35 Intriguing Photos & Illustrations Of Extinct Creatures That Once Roamed The Earth

Throughout history, many animals have gone extinct for a variety of reasons. While we might be familiar with some lost creatures of eras long gone from movies or exaggerated stories, the truth is that many vanished species are known only through fossilised bones, teeth, or footprints left behind. These fragments provide essential clues that help us reconstruct the past and better understand creatures that disappeared long ago.

Driven by curiosity, palaeontologists have uncovered these remains, which are open to the public in museums, etc. However, the ‘Nature Was Metal’ community is committed to finding images portraying animals that lived long before humans dominated the planet and making them accessible online. The space features an impressive archive of photos and illustrations of species lost millennia ago, from which we’ve shared a few choice examples in the gallery below.

#1 The Skull Of Torosaurus, A Late Cretaceous North American Ceratopsian

#2 Xiphactinus, A Beautiful Specimen Of A Terrifying Sea Monster

#3 Blue Babe, A Mummified Bison Priscus (Museum Is In Alaska)

#4 Dsungaripterus (Oc)

#5 Just Saw Black Beauty – One Of The Most Complete T. Rex Skeletons Ever Found! In Classic ‘Death Pose’, Her Bones Are Black From A Specific Mineral Exposure During Fossilisation. Excited 5’5″ Primate For Scale

#6 Suncor Nodosaur, One Of The Best Preserved Dinosaurs. It Even Has Some Pigmets Left

#7 The Femur Of A Patagotitan, One Of The Biggest Dinosaurs Known To Have Existed, Next To A 1.75 M Tall Paleontologist

#8 The Skull Of A Deinosuchus, Which As A Genus Are The Front-Runner To Be The Largest Known Crocodilian Of All Time

#9 Skeletal Mount Of Velociraptor Mongoliensis Next To A 27 Kg Greyhound (Photo By Mark Witton)

#10 A Tylosaurus Hunting A Xiphactinus In A Long-Time Display At My Local Natural History Museum (The Academy Of Natural Sciences)

#11 The Size Of A Sarcosuchus Mount

#12 Deinocheirus Juvenile (Oc)

#13 Amphicyon Ingens, The Giant Bear-Dog. At 2.5m In Length And Weighing Over 550kgs, It Is One Of The Biggest Mammalian Land Carnivores Ever

#14 Purussaurus Is One Of The Largest Known Of The Giant Crocodilians, Perhaps Even Surpassing Sarcosuchus In Size. It Reigned Supreme In Central South America In The Miocene Period, 8 Million Years Ago

#15 Oh God

#16 The Skull Of Megaladapis Aka The Koala Lemur Compared To The Gray Mouse Lemur

#17 My Freshwater Stingray (Heliobatis Radians)

#18 Two Giant Bird Species That Both Went Extinct Less Than 1000 Years Ago. The Giant Moa And The Elephant Bird

#19 The Sheer Size Of The Dire Wolf

#20 Capuchin Monkeys Using A Glyptodon’s Shell And Stones To Crack Nuts But The Giant Mammal Will Make Its Lack Of Appreciation Known (By Xtinctdesign)

#21 The Massive Skull Of Megachoerus, A Giant Entelodont

#22 Torosaurus, The Largest Skulled Species Of Dinosaur With A Head Measuring Up To About 10 Feet Including A Massive Frill

#23 Chalicotherium (Oc)

#24 The Size Of A Pelagornis Sandersi, The Longest Winged Bird Ever Known

#25 The Head Of A Liopleurodon To Scale With The Artist Who Made It, Bob Nicholls

#26 The Size Of The Skull And Horns Of A Bison Latifrons, The Giant Long-Horned Bison

#27 “That’s Me” (Art By Everydaylouie)

#28 Very Early Description Of A Woolly Mammoth From 1805 Based On A Frozen Carcass Found In Siberian Permafrost

#29 Comparison Of Theoretical Neanderthal Skeleton With Anatomically Modern Human. Ribcage And Pelvis , Is Twice As Big!

#30 3 Pretty “Terror Birds” From South America

#31 Constance Kite, A Fossil Preparator At Harvard Seen 60 Years Apart With The Kronosaurus She Helped Put Together; This Specimen Was Est At 34 Feet, Over 15 Tons

#32 David Attenborough With A Titanosaur Femur

#33 Arthropleura, The Largest Known Arthropod To Ever Exist At An Estimated 2.5 Metres Long, Walks Slowly Along An Ancient Carboniferous Coastline Looking For Food (Render By Prehistorica_cm)

#34 Introducing The Tyrannosaur Of The Arctic, Nanuqsaurus. It Prowled Around The Area Of Alaska And Lived During Maastrichtian Period

#35 The Largest Wild Cat To Ever Exist, Sambir Lion

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.