Robin's Great Coloring Pages: Volgatitan . . . Ammonites . . . and Shonisaurus

Volgatitan

Volgatitan fossilized bones were discovered in Western Russia on the banks of the Volga River. The bones were placed in a museum collection until more fossilized bones fell off a cliff and then more were found on the cliff by the river. The paleontologists were able to collect the bones from the limestone cliff. It was kind of a weird situation because Limestone forms in deep oceans and Sauropods, like Volgatitan are land animals. There were many marine fossils in the rock, like Ammonites. Ammonites were cephalopods that lived in the ocean. They are related to Nautaloids and squid and octopus.

Apparently this particular dinosaur must have died near a river and been washed out to sea. Another possibility is that it was washed out to sea by a tsumani. This animal lived around 200 million years ago in the very early Jurassic Period. Volgatitan was big compared to modern land animals. It weighed around 17 tons or about 34,000 lbs. ...or 15,422 kg.

Perhaps Volgatitan was an ancestor to the later huge Sauropods like Brachiosaurus and Sauroposeidon. . . . or maybe even an ancestor to the Tatanosaurs like Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan. Those titanosaurs are from South America, but in the Early Jurassic the continents had not yet totally broken up. Therefore the Volgatitan dinosaurs, or their ancestors.... could have migrated or spread out to other areas far from Russia.

Ammonites and Shonisaurus

In this second new drawing we see a close up of an Ammonite. It was a cephalopod that had a shell. It is related to modern nautiloids, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. The marine reptile in the background is eating an Ammonite. This marine reptile was up to 70 feet long. It was a type of Ichthyosaur called Shonisaurus. The fossils of this marine reptile were found in what is now land locked Nevada. The vertebrae were the diameter of 5 gallon buckets and about a foot deep. That is 30.5 cm. The fossils of Shonisaurus can be seen at Ichthyosaur State Park in Southern Nevada. It is out in the middle of the desert but 200+ million years ago it was ocean.

NOTE: I just added to this post. I decided to draw an Ammonite with a Shonisaurus in the background. Please stand by. All drawings are found on the All Printables page and the Paleontology page. . . reached by hitting the buttons up top. The new drawings are at the bottom of the correct list. Since I mentioned Brachiosaurus, Sauroposeidon, and Shonisaurus so I added older drawings of them. I also took a photo of some of my fossils that relate to this blog entry. The round fossil is the vertebrae of a much smaller Ichthyosaur. The other three are all fossilized Ammonites. Notice the chambers in the cut open Ammonite shell. This gave them the buoyancy to float around in the ocean.