I popped over to the Idaho Museum of Natural History yesterday and did a quick marker sketch. I told you I have a weird obsession with skulls. I wanted to try something a little different from my usual life reconstructions and just kinda meditate on how beautiful bones are. And I don't mean that in a macabre way; living things are such incredible constructions where every part is perfectly tuned to support an organism's role in its ecosystem. I just can't help but appreciate such marvelous engineering.
This is Stegoceras, an adorable little basal pachycephalosaur from the early Late Cretaceous. I didn't realize before now that pachys have a lot of interesting textures on their skull, including lots of rugosity around the snout and front of the cranium with a comparatively smooth dome. They must have looked magnificent in life.
(Also, there are two completely different types of dinosaur named Stegoceras and Stegosaurus, and I need to have a stern chat with whoever's responsible for that.)*
*That's not currently possible considering Stegoceras was described in 1902, and Stegosaurus in 1877. Maybe in the next life.
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