Scientific Picture & Object Information

The dark-coloured bowhead whale is a filter-feeder inhabiting eutrophic Arctic and sub-Arctic waters during the entire year. The species has the largest mouth of all animals. The filter-feeder system (baleen) in the mouth is used to strain plankton like krill and other crustaceans. The whale is a slow swimmer, can dive up to 40 minutes and uses underwater sounds for communication. Weight: 75 (males) to 100 tons (females). Life span: 150 to 200 years.

The reddish Przewalski's horse (short and erect mane, eel back, short-haired upper tail part, leg stripes) is the only «wild» horse in the world today. It was last seen native in Mongolia in 1969 but, with some introgression of domestic horse blood, has been reintro­duced to Asia from captivity since the 1990s. The 2n = 66 chromosomes in Przewalski's horse and mtDNA research results may exclude it from the ancestry of domestic horse breeds (2n = 64).
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Remark: As it is not really possible for us to seriously say which scientific naming should be applied to this taxon (Equus ferus przewalskii [preferred], Equus caballus przewalskii or Equus przewalskii), we use the nomen in the original combination of the author who erected it.
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The emperor penguin weights up to 46 kg and is the tallest of the living penguin species. Its diet includes fish, krill and other crustaceans as well as cephalopods, such as squid. Aptenodytes forsteri is an underwater flyer using its forelimbs for propulsion and can remain submerged up to 18 minutes, diving to a depth of 535 m. The young are born in breeding colonies during the Antarctic winter. The average lifespan is 20, but some may reach an age of 50 years.

The grey heron is native throughout temperate Europe and Asia as well as in parts of Africa. Its plumage is grey-white, its wings are black. On the head it bears a tuft of black feathers. The grey heron feeds on fish, frogs, insects, small birds, mammals and reptiles. It is a biotope generalist that likes freshwater bodies as well as estuaries and coastal regions. Moreover, it is a hemerophile taxon that increasingly populates urban environments.

The African or common ostrich is not only a bird unable to fly, but also the largest representative of the Aves living on earth. Whilst it is now distributed in Africa, South of the Sahara, it was also native to western Asia in former times. The ostrich has always been a valuable raw material supplier (meat, leather, eggs, feathers) for humans and hence went extinct in many regions. Today the bird is often held as productive livestock (ostrich ranches) to the same end.

Archaeopteryx is widely known as the famous «Urvogel» traditionally classified as the earliest bird ever. The taxon is well documented by an isolated feather and more than ten body fossils from the Late Jurassic lithographic limestone of Bavaria (Germany). Archaeopteryx was indeed able to fly. Whether this locomotion was limited to gliding (passive flight) or comprised wing flapping (active flight) is still under debate as is its systematic position.

This is a large crocodile of sub-Saharan Africa which mostly lives in freshwater bodies and marshlands (historically distributed also in the Nile river and delta). It is an opportunistic ambush predator that can motionless wait for days under the water surface for a suitable attack. It has an extremely powerful bite and is able to hold even large prey down underwater to drown it. The not endangered Nile crocodile is every year responsible for deaths of humans.

The leatherback sea turtle is the largest living turtle and can easily be distinguished from other extant sea turtles by the lack of a bony shell. Instead oily flesh under the integument of the body causes a leathery texture of the skin. This rather deep diving reptile has the most hydrodynamic body design of any sea turtle and a pair of large, flattened forelimbs (flippers) tapering towards their ends, like wings, which are be used for underwater flight.

The patchy distribution of the sand lizard encompasses most of Europe, the Near East and adjacent areas eastwards to Mongolia. It is less ambitious with regard to its lebensraum than the closely related, larger green lizard but nevertheless needs well-structured biotopes. In many places the population of sand lizards decreases due to today's monotonous cultural landscapes, modern intensive agriculture with biocide inputs and outdoor domestic cats.

The non-venomous European grass or ringed snake is often found near water. It feeds almost exclusively on amphibians (toads and frogs). The species weights about 240 g and is a strong swimmer. The grass snake lays leathery-skinned eggs in clutches of eight to forty, preferring rotting vegetation as nest. Predators are, e.g., corvids, storks, owls, foxes and domestic cats. In the mythology of the Baltic people the grass snake is seen as a sacred animal.

