Bowmouth Guitarfish

Bowmouth Guitarfish

The Bowmouth Guitarfish is a beautiful ray.  It LOOKS like a cross between a shark and a ray  but it is a ray that looks a lot like a shark.  I photographed one from the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Utah.  It is in the big tank with sharks and sea turtles.  I included a Unicornfish in the drawing because there are Unicornfish in the tank as well.  The drawing includes sea worms and an electric eel.

Both sharks and rays are called cartilage  fish or cartilaginous fish because instead of hard bones they have bones made up of cartilage.  This class of fish have hard teeth so they are found often.  The class is called Class:  Condrichthyes.  The Bowmouth Guitarfish has very unique teeth it uses for crushing shells of shellfish.  It also eats small fish.

Jaw from a Bowmouth Guitarfish
Notice the amazing patter of the teeth.

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Sea Turtle at Loveland Living Planet Aquarium 

The little boy is my grandson.  

Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus Herd Migration

(new drawing)

Apatosaurus is one of the first large Sauropod dinosaurs ever to be found in modern times.  This dinosaur was up to 80 feet or 24 meters long.  It weighed up to 32-72 long tons.   These weights are estimated so no precise measurement is known.   

It is thought that large Sauropods probably laid a large clutch of eggs about the size of a volleyball.  The young would probably been left to fend for themselves after hatching. . . but when they were as big as say a modern elephant they would join the herd and have the protection of the enormous adults.   Tracks in Texas, USA were found that indicated that possibly the sub-adults or young were kept in the middle of the herd when traveling or migrating.  This would give them maximum protection from predators.  So as you look at the above drawing consider that the "babies" are as big as a full grown elephant.  

 No predator. . . like Allosaurus or Torvosaurus.... would have a chance against a healthy herd with huge adult Apatosaurus.  The tail is thought to have been weaponized.  It could almost certainly be used as a formidable weapon to fight off predators

A funny thing happened.  At the American Museum of Natural History in NYC... for 80 years they had the wrong head on their Apatosaurus.  By the way, the name was changed to Apatosaurus from the name Brontosaurus.

They fixed the problem and this skeleton now has the correct head.  

We went to this amazing museum recently.  What a thrill to see this 

and other original first finds from over 100 years ago.  

The following are drawings from older posts:

Apatosaurus cracking the Whip

Apatosaurus D. Train

This drawing is inspired by the Apatosaurus from the great PBS series Dinosaur Train. 

Apatosaurus feeding on Cycad

Apatosaurus Mother and Young for Small Children

Apa

Trooping Fairy

Trooping Fairy

Trooping Fairies are fairies that travel and live in groups.  They are generally or maybe usually good and some are involved in keeping the Earth's plants healthy and so their work is very important.  Some trooping fairies are natural enemies of the Leprechauns.  

Here we see a trooping fairy near some marigold flowers.  Not all trooping fairies are this small.  They can be any of several different sizes.  This trooping fairy is uncharacteristically alone for a short time.  He is royalty among the fairies.  He is perhaps overseeing the care of a garden.  

Anniversary Today. . . Temple Anniversary

Honeymoon at Daniel Summit

Today is the 24th anniversary of my wife and I being sealed in the Provo Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  We had been married 3 months earlier but we were not, at that time, able to be sealed in the Temple because we were waiting for paperwork from Salt Lake City.  . Because of this problem we were allowed to be sealed only 3 months after our wedding.   We believe that those who are married and sealed to their spouse for time and all eternity will be married in the next life.  We believe that if we keep our covenants with God and with each other we will dwell together in Heavenly Father's Celestial Kingdom along with our Savior Jesus Christ and with as many of our posterity that also make and keep those sacred covenants.   The covenants include baptism, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, Temple Endowment, and Temple Marriage or Sealing.   I can tell you that being sealed feels DIFFERENT from being married only for time.  

Jesus is Baptized

Jesus was baptized and we need to be baptized as well.  

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Temple with Family

Families are sealed for Time and All Eternity in God's Temples

Together in the Celestial Kingdom

One day my wife and I hope to be together forever in Heavenly Father's Celestial Kingdom.

