Happy Mother's Day --drawings to color for Mom

Spinosaurus fishing with young

Hey kids, for Mother's Day print one of these pictures from the "Free Printable Downloads" button.   Then color it for your mom, and fold it in half as a Mother's Day Card.   Write a nice note on the back too.

Mothers are SOOOOO important.   We all had a mother give birth to us.  Many mothers adopted some or all of their kids and those mothers love their kids just as much as moms who gave birth.   My wife was able to adopt my daughters from my first marriage.   She has been a great blessing to them...and me.   I was a single parent for 4 years and I was not a very good mommy.  During that period of my life my sister gave me a Mother's Day card one year.   I still am so grateful for my first wife giving our daughters life and my wife now raising them.  Those girls are both adults themselves and one is a mommy herself.   

So, I will put the following drawings below to help you choose what one(s) to use for coloring for your mother....or your wife, etc.  Many of these are from former posts, so you will have to look for them in the "Free Printable Downloads" part of my blog.  Have fun!

Mary with Baby Jesus

Yes I know it is not Christmas season, but Mary was a mother.  

Parasaurolophus Swimming Lessons

Triceratops Mother and two Calves

Paint Pony and Posterity

Bunnies doing dishes. 

 Promise to do the same for your mom. 

Allosaurus Mommy

Grizzly Mother and Cub

Dolphin Mother and Calf

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

Hey, Eve WAS the first Mother of our Human Race.

Unicorn Mare defending Foal

 T. rex with Eggs

Teratophoneous and Young

T. rex baby...and Mom

Spinosaurus with a Hatching Chick

Parasaurolophus 1

Mother and Baby

Swan with Cygnet

Apatosaurus mother and young for small children

Spinosaurus with Young for Young Children

T. rex Mother

Argentinosaurus at nesting site

NOTE:  You need to click on the "Free Printable Downloads" button at the top of the blog to find these.  Most should have a title that matches the titles I put below the posted drawings for today.   You may have to scroll down a ways to get them.  I know there are more so you can look more through the Free Printable Downloads for them.    Also... this is me, now from 2020....
You can click on this link to see my Mother's Day drawings and cards for 2020:
https://gr8coloringpages.blogspot.com/

Toddler with Stuffed Animals

This is my granddaughter siting on our daybed among the stuffed animals I still have.  When I taught Science I had 350 stuffed animals.  They were from zoos, national parks, and museums mostly.   I gave most of them away but I kept about 30.   The drawing is rather simplified and stylized, but it is cute I think... Then again, my granddaughter is cute anyway.   By the way, the drawing includes a starfish, bobcat, African lion, cheetah, dog, octopus, robin, and of course a Blue Footed Booby.

Photo of Toddler with Stuffed Animals 

Toddler with Stuffed Animals drawing

Top Predators of Cretaceous N.. America (T. rex and Tylosaurus)

PICTURES COMING SHORTLY

There were two top predators of the cretaceous.  They would be T. rex, of course, but also the less known Tylosaurus.

T.rex is also called Tyrannosaurus rex.  This is the scientific name and it means Tyrant Lizard King.  The scientific name is in two parts...the first is the Genus name....it is capitalized....the second part of the scientific name is the species name and the species name should NOT be capitalized.    T. rex had an incredible sense of smell.  As well as a great set of eyes that had a view from around 20 feet (7 m) off the ground.   He/she also had the most powerful bite ever known in an animal.  A Tyrannosaurus rex bite could shatter bone.  It probably had a pack lifestyle, where younger and faster members of the pack would chase the prey species, (like duckbill dinosaurs), into a trap.  The trap would have been sprung when mommy and daddy T. rex jumped out of the woods and did a bone crushing killing bite to the prey.   T. rex did have unusually small arms, for its body size, however, those arms may have helped it stand up from a lying down position.  As small as they look to us, they were still big enough to possibly dead lift 500 lbs.  I drew this T. rex by studying the skull of a T. rex. Notice that the very front teeth are smaller.  They are for tearing meat off the bone.  The bigger teeth are the size and roushly the shape of a banana.  These bigger teeth are the bone crushing teeth.

Tyrannosaurs rex Skull.  

