Dinosaur Fossils at Big Bend

If there’s one thing I hadn’t expected to see at Big Bend, it was dinosaur fossils at Big Bend.  However, the area is “home” to several different types of dinosaurs.  Some of the most amazing ones to me were the fossils of marine animals and fish!  It seems that much of the area of Texas was once a relatively shallow ocean!  Here are just a few of the cool fossils that we saw on our visit to a lovely exhibit area in the park.

Scary Fish

I wouldn’t have wanted to see this guy when he was alive and swimming!  Look at the size of just his head!  His formal name is Xiphactinus (zih-FACK-tih-nuss).  It means “sword ray”.  I think he’s looks at least as scary as a great white shark!  Like I said, this fossil is just his head – in total, he would grow to be about 18 feet long!

Inside His Mouth

I couldn’t resist capturing this image of his mouth, even if my reflection was in the shot.  In a way, I’m a good reference for how big this guy was, tho!  Can you imagine seeing this coming at you?  He lived about 90 million years ago, and fed on smaller fish and sharks.  He was thought to swallow his prey whole, and I can certainly imagine him doing that.  His front teeth and skull parts were found here in Big Bend. 

Turtle Dinosaur

So, let’s just say I moved from the large and scary to the almost cute!  This guy seems little by comparison and looks much like the turtles we have today.  I’m guessing this fossil was about 3 feet long, which is larger than the turtles we tend to see in the US, but is smaller than the ones we saw down in the Galapagos, so his size was not intimidating to me!

Pterodactyl Skull

This guy wasn’t a fish, but what I think of as a bird dinosaur.  His skull was really big – again, I’m guessing, but I’d put it at about 4-5 feet long.  I remember seeing pterodactyls in movies, etc., when I was a kid, and they just didn’t seem quite this big.

Pterodactyl in Flight

I couldn’t quite get all of this guy in my shot, even with my wide lens!  His wingspan was about 35 feet!  I don’t know how long he was, but he took up the entire ceiling space of the room we were in, and it was a very large room!  It seems semi-creepy to have him hovering over my head as we checked out the other fossils in this room!

Dinosaur Teeth Texture

I don’t even know what dinosaur this came from, but I believe they were his teeth imbedded into some rock where they fossilized.  I just thought the texture of them in the rock was very cool, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this found its way into some future art project of mine!

Fossil Digging Grounds

When we left the building that held the fossils, we walked up a bit of a trail to an area that gave us a view of the area where much of the digging occurred.  And, just in case you were curious, the big guy who began this post was found in the far cliff face in this image.

Enjoy!