10 – The Archaeopteryx,
- What happens when you slam a dinosaur head onto a bald eagle body? Well the answer is one strange ass looking bird that’s what.
- Supposedly the first bird to ever exist, the Archaeopteryx fossils shows the transitionary traits from dinosaurs to avian creatures. But it’s debateable about how much flight capability the bird with a dino head had.
- Still there’s something oddly cute about this thing, like a tiny flying raptor from Jurassic World that you can train to sit on your shoulder like a parrot.
9 – The Therizinosauridae,
- Also known as reaper lizards this is one of nature’s oddities that had Scientists stumped when it turned up in the fossil record.
- Originally believed to be the remains of several different creatures, the reaper lizard had a beak, four toed feet, a long neck and a beer belly that would make your uncle jealous.
- They also had extremely large claws for their front arms which look comically disproportioned in many recreations. Unfortunately the claws weren’t used for killing T-rex’s but for eating plants. Boring.
8 – The Sharovipteryx,
- Another small lizard like reptile from the pesky old Triassic era where small lizards were walking happy meals for larger carnivores.
- But this little guy had the ability to glide which gives him an edge over the other lizards. Having giant skin flabs between its back legs and small flaps on the front two would give the small reptile the gift of soaring out of the way of larger predators.
- But this gift comes at the cost of looking downright silly as your fly away on your giant skin flapped back legs but then again better to look stupid than to be someone else’s lunch.
7 – The Microraptor,
- While the name would suggest a very small tiny raptor what it actually means is small flying raptor that will kill you.
- Another “Dinosaur with insert other animal part here” the Microraptor had four wings, that we still can’t work out how it used. Some say it would climb trees then jump off branches using the wings as parachutes while the alternative is it using all 4 wings to take off….somehow.
- Either way anything with raptor in its name isn’t something I’d want to have the ability to fly through the air.
6 – The Hallucigenia,
- Man worms were some kind of nightmare creature millions of years ago with this tentacle penis headed thing.
- The Hallucigenia was only 3 mm’s long so that’s a massive relief. The little worm like creature would walk around spiny stilt like legs while using soft tentacles on its back to feed its self. At least that was the first thought, turned out the thing was upside down.
- Then researchers made another discovery that the penis head was actually a stain in the fossil and tail was the actual head. So good news Hallucigenia, you are not a literal dickhead.