Tyrannosaurus rex 

Tylosaurus prorigor

Mosasaur tooth

Tylosaurus came in three differnet species. Tylosaurus prorigor is one of those species from the late Cretaceous. Paleontologist thought it had a snake-like or lizard like tail.  Now some paleontologist infer that Tylosaurus had a tail fluke, like a whale.  Some estimates put Tylosaurus at up to 55 feet long (17 m) long.   Tylosaurus was a Mosasaur.  Since the midwest was once a shallow sea, many Mosasaur teeth are found in midwest states like Nebraska and Kansas.   There is a great IMAX movie, now available on Bluray....called SEA REX.  I think that is a great name for the top ocean predator who lived at the same time as T. rex.    

Tylosaurus prorigator

Triceratops New Theories

Click on the above "Free Printable Downloads" button to see all the coloring pages you can print.
Also, to see older posts scroll down through the more recent and hit the "Older Posts" button.  

A fairly recent theory comes from John Horner.  He was the consultant on the Jurassic Park movies.  He took a look at different Triceratops and Pachycephalosaur skeletons.  He came to a unique conclusion that may apply to other dinosaur species as well.  What he discovered is that the young and growing dinosaurs did NOT look like mini-adults.  They had a unique look that did not look like their parents.   They still looked smilar, but the young do not near appear just like as their parents....in smaller form.  You can watch Jack Horner's relatively new video called Decoding Dinosaurs to learn about his new theories.

Dr. Horner says that a young Triceratops had (relatively speaking) larger bones around their frill.   The adults of reproductive age have absorbed these guard bones into their frill so that you can barely see that they are there.   The frill itself bends over the neck of a young Triceratops.  The adults, of course, have much larger horns as well.  So, as much as I like my below color drawing from a few years ago, it is probably wrong.   The calf looks too much like his or her daddy.

Triceratops Bull and Calf

Copyright 2008 Robin Andrew Lyman

The below drawings are much less detailed but probably more scientifically correct.

Mother Triceratops (cow) and 2 Calves 
(Notice the calves' frills go back over their neck and upper back.)

Triceratops Teen
 (Notice the horns do not face forward.)

Full Sized Triceratops Adult (bull)
(Notice the horns face forward.)



All Coloring Page Drawings are Copyright 2017 by Robin Andrew Lyman
Some previous posts are Copyright 2016 or earlier by Robin Andrew Lyman

American Alligator and Sarcosuchus

Most adult American alligators weight around 790 lbs  (360 kg) and they can get up to  14 ft (4.4 m) long and some really big ones can weigh over 990 lb  (450 khg).  The largest ever , found, in the state of Louisiana, was 19.2 ft (5.8 m) long.   There is also a species of Alligator in China.  The Chinese Alligator is only about 7 ft (2.2 m) long.   

American Alligator

Alligators evolved in the early days following the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.  .    .  about 66 million years ago.  They evolved from crocodiles.  Crocodiles lived with the dinosaurs.  There were even giant crocodiles that were over 40 feet long.   

Sarcosuchus was the  biggest freshwater crocodile ever, Sarcosuchus imperator, lived 110 million years ago, during the Early  Cretaceous Period.   It grew as long as 40 feet (12 meters), and weighed up to  17,500 pounds (8 metric tons).  Sarcosuchus has been found in Africa and possibly Brazil.  Sarcosuchus most certainly ate dinosaurs that were small enough to kill and eat.  It probably never touched the bigger Theropods for fear of getting hurt or eaten itself.  A Carcharodontosaurus was a predator that also lived in Africa.  It was over 40 feet (12 m) long and that is longer than a T. rex.  The name: "Carcharodontosaurus" means "shark tooth."  A full sized Carcharodontosaurus would be a bit longer than a Sarcosuchus, but i think a teen-aged Carcharodontosaurus, at 30+ feet would have had a chance.   

Sarcosucus vs a young Carcharodontosaurus

Interesting note, in the new BBC Series called Planet Earth II... they show a small crocodilian getting killed by the powerful jaws of a jaguar.  So, we can infer that a larger Theropod might have given Sarcosuchus a run for his money.

