World of Warcraft doesn’t have enough weird prehistoric animals in it — which ones should be added?

Yes, once again Matt attempts to convince people that World of Warcraft needs more strange prehistoric animals to populate Azeroth. But honestly, there are so many fantastic animals that are completely unlike anything alive today which would make excellent inspiration for creatures in WoW. Of course there are a number of dinosaurs we could talk about, like the strange Therizinosaurus with its massive food-fermenting guts and its even more improbably huge claws, perhaps used for defense as well as to gather food. Or the equally strange Deinocheirus, once known only for its massive, strongly clawed forarms, now known as a 10 meter long Ornithomimasaur.

But to stick on dinosaurs only leaves out so many amazing animals. Considering the hatchet job that WoW did on the Pelycosaur Dimetrodon they could stand to redesign the game’s Diemetrodon model, because it’s very bad. I mean, it’s not even close, and it’s not an improvement over the original. But there are so many other Permian animals — Anteosaurus, for example, or my perennial favorites the Gorgonopsids like Inostrancevia, or even the really amazing Dicynodonts like Diictodon or its massive later relative, the elephant sized Lisowicia. And even that is just scratching the surface of what’s available. I mean, the Zandalari Troll Druid Cat Form is clearly a stem mammal.

There are ancient shark relatives like Helicoprion with their strange and still not fully understood tooth whorls, there are ancient crocodile relatives with massive terrestrial hunting niches like Erythrosuchus, winner of ‘biggest head possible on that body plan’ for millions of years. Indeed, the last common ancestor of all archosaurs, whether we’re talking modern crocodiles, their Loricata ancestors and relatives, birds, or dinosaurs likely looked a lot like Erythrosuchus and shared many of its attributes.

Yet World of Warcraft lacks a single gigantic headed creature along the Erythrosuchus mold, and I think that’s a shame. Where are Azeroth’s versions of Helicoprion with that jaw of teeth arranged in what looks like a freaking saw blade? There were once flying giraffe sized pterosaurs with heads like gigantic hatchets that may have hunted on the ground. Known today as Azhdarchidae, this family includes creatures like Hatzegopteryx. My word, WoW could use these things! They’re the stuff of nightmares! Awesome nightmares I’d like to have again and again.

So yes, considering how many lost lands and places out of time loaded with prehistoric creatures we see in WoW, the game really needs some weird stuff like all of the above. What creatures would you like to see? Why should WoW include your favorite weird marsupial hunters like Thylacaleo or bizarre terror birds like Phorusrhacos?