Stethacanthus

For some reason, stethacanthus has started to become one of my favorites for quite some time now.

2021 original:

2024 Redraw (huh, guess how i draw shark heads due to my style has changed):

No.1:it's literally just a purussaurus pixel art

No. 2: shringasaurus (it's going to have the color scheme of dp:pz's shringa but i changed my mind and did my own)

No. 3: acrocanthosaurus

No. 4: herrerasaurus and eoraptor

No. 5: CHONKY BOI (perucetus)

No. 6: udanoceratops

No. 7: guanlong

No. 8: stethacanthus

no. 9: dreadnoughtus

and yeah, i'm finally back from my break, i'm and might still continue on doing redraws more later on.

Life on earth has achived on walking on land.

But were fosusing on the vertabrates,not the arthropods who already reached land over 400 mya.

This is the devonian period 419.2-358.9 mya named after devon,england where it's rock formation from this time period were discovered...

A tiktaalik took it's first steps to land 375 mya.

This is belived to be the earliest known fish to walk on land & also the first to possess lungs to help them breath in the air.

But one of tiktaalik's relatives did opting to return to the open waters instead of venturing onto land.

This is qikiqtania wakei (illustration by alex boersma) found in the fram formation of nunavut,canada.

This large dunkleosteus was the largest predator of it's time.prehistoric armoured fish called placoderms have articulated bony armoured plates and the rest are just smooth of scaled skin. depending on what species it is

Placoderm jaws are likely evolved from the first of their gill arches. there also the earliest fish to evolved pelvic fins, the precursors to hindlimbs in tetrapods.as well as "true-teeth"

A dunkleosteus is swimming across some frightened acanthostegas who reached land to rest. when a stethacanthus hunts it down. the creature is about 1.5 meters while other stethacanthus species like S.productus is about 3 meters long being 2 times larger than S.altonensis the dorsal fins help to stablilize the holocephalian preventing it from rolling over or to scare other fish with its tooth brushes hence, he's nicknamed the anvil shark or ironing board snark

But even holocephalians like the stethacanthus are no-match for other flesh-eating fish...

(artist's illustrations of hyneria lindae)

Hyneria is about 2.3-3 meters long .

She's a freshwater predatory lode-finned fish lurking in the murky waters below. with sensory canals to aid in detection of prey.

Since 360 million years ago, the first trees evolved covered the landscape forming forest pumping oxygen into the air.

Fast forward a little few million years into 358.9 and we witnessed the late devonian extinction.

Triggering the extinction were low temperature stress and oxygen deprivation. the devonian saw oceans getting choked killing 70-80% of species that lived during that time into extinction but there still survivors,

Like our early tetrapod ancestors, bony fish and a few trilobites reaching to the next time period of the paleozoic: the carboniferous

@Nizaluddin

@Friendly Kelbeam of the Hood

@Rexyisdebest

No.1:stethacanthus/the anvil shark

No.2:the deaths

List of deaths seen in the image:

The evil pterosaur got burned by lava

Spinosaurus,nuralagus by lava

Basilosaurus is beached

Postosuchus got eaten by megalodon

Torvosaurus has a tnt before it exploded to kill the theropod

Inostrancevia saved koolasuchus as a sacirfice

Timurlengia killed turanoceratops

Not my best work but hey at least you know i made it cause i put my name on there

At about 70 centimeters long, the Stethacanthus is one of the best representations of early sharks. It lived during the late Devonian period of China, North America, Russia and Europe. A fossil called the Bearsden Shark was an exceptionally well preserved cartilage fossil. This shark remains one of the best today. If anything is recognized about this shark it is its anvil shaped figure on its head instead of the usual triangular dorsal fin. This anvil also had sharp spikes on it, possibly to reduce drag. These spikes were speculated to occur in males ONLY. This made a theory that these anvils and their accessories were to help a Stethacanthus recognize another member of its species. 2 cartilage tendrils can be located at the back of Stethacanthus but it is uknown what their purposes were. Because many teeth have been found in various locations, it is speculated that these sharks could have migrated. A day in the live of Stethacanthus shows a coastal ocean lifestyle where fish and cephalopods were a delicacy.