User:Orthogonal Orthocone

I generally write articles on paeleontology, particularly reptiles, fish and eurypterids (although it`s quite varied really). I edit stub articles to try and increase their length and to share the interest of paeleontology I have always felt. My name comes from orthocones, a prehistoric cephalopod, and 'orthogonal', meaning 'at right angles to' because whenever I`m talking I tend to go off on a tangent (although I manage to avoid it in my articles!) and because it sounds cool.

There is a suggestions box on my Talk Page if anybody wants me to work on something. I can`t promise to do it, but I`ll have a go if I can.

Contributions

(In chronological order)

Metaspriggina - I enjoyed working on this and writing a bit about the origins of the vertebrate jaw. This was one of my smaller contributions, because much of it had been done already.

Ovatiovermis- this was fun to write, and I did a lot more work as I was getting the hang of it now. Finding a good site on it was easier than I had worried it would be.

Pristiosomus - this was a lot more difficult. I couldn`t find much information on it at all.

Acanthomeridion- a bit of fun, but again I couldn`t find very much so my contribution was quite small

Orcanopterus- this was a lot of fun to write, because I found the scientific paper on it without much trouble and just kept working on it for about 90 minutes. Rewarding as well, as the stub tag was removed shortly afterwards, which was a great feeling.

Zhongjianichthys - again, couldn`t find much on it but I did the best with what I had and it made it look a lot bigger.

Burgessochaeta - reasonable amount done, but not one of the ones I`m most proud of. Not really interesting to write, which was a bit disappointing.

Nycteroleter - I`ve always been pretty interested in parareptiles and all the other strange reptilian creatures of the Permian, so it was nice to do an article on one. Very interested when I found out about its link to pareiasaurs, so I went and edited the page on the whole family straight away.

Nycteroleteridae- I didn`t really do that much to this page, but I cleared up a few things and put in some links to the pareiasaurs, which was pleasing.

Tritonychus - my biggest contribution yet, at 5,172 bytes. Really proud of this one, as it`s a very good article (compared to some of the things I`ve done). Great fun to write, enjoyed every minute of it. Interesting to learn about something I don`t know so much about already, as well, but I`ve always had a soft spot for velvet worms and their relatives. They had a raw deal for a long period when they were classiified as 'primitive arthropods' and ignored in favour of a lot of crayfish! (not eurypterids. Eurypterids are still free from all guilt).

Rhipaeosaurus- I just couldn`t leave the Nycteroleteridae alone! They are a really interesting example of a grade of species detailing the evolution of the pareiasaur group, and a tribute to fossils and what we can learn from them. I couldn`t find much information, but the site I did find was pretty good, and I`ll probably be going back there if i need to.

Gulosaurus and Grippia - I started off working on Gulosaurus but couldn`t find the full article on T&F without paying (not something I was going to do!). As it said 'mostly similar to Grippia apart from these features' I gave a few bits of information from the Grippia page and then wrote in the extra. When looking at Grippia I noticed some spelling, grammar etc. errors and so I cleaned these up. (and also the taxobox, where Ichthyopterygia weren`t marked as extinct.)

Cleopatrodon - there was lots of information relative to the number of fossils we have! We only know about its teeth, so this was difficult to do lots on, but very interesting all the same. Quite fun to write, because it was easy to find what we know about them, but it`s just that there isn`t much. Sometimes things have to stay stubs for a while longer.

Dasygnathoides - this was great fun! I found the full scientific study on how it isn`t what it has been classified as, and just typed the best part of it out, changing where necessary. Really interesting topic. Site I found it on was researchgate.net, which is free and I would heartily recommend. I think I broke my record bytes added here, again, with 5,529 bytes.

Phantomosaurus - this took ages because loads of it was really hard to understand at first, but once I got going I enjoyed myself hugely. It took about three hours. I may have written too much (over 11,000 bytes added, smashing previous records and probably creating one I`m not going to break soon). Again, I used researchgate to find the full study for free, and it`s worth a look - they have pictures. I have tried to describe it quite well, but the original is better - Wikipedia is just easier to find.

Brachysuchus and Smilosuchus - these were quite difficult to find much on. I suspect I could have done better if I`d put more into it, but it was hard work finding sources that agreed with each other. On the other hand, they were both very interesting, and I am keen on phytosaurs.