A placodont well known from the Middle Triassic of the Monte San Giorgio, Switzerland. Cyamodus was heavily armored with a dorsal two-part carapace and lived as a slow swimmer in shallow marine waters hovering close to the sea floor like modern phytophagous sea cows. The powerful jaws and palatal dentition composed of large flat teeth of the placodonts were adapted to crush hard shelled food (e.g. molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms).

This is a reptilian grade tetrapod which as synapsid amniote (Theropsida) is more closely related to mammals than to «true reptiles» (Sauropsida). The genus was found in the Early Permian of the USA and Europe. Its most notable feature is the prominent sail on the back stretched by elongated spinal processes. Functional explanations for this structure are that it was used for temperature regulation and/or display during the mating season.

In the middle of the 19th century the English sculptor and natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawinks and the then superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum Richard Owen worked together to create first life-size reconstructions of prehistoric animals. They were commissioned in 1852 and unveiled around 1854 in the Crystal Palace Park were they are still visible today.

Nice table models were prepared from some of the Crystal Palace outdoor sculptures in full-length and sold worldwide in the second half of the 19th century by James Tennant, London, Arthur Éloffe, Paris, and Henry A. Ward, Rochester, USA. Today, these small historic models are very rare and can almost be found only at auctions. With our hand-painted Ichthyosaurus 3D print we thus close a gap by making one of these lovely models again available to all enthusiasts of the prehistoric world and palaeontological research history respectively.

The genus name Ichthyosaurus means «fish lizard». The ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles that emerged in the Late Triassic and died out before the dinosaurs in the higher Late Cretaceous. They were predators which fed amongst others on fish and belemnits. Their mode of life can best be compared with that of today's cetaceans such as dolphins.

The historic Ichthyosaurus model should have had a dorsel fin and a sickle-shaped tail as seen in pelagic sharks. However, those structures were unknown in the 1850s because they did not show up in the fossils available to Hawkins and Owen as they were not or only partly supported by hard tissues. Moreover, the creature was sculptured as being able to come out on to the land to lay its eggs, because at that time it was also unknown that ichthyosaurs were not capable of leaving the water but giving birth to live young.

In the archetype of the table model the ichthyosaur is grouped together with two plesiosaurs, now available as a stand-alone model in our shop.

Further readings
> Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and the Crystal Palace Prehistoric Animals
> Arthur Éloffe
> Henry A. Ward
> James Tennant
> Early Ichthyosaur Reconstructions

A piscivore pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of southern Germany. The genus Rhampho­rhynchus is the most frequent, long-tailed representative of this important clade of skilfully active flying reptiles. The long-tailed pterosaurs had a short neck and, compared to the wing-span, a small body. The vertebral tail was stiffened by rod-like ossified tendons and provided with a rhomboid membrane at the end which was used as a rudder while flying.

A European ichthyosaur well known from the Early Jurassic «Posidonienschiefer» (Lias Epsilon, Lower Toarcian) of Germany. The species is famous for its numerous articulated skeletons of pregnant females, each unearthed together with one to more than 10 embryos. From individuals with preserved body shapes («Hautschatten») we know that Stenopterygius had a dolphin-like body outline with dorsal fin and sickle-shaped propulsive tail fin.

A terrestrial predator from the Besano Formation (= Grenzbitumenzone, Middle Triassic) of Monte San Giorgio, Switzerland, that is amongst others characterized by a vertical ankle joint (LAUTEN­SCHLAGER & DESOJO 2011, NESBITT 2011).

With the description of the vertical ankle joint (= crocodiloid tarsus) in Ticinosuchus and Crocodylia by KREBS (1963, 1965, 1973, 1976) it was for the first time possible to establish a sister group relationship within the «Thecodontia» OWEN, 1859 («animals with rooted teeth»), the now obsolete former waste basket for early archosaurs. The discovery of the vertical ankle joint was the basis for the modern classification of the Archosauria («ruling reptiles»), namely the dichotomous subdivision of its crown-groups into Crurotarsi (= Crocodilotarsi) with a vertical ankle joint and Ornithodira (pterosaurs, dinosaurs and their relatives) with an advanced mesotarsal ankle joint.