Jesus Loved Children

Jesus talks to Two Children

Jesus said that we must become as a little child to enter the Kingdom of God.  This drawing is not from a Bible story.  I just imagine that Jesus would greet children if he saw them.   He would take time with them.   I also believe that Jesus would greet children, even if they were not the cnutest.  In fact, I felt like the drawings of the faces of the two children looked like the kids were not very cute. . . but I deliberately did NOT redraw their faces because Jesus loves everyone. . . even those of us born with imperfect bodies or those who may not be beautiful by the world's shallow standards. 

Velociraptorother, Oviraptor, & other feathered Dinosaurs

Velociraptor Hunting Lessons

(This was drawn this week for the daughter of a motel clerk in Kansas.
 So this is a new drawing.)

Velociraptor and Oviraptor almost certainly had feathers.  In fact, the dreaded Velociraptor looked more like a roadrunner than a lizard.  Paleontologists in China have found several small dinosaurs. . . RAPTOR dinosaurs with feather impressions or fossilized feathers.  They now infer that the very well known desert dwelling Velociraptor had feathers.  Mongolia, where Velociraptor was found is not far from China.  By the way, Oviraptor was also found in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.  Oviraptor was misnamed.  The paleontologists thought it died stealing eggs.  So they named it Oviraptor which means egg strealer.   But when the eggs were X-rayed they discovered that the eggs contained Oviraptors.

You may be surprised to learn that one of the Paleontologists at the University of Utah thinks that one day we will find a feathered T. rex.   In fact, one of the larger fetathered dinosaurs they found in China was Yutyrannus hauli,  a 30 foot or 11 meter long tyrannosaur.   Some paleontologists think that young T. rex or T. rex chicks had feathers that they gradually lost as they matured.

 Some of the feathered dinosaurs they have found are flyers.  They are NOT Pterosaurs.  They are feathered and flying dinosaurs.  When I was a kid I thought Pterosaurs evolved into birds.  I did not have a great understanding of evolution, but I DID understand that some early forms of life evolved into our modern animals.  I now know that feathered dinosaurs are what evolved into our modern birds.  Some biologists call birds "avian dinosaurs."  Pterosaurs actually died off with the non-avian dinosaurs.   A European feathered and flying dinosaur is perhaps the first bird.  It is called Archaeopteryx.  Archaeopteryx actually still had teeth instead of a beak, but some of the feathered dinosaurs had beaks.  It is also thought that some Theropod dinosaurs may have at least had protofeathers.  Birds are therefore Theropod dinosaurs.

Another evolution knowledge mistake I made as a kid was thinking that ducks, geese, and swans evolved from duckbilled dinosaurs.  That is not true.  Ducks evolved from the feathered dinosaurs just like eagled did. .. . . but of course ducks evolved that duck bill on their own.  The fact that the modern water fowl have duck bills and some dinos did to is an example of convergent evolution.  The evolution of a common trait in animals that are not related at all.

Oviraptor at Nest
(This is also a new drawing.  New printable versions of the
drawings are at the bottom of the correct list.
The lists are found by clicking on the buttons up top.)

Velociraptor in the Gobi Desert

Yutyrannus 

Feathered T. rex

Microraptor flying through the Forest

Archaeopteryx Pair in the Forest

Protoopteryx in Ginkgo Tree

Half Feathered T. rex and Qetzalcoatalus

Jurassic Forest

Rainbow Dinosaur Caihong juju cartoon

Lythronax the Gore King
(Notice the protofeathers)

(The below drawings from previous posts are  modern avian dinosaurs.)

Bald Eagle flying over Southeast Alaska

Quack Quack

Swan Realistic

dinosaurs.   

Flower Fairies

Lolo the Flower Fairy

Lolo is one of the Flower Fairies.  She travels through the meadows and helps with the pollination of flowers.  Of course she is helping the hummingbirds and insects do this.  But when she brings the pollen from flower to flower she has a gift for the seeds that grow from those flowers to have plants with flowers with the most brilliant petals.

NOTE:  The new drawings like this first drawing are found at the bottom of the lists.  The lists are found by clicking on the buttons up top.  These drawings are found under "All Printables" and "Fantasy Myths and Circus".  The following drawings are fairy drawings done previously.  Some are certainly Flower Fairies and others are possibly Flower Fairies. 

Flower Fairy bestowing her Gifts

Flower Fairy restoring Her Wand  to the Tree

Fairy of Flowers

Fairy flying with Robin

Fairy sitting under a Tree

Fairy  with Wasp and Flowers