Nannopterygius - couldn`t really find much on this, as there haven`t been any studies since about 1922. But I did manage to write a section on its features and probable lifestyle. I like ichthyosaurs - they just sort of appeal to me.

Anthracodromeus- this was quite interesting, although I haven`t heard of protorothyrids before. I will have to look into them. I haven`t done anything from the Carboniferous previously, so it`s good to add something here. I also found a website called 'Reptile Evolution' that has diagrams of all sorts of skeletons, which is a neat shortcut if you can`t find a proper description and know a bit about bones.

Leninia - While I try to keep politics and palaeontology separate, sometimes they collide in unexpected ways. This ichthyosaur has a lot on its bony scapulae (which we still haven`t found). Really interesting, and one of the easier scientific descriptions to interpret, making this a fun edit to do. Ichthyosaurs are good.

Toretocnemus - couldn`t find the original description, but I did find an interesting article about it being discovered in Mexico and causing all sorts of trouble because it was in unexpected rocks. Ah well. What`s wrong with another ichthyosaur?

Rhiodenticulatus - this was irritating, because I couldn`t find a good picture or full description of the species anywhere except a very short one on Palaeos. i managed to find the size eventually from an obscure article where it was mentioned about twice, and even then it was on a log scale so I had to work it out from that!

Jeholopterus - this was very interesting. It`s not often I find such a controversy. The article said that the vampire hypothesis had been 'proven incorrect' but the linked website said that the results were disputed and could not be agreed upon due to insufficient evidence either way, and that the author was not comfortable accepting the hypothesis yet, not that it was definitely incorrect. The hypothesis would only have been proven incorrect if it was shown that Jeholopterus could not possibly have been a vampire. Sorry for the rant, but this kind of thing irritates me a bit. And then somebody took it off the page anyway. How irritating!

Fodonyx - I enjoyed writing an article about a rhynchosaur for a change, as I haven`t done anything on them before. Funny-looking creatures. Easy to find the article, not very easy to make it short!

Ignotosaurus - this was quite interesting, and the closest I`ve got to writing about dinosaurs (a close relative). Shame we haven`t found many fossil remains, but it would be really silly to call it 'unknown lizard' and then find three hundred complete skeletons! I wish we had a skull. I`m better at writing about skulls.

Whitakersaurus - we don`t really have much of this, only a few bits of jaw and teeth, but it was quite interesting nonetheless. Must have been a funny little thing.

Purussaurus - I realised that crocodilians had been sadly underrepresented on my CV here and got to work immediately. Well, not really. I just found the article by accident and thought 'I`d like to learn more about this' and so I wrote some more in and learnt at the same time. It seemed silly not to.

Paludidraco - this was interesting. Really interesting. And also less than a month old (the article at the time of my editing it). Not much in the way of scientific description like I am used to, but a good long interesting read about the proposed lifestyle. They didn`t consider one possibility, though, which I mentioned, which was that it filtered not as a suspension feeder but like grey whales do for amphipods, by taking a mouthful of silt or sand and letting the sediment, but not the things living in it, escape. This would explain a lot of the features - it could filter but not take large mouthfuls of water, it could walk along the seabed easily, the head was very light compared to the rest of it (to be shaken easily so the sediment falls out from between the teeth).

Silvestrisaurus and Lariosaurus - I thought I couldn`t find anything on Silvestrisaurus at first so I went and edited Lariosaurus for a bit, then realised that the source I was using said a lot about Silvestrisaurus as well. For one thing, it said it was Lariosaurus! This was actually quite funny, but combined with the bit already written I think I did a good job here.

Glyphoderma - This was good fun to write, as there was a nice easy description - in English as well, which I was slightly worried about as the title page is almost all in Chinese! I also enjoyed learning a little more about placodonts, as I have been interested in them ever since I used Cyamodus's shell as the basis for an art project. (Which looks excellent, by the way.)

Polonosuchus - rauisuchians are a bit like crocodiles, except usually a bit bigger and they can chase after you much faster. What`s not to love? Quite interesting to write, as I had to use a description from when it was still Teratosaurus silesiacus (not to be confused with Teratosaurus suevicus).