• KREBS, B. (1963): Bau und Funktion des Tarsus eines Pseudosuchiers aus der Trias des Monte San Giorgio (Kanton Tessin, Schweiz). – Paläontologische Zeitschrift 37 (1/2): 88-95.
• KREBS, B. (1965): Ticinosuchus ferox nov. gen. nov. sp. Ein neuer Pseudosuchier aus der Trias des Monte San Giorgio. – Schweizerische paläontologische Abhandlungen 81: 1-140.
• KREBS, B. (1973): Der Tarsus von Rauisuchus (Pseudosuchia, Mittel-Trias). – Mitteilungen der bayerischen Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie 13: 95-101.
• KREBS, B. (1976): Pseudosuchia. – In: O. KUHN (ed), Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie 13: 40-98.
• LAUTENSCHLAGER, S. & DESOJO, J.B. (2011): Reassessment of the Middle Triassic rauisuchian archosaurs Ticinosuchus ferox and Stagonosuchus nyassicus. – Paläontologische Zeitschrift 85 (4): 357-381.
• NESBITT, S. (2011): The early evolution of archosaurs: relationships and the origin of major clades. – Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 352: 1-292.

In the middle of the 19th century the English sculptor and natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawinks and the then superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum Richard Owen worked together to create first life-size reconstructions of prehistoric animals. They were commissioned in 1852 and unveiled around 1854 in the Crystal Palace Park were they are still visible today.

Nice table models were prepared from some of the Crystal Palace outdoor sculptures in full-length and sold worldwide in the second half of the 19th century by James Tennant, London, Arthur Éloffe, Paris, and Henry A. Ward, Rochester, USA. Today, these small historic models are very rare and can almost be found only at auctions. With our hand-painted Iguanodon respectively Mantellisaurus 3D print we thus close a gap by making one of these lovely models again available to all enthusiasts of the prehistoric world and palaeontological research history respectively.

The genus name Iguanodon means «iguana tooth» in reference to the fact that the morphology of its teeth resembles the one of the green iguana. Iguanodon was an Early Cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur that fed on plants and probably used its spike-like thumbs and powerful tail as defensive weapons against carnivorous dinosaurs. Even though ornithopods were generally biped, Iguanodon stood and usually walked on all fours.

At this point it has to be mentioned that the Crystal Palace Iguanodon and hence also Hawkins' archetype of our historic model may be based on the Maidstone specimen from Kent, South England, also known as Gideon Mantell's «mantel-piece», which is now referred to Mantellisaurus PAUL, 2007 or rather to Mantellodon PAUL, 2012. Therefore, one of these new genus names may become the new proper scientific name for the Maidstone specimen and hence also for the Crystal Palace Iguanodon, Hawkins' miniature archetype and our historic model. Currently, we follow NORMAN (2013) and prefer the use of the genus name Mantellisaurus to solve this nomenclatorical problem.

The historic Iguanodon respectively Mantellisaurus model has a massive body resembling the one of a heavily built ungulate and carries its thumb as a rhinoceros-like horn on the top of its snout. These errors in the prehistoric animal reconstruction discussed here identifies it as a clear representation of the state of palaeontological knowledge in the 1850s.

Further readings
> Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and the Crystal Palace Prehistoric Animals
> Arthur Éloffe
> Henry A. Ward
> James Tennant
> Early Iguanodon Life Reconstructions

• NORMAN, D.B. (2013): On the taxonomy and diversity of Wealden iguanodontian dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Ornithopoda). Revue de Paléobiologie 32 (2): 385-404.
• PAUL, G.S. (2007): Turning the old into new: a separate genus for the gracile iguanodont from the Wealden of England. - In: K. CARPENTER (ed), Horns and Beaks, Indiana University Press: 69-77.
• PAUL, G. S. (2012): Notes on the rising diversity of iguanodont taxa, and iguanodonts named after Darwin, Huxley, and evolutionary science. - In: P.H. HURTADO et al. (eds), Actas de V Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontologia de Dinosaurios y su Entorno. Colectivo Arqueologico y Paleontologico de Salas, C.A.S., Salas de Los Infantes, Burgos 5: 123-133.

A moderately large, swift-footed early carnivorous dinosaur excavated from the Late Triassic marls of the clay pit Gruhalde in the village of Frick, Canton Aargau, Switzerland. The firt two-thirds of the latin genus name Notatesserae... [«nota», feature; «tesserae», tiles used to make a mosaic] refers to the fact that the specimen is showing a mixture of traits of dilophosaurids and coelophysoids (ZAHNER & BRINKMANN 2019).

Frick, also known as the «Dinosaur Eldorado» of Switzerland, is by far the most productive dinosaur locality of this central European country.

