Now with Tuberocephalosaurus! (Patreon)

Among the squamates I've needed to add are a bunch of borioteiioids (ugh, SO many vowels!), a group of mostly Cretaceous lizards that may or may not be closely related to teiids and kin (the whiptails, tegus and relatives). The Big Book section on borioteiioids is fairly long, since they're really interesting and have a good fossil record. A brief (and not especially good) primer to the group can be found here on TetZoo: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-borioteiioids/

Anyway - I've just done reconstructing one of them, the tuberocephalosaurine Tuberocephalosaurus from Late Cretaceous Mongolia. It's a pretty big lizard with short caniniforms in the upper jaw and an obvious bulge across the nasal region and forehead. I've combined it here with the newish drawings of Lanthanotus and Paramacellodus to help give some idea of its size.

Some notes on the reconstruction: with adequate soft tissue applied (big labial scales and cranial skin just a few mm thick), the caniniforms and gnarly forehead region of Tuberocephalosaurus are essentially hidden, making me think that this animal was like Leiolepis (butterfly agamas) in that the big teeth were probably not visible unless it opened its mouth. The scalation and some aspects of the proportions are reconstructed after big, robust teiids, and the colour scheme - pale belly and dark head with prominent, large scales - is also inspired by teiids like Dracaena. I imagine this as an animal where the big, robust head has some sort of display role. I initially drew this animal too short in the neck, so had to employ some digital tinkering to correct things (meaning that there are two versions).

So there we go. Another four or five borioteiioids to do!

Thanks as always for supporting this work. I hope you have some idea of how MANY illustrations The Big Book is going to include once it's done.