Dianopachysaurus - I enjoyed this, as it was easy to find the journal publication and not too difficult to understand. I am definitely understanding all the anatomical terms much better than I used to, which was at least partly my aim in doing this. Quite a small critter, this one, but interesting nonetheless.

Calyptosuchus - I hadn`t looked at aetosaurs before, although of course I`d heard of them. I don`t think I did quite such a good job on this one, so if anybody wants to keep having a go at it they`re welcome to. But it was still very interesting.

Tylosaurus - I read an interesting article about some new discoveries on Science Daily and thought I would write it up. Somebody had got there before me, despite the fact I only left it three days, but I did put in quite a lot of extra stuff.

Kaikaifilu - I noticed the name at the bottom of Tylosaurus' article and wanted to know more about it. Then I ended up writing about it. You live and learn (in my case, you mostly learn about mosasaurs).

Volkheimeria and Lapparentosaurus - in fact the only dinosaurs I have written about. Very hard to find any material on them, eventually had to trawl through Google Books (which worked surprisingly well) and borrow references from the other article.

Xilousuchus - I liked this. Hadn`t heard of ctenosauriscids previously, at least not in any detail, and so it was interesting to write about one. I wonder what the sail was used for - heating/cooling, display, or some other purpose we haven`t thought of?

Psephoderma - I couldn`t think of anything to do so I went back to the placodonts. Fun enough, couldn`t find anything about it except about the skull, but archive.org is quite useful for finding books on. I should make a note of that somewhere. Psephoderma must have looked a bit odd, with that rostrum sticking out.

Hypselorhachis - another ctenosauriscid, almost certainly, although we only know it from one vertebra. The sail was at least 30 cm high, so it must have been quite a big and impressive animal. I take my hat off once again to Researchgate for providing an excellent service in the way of me not having to pay or log in to find the article. Thank you very much.

Scythosuchus - more rauisuchians. this was quite easy to do, but rewarding as it was only a few sentences long when I began. I like lots of work, especially when it isn`t too hard!

Qianosuchus - this was very fun to write about, because it was so very easy to find sufficient information on it. Really though, the person who made it originally added in the link I used as a citation and then didn`t write the whole article. Oh well. I liked writing it, and it has now been written.

Chimaerasuchus - I admit it, I only looked at this article because I thought 'ooh, chimaera', and I have a thing for mythological monsters. But the writing is all definitely scientifically accurate. A herbivorous crocodyliform was not what I expected to write about today, and it sounds very odd. (I think that this would make the best pet of any of the creatures I have written about, probably, as it was quite small, lived on land and ate plants. A shame it`s extinct.)

Armadillosuchus - this wasn`t too hard to come back to after a long absence (9 months or so, I think) and I`m pleased I did it because it`s a really fascinating creature that beautifully illustrated adaptive radiation and convergent evolution. Wonderful. So yes, now I`m back on it, ready to write about fossils once more.

Adamantinasuchus - not, as I originally thought it would be, the 'diamond-hard crocodile', but a little terrestrial crocodile from the Adamantina Formation. Oh well. Plenty to write about, I suppose - I don`t understand why it hadn`t been done already, since the source I used (the description by the palaeontologists) was already listed as the citation for the page! Note to self: Wayback Machine is also worth looking on if Researchgate hasn`t got what you need - that was good.

Anatosuchus - I might stop doing crocodyliforms starting with A. Might not though. There`s still work to do. This was a big job, but a fun one - and, of course, I got to write an article about a crocodile with duck jaws. How much better can things get?

Araripesuchus - this is becoming silly. I didn`t have much time this week, so I only did a short bit of tidying up, using the same article as last time. This one would also have been quite fun to keep as a pet, provided you fed it correctly; we still don`t know what it ate. Try locusts - a juvenile would be unlikely to turn those down.

Laganosuchus - well, this one doesn`t start with A. I think I did a good job here, considering we don`t have anything but lower jaw. As for the gular sac debate; well, it would have looked very odd, but why shouldn`t it? Note also that Laganosuchus thaumastos can be translated with perfect accuracy as 'The Amazing Pancake-Crocodile'. I expect this significant finding will pave the way for a new generation of superhero films.