• ZAHNER, M. & BRINKMANN, W. (2019): A Triassic averostran-line theropod from Switzerland and the early evolution of dinosaurs. – Nature Ecology & Evolution 3: 1146-1152.

Plateosaurus was a medium large herbivorous to omnivorous dinosaur found in different fossil sites of the Late Triassic of Europe. Recently, it was shown that this reptile was not able to pronate its hands completely (pronation = inward rotation) and, therefore, could not move on its front legs. Thus this dinosaur was cleary biped and walked exclusively on its hind legs. The hands of the short but muscular front legs bore large claws on three fingers, used for defence and feeding.

The stegosaurs were large, herbivorous, quadruped dinosaurs. They were heavily built, with rounded backs, short forelimbs and long hindlimbs. Due to the low carried head, their nutriment mainly consisted of low-growing vegetation. Neck, back and most of the tail of Stegosaurus were protected by leaf-like, bony plates. The end of the tail was armed with bony spikes up to 30 cm in length. The plates might have been used to attract mates and for heat regulation.

Triceratops was a quadruped dinosaur characterized by a large, massive skull with horns and a conspicuous neck frill. Frill and horns were certainly used as defensive weapons against predators. Further more, they may have provided behavioural signals for rivals and to attract mates, much like the antlers and horns of today’s reindeer and rhinoceros beetles. The frill has already been discussed as attachment area for jaw muscles.

A very large carnivorous dinosaur found in the Late Cretaceous of western North America (USA, Canada). Recently, the taxon has usually been interpreted as both an apex predator and scavenger that preyed on other dinosaurs, especially herbivorous ones. The extremely reduced forelimbs with only two digits are notable, corresponding to the thumb and index finger of humans. The oldest known Tyrannosaurus specimen («Sue») reached an age of 28.

In the middle of the 19th century the English sculptor and natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawinks and the then superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum Richard Owen worked together to create first life-size reconstructions of prehistoric animals. They were commissioned in 1852 and unveiled around 1854 in the Crystal Palace Park were they are still visible today.

Nice table models were prepared from some of the Crystal Palace outdoor sculptures in full-length and sold worldwide in the second half of the 19th century by James Tennant, London, Arthur Éloffe, Paris, and Henry A. Ward, Rochester, USA. Today, these small historic models are very rare and can almost be found only at auctions. With our hand-painted Mastodonsaurus 3D print we thus close a gap by making one of these lovely models again available to all enthusiasts of the prehistoric world and palaeontological research history respectively.

The genus name Mastodonsaurus means «breast tooth lizard» after a tooth which is broken at its tip. Mastodonsaurus was an aquatic amphibian known from Middle and Late Triassic sediments. It was a top predator that fed on fish and other amphibians.

In the historic model Mastodonsaurus is reconstructed as an amphibian with a common batrachian habitus. It was assumed that such monstrous creatures similar to frogs but with vast mouths and dentitions resembling those of lizards and crocodiles once roamed the earth. Moreover, Mastodonsaurus was thought to produce hand-like footprints found in Triassic sandstones (first observed in Saxony, Germany) and described as Chirotherium (meaning «hand beast»), but more recent research found that the tracks belong to pseudosuchian reptiles like, e.g., Ticinosuchus.

Further readings
> Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and the Crystal Palace Prehistoric Animals
> Arthur Éloffe
> Henry A. Ward
> James Tennant
> Early Mastodonsaurus Life Reconstructions

The great white shark is one of the largest living shark species (average length of about four metres). With its spindle-shaped body, dorso-ventrally elongated caudal fin (high aspect ratio) and sickle-shaped dorsal fin the great white shark is well adapted to a thunniform swimming style, i.e. the tail fin serves as the main propulsion, while the body carries out almost no oscillations. This allows both slow endurance swimming with high energy efficiency and very fast swimming over short distances.

One (Comorian coelacanth, dark blue, discovered in 1938) of two endemic species (the second one is the Indonesian coelacanth, brown, described in 1999) of extant actinistian lobe-finned fishes found in depths of 150 to 700 m. Latimeria moves slowly by drifting or swimming and gives birth to live young. The degenerated lung / swim bladder is filled with fat. The Comorian coelacanth stays in caves during daylight and is caught outside at night.

