It’s easy to think of evolution as a linear process, where one species in the fossil record gives rise to the next in an ever-improving, ever-ascending ladder. But the reality is messier. It’s more like a bush with lots of dead-end branches–any one specimen is unlikely to be our direct ancestor, but many of the transitional forms we find in the fossil record would have been, at least, pretty close relatives of our direct ancestors.
During this seasonal, festive, frenzy of reviews, lets take a small time warp back in time and bring forth a toy that has been left behind by the relentless march of time. In 2009, Bullyland, the purveyor of goofy eyed yet expressive figures, released a interesting looking Pachycephalosaurus.
The Early Cretaceous Wessex formation in England is rich in vertebrate fossils, including dinosaurs like Baryonyx and Iguanodon, pterosaurs like Caulkicephalus, many kinds of fish, and even some fragments of small mammals. Today we’ll take a look at one of the most heavily armored denizens of Early Cretaceous Eurasia, Polacanthus, as depicted by Papo.
