New Torvosaurus

NOTE:  New drawings are located at the bottom of the lists of printable downloads.  Click on the "Paleontology" button or the "All Printables" button to find the drawings to print and color.  The older drawings are located further up the lists.  These dinosaurs are all from the Mesozoic Era...so they are found on the Paleontology page and under the title of  "Animals from the Mesozoic Era". 

Torvosaurus on the Prowl

(New Drawing)

In the last couple of years a new Torvosaurus was unearthed in Western Colorado at the Skull Creek Quarry.  This fossilized skeleton had around 65% of the bones present.  This is a lot for a large dinosaur.  This was most likely the largest Torvosaurus ever found.  It had a skull that was around 36 inches long with a lower jaw that was  33  inches long.  It was very robust and the living animal was probably over 36 feet long.   A new discovery was made in this specimen.  It involved the shape of the Torvosaurus skull.  The skull was particularly flat on top so that is a change from my previous Torvosaurus drawing.  I drew the new drawings of the animal based on a drawing of the new found fossilized skeleton.   

Torvosaurus and Rhamphorhynchus

(Prevoius Drawing...notice the head is not flat.)

Torvosaurus was a Jurassic animal with a head much larger than any other predator.  This new specimen was approaching Tyrannosaurus rex size.  Yet it lived many million years before the Cretaceous Period T. rex.  .   .  so I am not going to draw Torvosaurus fighting a T. rex.  It never could have happened.  Tyrannosaurus rex was still larger and still had a stronger bite.  However,  I did do a drawing of a Torvosaurus fighting an Allosaurus.  They DID live at the same time and would have been rivals for the top predator spot.

Torvosaurus vs Allosaurus

(Older drawing with a Torvosaurus...with a head that is not flat enough.)

Torvosaurus as Feathered Theropod

(New Drawing)

There is a chance that Torvosaurus was a feathered Theropod.  We don't know this at this time though.  Still, as I have said before, some paleontologists think that eventually we will find that Theropods that were not form the Triassic Period may all have had feathers and eventually the fossil evidence will show up.  In other words, the Theropods from the Jurassic Period and the Cretaceous Period may all have had feathers.  But then again.... maybe not.  We DO know that some dinosaurs did have feathers. . . the Yutyrannus and several raptor dinosaurs.  This is why we think birds evolved from dinosaurs.  

Yutyrannus

(Older Drawing)

Microraptor flying through the Forest

(Older Drawing)

By the way, the tree with fan shaped leaves is a Ginkgo tree. It is the oldest broad leaf tree to evolve on the Earth.  Both new drawings from today have Ginkgo trees.   It was thought for years that Ginkgo trees were extinct...they were only known to Western Science by fossilized leaves and leaf imprints.  Then it was discovered that the monks in China were cultivating them.  They even grow wild in some parts of China.