Share your strangest prehistoric creatures!!

[Ruger9a]

Very interesting tread.  I didn't know there were so many "freaky" looking critters in the fossil records.  Thanks all for posting photos and especially with the links to research.

[Misha]

Hi guys,

I got another one for you,

This bizarre animal mostly stands out due to one of its structures which is the boomerang-like head.

Diplocaulus was a Permian lepospondyl amphibian.

There has been disagreement over what it looked like as some think it may have had external gills, or skin flaps covering the space between the head and body.

The function of their head is also unknown but some have speculated it could have aided in swimming or to make it harder for predators to swallow the creature. 

Here is a reconstruction of what it may have looked like next to a skeleton:

[Huntonia]

53 minutes ago, Misha said:

Hi guys,

I got another one for you,

This bizarre animal mostly stands out due to one of its structures which is the boomerang-like head.

We're still waiting for them to come back 

[Spoons]

Okay... you guys have heard of ground sloths, but have you ever heard of Sea sloths?

 

Thalassocnus was a genus of semiaquatic ground sloths from the Miocene and Pliocene of the Pacific South American coast. They probably  grazed on seaweed and sea grasses in shallow coastal waters.

 

Could you guys imagine a world where Xenarthrans evolved into the ecological niche of “whale” instead of Cetaceans?

 

Skeletal mount is of a Thalassocnus natans from the Museum of Natural History in Paris. The life reconstruction is by Oliver Demuth.

[DardS8Br]

On 3/3/2020 at 4:10 AM, Misha said:

Vetulicoila were definitely not normal animals when you compare them to the things we see around today.

Oooooh, I bought one of these and it’s shipping currently! Absolutely fascinating creatures. On the topic of these guys, leanchoilia was rather strange too

[DardS8Br]

Those appendages are really strange 

[Lone Hunter]

Mine would have to be what I can only imagine, whatever is responsible for the trace fossil Paleodictyon.  What is stranger than something no one has been able to find and has never been seen?

[Ludwigia]

This remote ancestor of one of the Sesame Street characters still takes the cake for me.

 

 

 

[Crusty_Crab]

How about the homalozoans? Who would've guessed these are echinoderms?

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016699518301219?via%3Dihub

 

[Nanotyrannus35]

I think Yi Qi is pretty weird looking.

[ReptileTooth]

I always found the tanystropheus pretty bizarre. 

[jpc]

I am also a big fan of Tanystropheus in the Weirdo Dept.  The Museum at the U of Zurich has lots of nice examples on display.  

[Fissiletag]

Lotosaurus, a very strange Poposauroidea that is related to Shuvosaurus and would've ate plants. 

[Lone Hunter]

Just saw this on my Google feed for YouTube.  I will try to include link, this is worth watching I was mesmerized and watched it over and over.  It's hard to believe it's real and alive.

 

[R0b]

2 hours ago, Lone Hunter said:

Just saw this on my Google feed for YouTube.  I will try to include link, this is worth watching I was mesmerized and watched it over and over.  It's hard to believe it's real and alive.

 

Makes me wonder how that would look fossilised and as a result how we interpret how animals would have looked liked based on a fossil. Of course that is a never ending topic.

[Randyw]

If i found it as a fossilized skeleton i would think it was incomplete. That is one weird skeleton it has!

[Sjfriend]

22 hours ago, R0b said:

Makes me wonder how that would look fossilised and as a result how we interpret how animals would have looked liked based on a fossil. Of course that is a never ending topic.

I can imagine that we wouldn't even get close to what it really looked like. As you stated, makes me wonder what fossils we "think" we have an idea what they looked like in life and are way off 

[joaoarguello3]

Mimetaster is without a doubt one of the rarest fossil animals I have ever seen.

[joaoarguello3]

returning to the rare arthropods, the cambrian will always be known for containing rarities, here I leave martinssonia and cambropachycope