The European or river perch (Lake Constance: Kretzer, Switzerland: Egli) is a predatory fish native to most parts of Europe and northern Asia. The taxon was widely introduced to other continental areas where it can cause substantial damage to local fish populations. Typical features are the two dorsal fins (anterior spinous dorsalis with stiff lepidotrichia, posterior soft dorsalis) as well as the yellow to red pelvic, anal and caudal fins.

The thornback ray is frequent and probably one of the most common rays encountered by divers. It is found along the European coast and the Atlantic coast of Africa as well as the Mediterranean Sea coast of North Africa where it lives on sedimentary seabeds at depths between 10 to 60 metres. Like all rays, the thornback ray has a flattened body with broad, wing-like pectoral fins. Its back is covered with numerous thorny spines, as is the underside in older females.

The genus Dapedium encompasses laterally compressed, high-backed fishes with deeply fusiform to nearly circular bodies. The species Dapedium stollorum was described from the Lower Toarcian Posidonia Shale (Upper Liassic, Early Jurassic) of the Holzmaden area, southern Germany. The styliform, unicuspid teeth of Dapedium stollorum may indicate that this taxon fed on carrion as well as captured live prey like mollusks or other invertebrates.

A shark from the Posidonia Shale (type locality: Holzmaden, southern Germany; age: Lower Toarcian, Upper Liassic, Early Jurassic) that lived as an opportunistic predator in shallow seas. Characteristic representatives of the genus have heterodont dentitions with multicuspid teeth. The body has two dorsal fins with large spines, a dorsoventrally small heterocerc tail fin with a long upper lobe and, in males, cephalic or head spines behind the eyes.

This is a large ammonite and an index fossil of the Lower Sinemurian (Lower Liassic, Early Jurassic). Ammonitids («Neoammonoidea») were cephalopods with an external shell («Ectocochlea») mainly known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. The shell consists of the body chamber for the living animal and the phragmocone which is divided by septa into camerae that are linked by a siphuncle for buoyancy regulation by means of gas exchange.

This is a monomorph genus of the Ammonoidea. Its species are index fossils of the Anisian and Ladinian ages (Middle Triassic). The ceratitids or «Mesoammonoidea» were Late Permian and Triassic cephalopods with an external shell («Ectocochlea») subdivided into a body chamber and phragmocone with camerae linked by a siphuncle for gas controlled buoyancy regulation. They lived as carnivores in the seas of what is now Europe, Asia, and North America.

This very large, heteromorph genus of the Ammonoidea is known from Early Cretaceous marine sediments of at least Europe and Africa. The shape of its ribbed and spiny shell corresponds to a stretched open spiral with an initial subquadrate whorl section. All heteromorph ammonites had uncoiled external shells («Ectocochlea»). It is uncertain why such cephalopods evolved that frequently were poor swimmers. «Heteromorphic» means occurring in various forms at different stages of the life cycle.

Crown (cup and arms with pinnulae) of a marine animal called sea lily. Encrinus liliiformis was attached to a substrate via a stalk and root, and lived stationary during its whole life. The species is the dominant rock-forming crinoid of the Trochitenkalk Formation (Upper Muschelkalk, Middle Triassic) of the Germanic Basin and known for a long time. It was already described in 1546 by the famous Renaissance scientist Georgius Agricola (1494 to 1555).

Perlboots are found in warm regions of the Pacific and Indian Oceans primarily near reefs where they slowly dive up and down in a day-night rhythm. They are the only cephalopods with an external shell (Ectocochlea) which still exist today. The shell consists of the body chamber for the animal and the phragmocone which is divided into camerae by septa. The camerae are linked by a siphuncle for buoyancy regulation by means of gas exchange.

The beautiful Old World swallowtail occurs in Europe, Asia and North America. It frequents alpine and mountainous meadows and hillsides as well as gardens at lower elevations. The relatively large butterfly is sulphur-yellow with black markings. The hind wings have a pair of protruding tails and red eye spots. Papilio machaon mostly feeds on flowering plants of the Umbelliferae. Its flight is fast and it is legally protected in some countries.

The common cuttlefish is one of the largest and best-known cuttlefish species. It is native to at least the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, and Baltic Sea where it lives on seabeds. It spends the summer and spring inshore for spawning and then moves to depths of 100 to 200 meters during autumn and winter. Several defensive mechanisms help to protect it against its numerous predators: a funnel to shoot water out for a quick escape, ink to confuse enemies and camouflage abilities.