Fairies, Unicorn, and Baby Dragon

Elegant Fairy Sorceress with her pet Dragon (maybe Baby Dragon)

Magical creatures are fun to draw together.  I think a dragon could be the pet of a fairy sorceress.   Of course, I think of the sorceress as a good fairy, not a bad witch.  The dragon could be a baby dragon OR a species of mini-dragon she keeps as a pet or as a familiar.

Fairy with a Unicorn Friend

Some stories have fairies always in love with unicorns.  The fairies hold unicorns in awe.  In one series of stories I read the unicorns can change into human form...and the male unicorn is the offspring of the top fairy and her fairy husband.

Ceratosaurus and Dinosaur Tracks

Ceratosaurus

This past weekend I went to a family baptism down in Kanab Utah.   My brother in law took us up to the top of a bluff called Lamb's Point, to see early Jurassic dinosaur tracks.  It was an amazing experience, although the hike up was really quite difficult.  It took overnight for my crummy heart to calm down.  I'm fine now. ANYWAY, it was sooooo cool to see those tracks up there on the bluff, still in the wild.

Me with one of the Dinosaur Tracks

These tracks are from a 3 toed dinosaur.... almost certainly a Theropod.   Theropods are the carnivorous or meat eating dinosaurs.   The rock is called the Navajo Sandstone formation.   We saw several ripple marks on rocks.  Ripple marks are made when sand is in the bottom of a moving stream of water.   So, this indicated that the dinosaurs were walking in water and left tracks.  There are two distinct sets of tracks and the animals appeared to be of different size.   So this may have been a male and female on the prowl, waling through  a shallow creek.  By the way, in modern birds of prey (bird raptors)  the females are bigger than the males...so we can infer that the female Theropod dinosaurs were larger than the males.

Ripple Marks from a large flat boulder that fell from the top of Lamb's Point

Pair of Smaller Theropod Dino Tracks

Larger Theropod Dino Track from Lamb's Point

Dino Track with Child's Hand

Dino Track with Lanyard for Sizing

The lanyard is included in the picture to help 

determine actual size.  Based on the above picture, 

this track is 14 inches long.  

This set of tracks are from the early Jurassic Period, so we have a problem figuring out what species of dinosaur made the tracks.  Only a handful of dinosaurs have been found in the Navajo Sandstone formation.   Only ONE of these is a Theropod, and it was only about the size of a goose.  The dinosaurs that made these tracks were at least 15-20 feet long.  They match the size of a known Jurassic dinosaur called Ceratosaurus.  However, Ceratosaurus was from the Late Jurassic Period.  What these tracks tell us is that fairly large Theropods lived in North America during the Early Jurassic.  The Ceratosaurus is the closest animal in size, although Ceratosaurus lived later than these tracks by millions of years.  It is possible that this animal that made the tracks was an ancestor to Ceratosaurs, or Allosaurus, or Torvosaurus.  They were all larger Theropod dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic Period.   So, I drew the Ceratosaurus for today's blog because there is no known dinosaur to fit the bill from the correct time period...but Ceratosaurus comes as close as I can get.

Ceratosaurus was about 18 feet (5.5 m) long.  It was a predator that had horns.  Two small eyebrow horns and a larger nose horn.  Their weapon was not the horns.  It is speculated that perhaps the horns were for impressing the members of the opposite sex.  So, MAYBE they were used when males fought for the mates, but that seems unlikely.  In modern birds of prey the raptors usually mate for life.  So the males do not fight over the females.  Also, Ceratosaurs had a skull with bones that were too thin to play the head bashing game.  Ceratosaurs were replaced or out-competed by Allosaurus.
Ceratosaurs went extinct, they did NOT evolve into birds...so it is thought that Ceratosaurs did NOT have feathers like the much smaller and later Velociraptor.

Male Velociraptor.   .    . all fluffed out for displaying feathers to Females

By the way, I would say that since modern birds are often very colorful, this male Velociraptor could be colored with bright head feathers and / or bright tail feathers.   OR bright feathers everywhere.   It is up to you.  Remember that Velociraptor was only about 6 feet long and 4 feet tall.  It was still a deadly desert predator...and it did probably hunt in packs.