I haven't been on Devianart or Discord for a hot minute. I do plan to update my Deinosuchus diagrams, as well as a few others. I also keep meaning to set up my own sit where I can have everything in one place. I'm also working on illustrations for a book series, which is keeping me busy.

I do have more in the pipeline, including a multiview diagram, a gdi, specimen diagram, and skeletal of the Appalachian Deinosuchus schwimmeri, so stay tuned.

I could streamline this by just using the non-vector skull I've drawn, but that's a shortcut that won't save time in the long run.

Between homeschooling two boys, taking care of two more under 3, and everything else in life, I don't have much time for skeletals, but I have been making progress on my Deinosuchus skeletal in my spare time. Everything is scaled, just gotta pose and draw it all. Family comes first though.

My own reconstruction of AMNH 3073 is just under 11.2 meters.

Using Laramidian specimens gives us the entire skull and mandibles, most of the pre-sacral vertebrae, several caudals, a femur, a humerus, as well as most of the shoulder and pelvis. The Eastern species fills in the tail and limbs.

I also want to note that using the differences they reported between the largest/smallest vertebrae of a section and the mean can bring the estimate up to 11.3 meters. Deinosuchus appears to have had a proportionately long tail, based on the caudals we have.

The proportions look wrong, but given the skull material we have for AMNH 3073 and the limb material that can be cross-scaled from smaller individuals, so there isn't much room to play with. The vertebrae length is comparable to a very large saltwater crocodile, but with a skull over twice as large.

Iijima and Kubo 2020 used a large data set of crocodylian vertebrae to generate regression equations for various parts of the vertebrae column. They estimated AMNH 3073 to be between ~7-8.3 meters long, with their most likely value being 7.7 meters.

Schwimmer estimated AMNH 3073 to be 12 meters long in his book, "KIng of the Crocodylians". This is the largest estimate for AMNH 3073 that can be scientifically verified, since it was produced using a regression equation for Alligators from Woodword et al. 1995.

AMNH 3073 is the holotype of "Phobosuchus riograndensis" and probably the most famous specimen of Deinosuchus, thanks to the charismatic (and mostly plaster) skull reconstruction. While it isn't the largest Deinosuchus known, it does have the largest known skull material.

Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if they used AI for some concept art and design.

We also don't have precise stratigraphic locations for most of these skulls, which also makes it hard to say much about change over time.

Interestingly, there seem to be some distinct differences between the latest specimens (at the top) and the earliest specimens (at the bottom). Unfortunately the later material is either undescribed or very incomplete, so it is hard to really compare them to the more complete skulls.

I've changed a lot about how I do skeletals and this skeletal was showing its age. I was able to find some more reference material and get a lot more detail out of the material I was using. Been some interesting, if fairly subtle, changes and some downsizing.