Ever wish you could jump in a time machine and travel back to the age of dinosaurs? What were terrifying prehistoric beasts like megalodon and T. rex really like? And what happened when these creatures battled each other to the death?
While we may not have time machines, a Canadian paleoartist, Julius Csotonyi, provides us with the next best thing. Check out a selection of illustrations from his new book, "The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi," below.
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"I became interested in drawing dinosaurs as a kid, as do many kids. I never grew out of my ‘dinophile’ phase," Csotonyi wrote in an artist's statement on his website. "Dinosaurs are members of a world that is alien to us, and my fascination with the unexplored and unknown led me to both my interest in illustrating dinosaurs and my current career path in science."
Ready to go back in time now? Just scroll down.
Megalodon stalking Platybelodon
Julius Csotonyi
The Miocene epoch (23.03 to 5.332 million years ago) boasted a real life sea monster, Carcharocles megalodon. Whereas the giant shark mainly inhabited the open ocean, this image depicts a hypothetical encounter with a swimming Platybelodon, a prehistoric mammal related to the elephant. The bones of these elephantids sometimes show evidence of attack by sharks.
Acheroraptor beats T. rex to a fresh carcass
Julius Csotonyi
Acheroraptor, a bird-like dinosaur belonging to the dromaeosaur family of dinosaurs, beats a T. rex to a fresh carcass. Acheroraptor was discovered in Montana in the Hell Creek Formation, a fossil-rich division of rocks, in November 2013.
Albertonectes in the Bearpaw Sea
Julius Csotonyi
Around 74 million years ago, Albertonectes was the ultimate "stretch-limo" of a group of prehistoric reptiles called plesiosaurs. It hunted fish with a neck possessing over ten times as many vertebrae as ours!
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Brachiosaurus at dawn
Julius Csotonyi
Brachiosaurus, the iconic sauropod ("lizard-footed") dinosaur from the Jurassic period, at dawn.
Dorudon
Julius Csotonyi
There was a time early in cetacean evolution when ancient whales possessed external hind limbs, a telltale sign of their terrestrial evolutionary heritage. Dorudon was a good example.
Early Permian landscape
Julius Csotonyi
This image depicts the bizarre interval in Earth’s history when insects such as Meganeuropsis (a gigantic prehistoric griffinfly) outgrew reptiles such as Hylonomus. Swamps teemed with crocodile-like amphibians such as Eryops.
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Hell Creek encounters
Julius Csotonyi
As paleontologists have elucidated, some pterosaurs (flying reptiles) were enormous – as tall as giraffes even. In this image, the pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus dwarfs Tyrannosaurus (left), while another T. rex squares off with a Triceratops during the Late Maastrichtian age (72.1 to 66 million years ago).
Ornithomimus
Julius Csotonyi
Ornithomimus is the first known feathered non-avian dinosaur from the western hemisphere.
Permian feeding frenzy
Julius Csotonyi
Between dry spells, mammal-like reptiles such as Secondontosaurus and Dimetrodon consumed prehistoric sharks and amphibians.
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Fisheye view of Rhamphorhynchus gleaning squid
Julius Csotonyi
Rhamphorhynchus, a long-tailed pterosaur, hypothetically feeding on squid.
Suchomimus and young Sarcosuchus
Julius Csotonyi
This scene is from Niger during the Cretaceous period (145-66 million years ago). The dinosaur Suchomimus, of the spinosaurid family, snags a young Sarcosuchus, a distant relative of the crocodile. Young Kryptops, a theropod dinosaur, drinks water.
Tianyulong, the "maned" ornithischian
Julius Csotonyi
Although theropods are better known for their downy or feathery coverings, some ornithischians (an order of herbivorous dinos) like Tianyulong also sprouted filamentous structures.
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Utahraptor attacking Hippodraco
Julius Csotonyi
This image reenacts a moment in the last few hours of life of a pack of Utahraptor (a theropod dino) and the Hippodraco (an iguanodontian dino) that lured them to their miry fate in a patch of Early Cretaceous Utah quicksand.
White River Formation
Julius Csotonyi
Around 33.9 million to 23 million years ago, the Oligocene epoch was ruled by giant rhinos, fierce mammalian predators called hyaenodontids (left), oreodonts (extinct hoglike animals) and the near-cat saber-toothed nimravids (right). Toothy pig-like omnivores called entelodonts (e.g. Archaeotherium) may have hunted diminutive early horses (e.g. Mesohippus) (center).