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Description
Stuff about me being several months behind the vogue yada yada.

Clockwise from top left:
-Swimming therizinosaur
Because I can't remember ever seeing one in paleoart, not even among the old-fashioned fishing ones, which I suppose this could be seen as a callback to. I don't know anything about how the flotation dynamics of therizinosaurs would have worked - could make an interesting research topic no doubt! In the meantime, screw extant plesiosaurs. Living therizinosaurs are clearly the ones responsible for lake monster sightings.

-Female Protarchaeopteryx waiting for a chance to brood parasitize a troodont nest
Turning the interpretation of Byronosaurus as brood parasites of Citipati (which unpublished data falsifies) around. I came up with an extended backstory for this concept with there being two populations of female Protarchaeopteryx, one more drably-colored than the other. The brightly-colored females brood parasitize other dinosaurs and spend more time on courtship (because mutual sexual selection), but the drably-colored ones are less likely to. Like ducks that practice brood parasitism, Protarchaeopteryx chicks are precocial and do not rely on their host parents.

-Female confuciusornithid (because males are overdone) dying after trying to swallow a venomous mammal it opportunistically caught while the latter was swimming across a lake
Combining the concepts of confuciusornithids catching aquatic prey on the wing, some basal mammals possibly being venomous (though there is no evidence of a venom-delivery system in the ankle spurs of those that have been examined so far), and non-amphibious small mammals swimming across lakes .

-Freshwater hesperornithine with young on its back, keeping an eye on a potentially threatening inland-living Ichthyornis
Based on loons and grebes carrying young on their backs (and specifying a freshwater species because I suspect this would not be as comfortable on the ocean). Ichthyornis living inland and hunting non-fish prey is based on gulls. Another idea I had for this was a small hesperornithine making nesting burrows.

-Neuquenornis mantling its lepidosaur prey
Everyone talks about eudromaeosaurs using RPR on their prey, but I wonder if avisaurids did the same. Perhaps someone can do the same sort of analyses on them. Even if it turns out they are ill-suited to RPR, I have seen videos of falcons and owls (which normally do not use RPR) performing RPR-like behavior on large prey, so maybe avisaurids did it opportunistically as well.

Description
Stuff about me being several months behind the vogue yada yada.

Clockwise from top left:
-Swimming therizinosaur
Because I can't remember ever seeing one in paleoart, not even among the old-fashioned fishing ones, which I suppose this could be seen as a callback to. I don't know anything about how the flotation dynamics of therizinosaurs would have worked - could make an interesting research topic no doubt! In the meantime, screw extant plesiosaurs. Living therizinosaurs are clearly the ones responsible for lake monster sightings.

-Female Protarchaeopteryx waiting for a chance to brood parasitize a troodont nest
Turning the interpretation of Byronosaurus as brood parasites of Citipati (which unpublished data falsifies) around. I came up with an extended backstory for this concept with there being two populations of female Protarchaeopteryx, one more drably-colored than the other. The brightly-colored females brood parasitize other dinosaurs and spend more time on courtship (because mutual sexual selection), but the drably-colored ones are less likely to. Like ducks that practice brood parasitism, Protarchaeopteryx chicks are precocial and do not rely on their host parents.

-Female confuciusornithid (because males are overdone) dying after trying to swallow a venomous mammal it opportunistically caught while the latter was swimming across a lake
Combining the concepts of confuciusornithids catching aquatic prey on the wing, some basal mammals possibly being venomous (though there is no evidence of a venom-delivery system in the ankle spurs of those that have been examined so far), and non-amphibious small mammals swimming across lakes .

-Freshwater hesperornithine with young on its back, keeping an eye on a potentially threatening inland-living Ichthyornis
Based on loons and grebes carrying young on their backs (and specifying a freshwater species because I suspect this would not be as comfortable on the ocean). Ichthyornis living inland and hunting non-fish prey is based on gulls. Another idea I had for this was a small hesperornithine making nesting burrows.

-Neuquenornis mantling its lepidosaur prey
Everyone talks about eudromaeosaurs using RPR on their prey, but I wonder if avisaurids did the same. Perhaps someone can do the same sort of analyses on them. Even if it turns out they are ill-suited to RPR, I have seen videos of falcons and owls (which normally do not use RPR) performing RPR-like behavior on large prey, so maybe avisaurids did it opportunistically as well.