American Museum of Natural History, Part 20: CROCODILIANS!
The “Crocs: Ancient Predators in a Modern World” exhibit was a really great companion to the “Dinosaurs Among Us” exhibit. Not nearly as involved, it was still a really great in-depth look at the other living lineage of Archosaurs (and if the Pterosaurs exhibit had still been around, all three major groups of Archosaurs would have been present!)
There were some living specimens and they were good, sharp scalemen. Plus some fossils and a brief overview of the evolution of Crocodylomorphs (didn’t look at less derived Pseudosuchia, though).
I love Pseudosuchians, and I really need to do more with them. This exhibit definitely reminded me of that!
Natrix maura is a natricine water snake of the genus Natrix. Its common name is viperine water snakeorviperine snake. Despite its common names, it is not a member of the subfamily Viperinae. This nonvenomous, semiaquatic, fish-eating snake was given its common names due to behavioural and aesthetic similarities with sympatric adder species. (wikipedia)
“All 27 Species of Crocodilian (Inc 3 Recently Discovered)” by Textbook Travel
Chinese alligators and dwarf crocodiles are adorable. Lots of good reference for drawing different scales and boney head ridges, for designing different shaped dragon heads.
“All right, evolution, it’s time to make more turtles. Evolution? C'mon. You’d better get to it. You said you’d do the mata mata eons ago. Up and at ‘em. Okay? Evolution?”
Parasuta nigriceps (Elapidae) is an Australian snake found in New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia territories. As the species name suggests, one of the distinctive features of this snake is the black head from nose to neck with the dark coloration extending into a dark vertebral stripe. Although they are elapids, all Parasuta species are harmless, unaggressive snakes.
