians that were successful long after the age of amphibians had ended. They hunted the lakes and rivers of the Triassic all the way up to the Cretaceous.Their remains have been found almost everywhere on the planet.

Metoposaurus was an 8-10 foot long fish-eating amphibian that probably prowled the bottoms of rivers or hunted mid-water like a modern day crocodile. They had large heads with their eyes further up on the skull that most amphibians. It was this feature (which I have exaggerated slightly) that made me want to draw them. The combination of their giant gaping mouth with their beady, far-forward eyes gives them such a lovable, goofy countenance.

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