Robin's Great Coloring Pages: Suchomimus and Ornithocheirus coloring pages

Welcome to my free coloring pages blog.

Today's new drawing is of a Suchomimus and an Ornithocheirus.

NOTE: I am still working on getting some of the previous posts to work on the printable pages that you find by clicking on the category buttons at the top of this main blog page.

Suchomimus and Ornithochirus

(today's new drawing)

Suchomimus was a big Theropod dinosaur of the Cretaceous Period. It was valve around the 111 and 125 million years ago. It grew to at least 36 feet or about 11 meters long. But it may have grown larger because the biggest fossil of Suchomimus that has been found, the 36 feet long one, was apparently not a full-grown adult.

Suchomimus was a type of Spinosaur. But it's "sail" was much smaller than that of Spinosaurus. It was also much smaller than the 55 foot long Spinosaurus. It had weaker jaws than some predatory dinosaurs because it evolved to eat fish. Spinosaurs had a huge claw that they used to fillet the fish they caught. The bumps on the nose are sensors for detecting movement in the water. Crocodilians have these as well. These sensors would have allowed Spinosaurs, like Suchomimus, to detect and catch fish even in murky river water. Spinosaurs appeared to have lived in river flood plains. The weird shaped mouth on the drawing is not a mistake. That weird-shaped mouth with protruding teeth was for catching and holding onto fish.

Ornithocheirus was a very large Pterosaur that also lived in many parts of Africa, Europe, South America, and it probably lived in Asia and North America too. In fact, it is thought that Ornithocheirus could and did migrate large distances and even cross oceans. It had a wingspan of 40 feet or 12.2 meters. That made it one of the very biggest types of Pterosaurs or flying reptiles. Remember that Pterosaurs are NOT flying dinosaurs. There WERE some flying dinosaurs, but they were much smaller and they had wings. The flying dinosaurs were the first birds. The Pterosaurs died or went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, along with all the big dinosaurs. So Pterosaurs did NOT evolve into birds. Pterosaurs are what is called an evolutionary dead end.

NOTE: This drawing, along with the below drawings, can be found, in printable form, by clicking on the button labeled "Paleontology." But remember to scroll down to the bottom of the list for this top drawing because NEW drawings are on the bottom of the list. Below are some other drawings that include Suchomimus and/or Ornithocheirus. I also am including a photo from an awesome museum we have here in Utah. It is a photo of the skull and arm of a Suchomimus. Actually, it is a photo of the fossilized bones of the skull and arm. Look at the size of the claws in the photo!