570 vanished lives

428Mesozoic

An abdominal light organ pushes beetle bioluminescence into the dinosaur age.

434Mesozoic

A coiled shell nearly two meters wide belonged to the largest known ammonite.

435Mesozoic

Rare soft tissues restore the ink sac, fins and ten hooked arms around an internal shell.

439Mesozoic

A needle-like snout and slender body converged on modern barracudas.

440Mesozoic

Dorsal fin spines and two tooth shapes handled fish and hard-shelled prey.

442Mesozoic

A giant bony fish filtered plankton near the ocean surface.

444Mesozoic

Closed otic notches and a broad flat skull marked a giant aquatic ambush predator.

445Mesozoic

A broad half-meter skull carried grooves that sensed water movement.

447Mesozoic

A short square snout, leaf-shaped teeth and armor belonged to a likely plant-eating crocodyliform.

448Mesozoic

A row of exaggerated dorsal appendages has been called scales, feathers or gliding surfaces.

449Mesozoic

Its main flight membrane stretched between extraordinarily long hind legs.

450Mesozoic

A complete shell coexisted with neck spikes and an inability to retract the head.

453Mesozoic

A deep snout with facial ridges marked an early northern tyrannosaurid.

454Mesozoic

A relatively complete skeleton makes this giant titanosaur unusually measurable.

455Mesozoic

Paired neck spines curved forward and may have carried keratin or soft tissue.

456Mesozoic

Scales, simple filaments and branching feather-like structures covered one small herbivore.

457Mesozoic

Incisor, tusk-like and cheek teeth formed an unusual dinosaur dentition.

458Mesozoic

It hunted through polar night, though its supposedly dwarf size remains uncertain.

494Mesozoic

At least seventeen cervical vertebrae produced an unusually long neck for a stegosaur.

495Mesozoic

A long snout, conical teeth and low crest belonged to a spinosaurid that frequently ate fish.

504Mesozoic

Leaves of different lengths on one shoot record an early stage of modern conifer architecture.

505Mesozoic

Entire strap-shaped leaves with dense side veins define a form genus rather than one secure lineage.

525Mesozoic

An extremely narrow snout gave this temnospondyl a gharial-like profile on an amphibian skeleton.

528Mesozoic

A narrow sensory-grooved snout suited an open-water temnospondyl.