Vulcanodon is one of the earliest sauropods but it’s named for the shape of several theropod teeth referred in error to the type, as they were found in association with the skeleton (at a time when many ‘prosauropods’ were considered carnivores). Enjoy 🦖🦕🇿🇼

Cathedral Basilica of Saint Cecilia in Albi, France 🇫🇷 It is widely considered the largest brick building in the world. 
The cathedral was built in the Southern French Gothic style between 1282 and 1493.

Why TF would you ‘give Reform a go’? Yes. They represent change. But not good change. Not the change people want. This lot would torch everything we value and rely upon (NHS, public services, our rights, protections…) in an absolute frenzy of corruption, prejudice and uselessness. FFS. Please don’t.

25 January 1807: birth of William Willoughby Cole, Viscount Cole, from 1840 the 3rd Earl of Enniskillen, keen fossil collector, long-time friend of #MaryAnning & one of her richest clients, first visiting her in 1824. His collection is now @nhm-london.bsky.social & includes her 1830 plesiosaur.

I'm intrigued about how this is next week's episode, @fossilrob.bsky.social, because unless I've had some sort of episode, I don't think we have actually recorded this one yet... this was just you telling me about what you were going to tell me about. Wasn't it?

For #FossilFriday the first 7 caudal (tail) vertebrae from the #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur Comptonatus chasei. A hefty tail providing lots of muscle attachments including powerful muscles from the back of the thigh. So different from large mammals, think of the elephant’s flimsy tail.

This moment of global change is fraught with dangers. And Europe must be ready to change even faster. To become more independent. For its own future.

Ice Age art! A lovely little horse figurine sculpted from mammoth tusk around 15,000 years ago! Known as ‘The Little Horse of Lourdes’ it was found in 1886 in the cave of Les Espélugues, Lourdes, Haute-Pyrénées, France. 📷 by me. #Archaeology

I'm not kidding when I say that #DinoConUK 2025 was the gigantic, immersive, inclusive, fun event I hoped it would be. If you like #dinosaurs we want you to be part of it too :) Join us for 2026.

Find out more of Mantell's discoveries while on his travels out and about in Sussex and the South East in the 1820s at his birthday lecture on Tuesday 3rd Feb in #Lewes gideonmantell.wordpress.com/mantell-birt...

For #FossilFriday, a probable trilobite burrow (ichnogenus Trichophycus) preserved as a natural cast. Why do I think it's from a trilobite? Because of scratches on the burrow walls, which were likely made by trilobite legs; from Late Ordovician (~445 mya) Sequatchie Formation near Ringgold GA. 🧪🐾🪨⚒️

For #FossilFriday a small #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur tibia in the collections @nhm-london.bsk.social. What makes it special is that it is from the Gideon Mantell collection. The fossil takes me back 125 million years but its history casts me back to the 1820s.

"Rethinking the strangest dinosaurs ever found" With @markwitton.bsky.social It's about Spinosaurus and its relatives (25min10s) www.kpcw.org/podcast/cool...

Ever wanted to know what the fossil record of trackways can tell us about past life? Well look no further than this excellent review paper in Palaeontology by the one & only @peterfalkingham.com and the legendary Stephen Gatesy: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Busy busy busy compiling #DinoConUK 2026 schedule... another packed event with SO much great stuff! Tickets will be on sale THIS MONTH, watch our site for news and updates: www.dinocon.co.uk And follow us at @dinoconuk.bsky.social

Wideford Hill Chambered Cairn, near Kirkwall on Orkney. Dating from around 3500-2400 BC, the ‘Maeshowe-type’ cairn is built into the side of Wideford Hill. 📸 My own. #TombTuesday #Prehistory #Archaeology #Orkney

Tickets for #DinoConUK 2026 will be going on sale this month, be sure to watch our socials @dinoconuk.bsky.social ... and check our website, dinocon.co.uk

All plesiosaurs today for #FossilFriday, in tribute to our departed friend Richard Forrest.

#FossilFriday a magnificent Iguanodon dinosaur skull from the Bernissart collection in Brussels. The prominent arch is the palpebral made up of two bones in Iguanodon presumably to protect the eye as it foraged through spiky Early Cretaceous plants or maybe it acted as a sunshade in those hot times.

Substantially over 400,000 followers - and a lot of important work before Elon Musk took over. But being off twitter is the right thing to do and I have now deactivated my account.

Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Also, since I have a Nature paper out on 7th January, I'm considering that 2026 has been completed, and I shall be taking the rest of the year off.

I have been anxiously waiting for this paper on European ceratopsians! Congratulations all! www.nature.com/articles/s41... @paleontologizing.bsky.social @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social @jeremybroberts.bsky.social @tweetisaurus.bsky.social @richardjbutler.bsky.social @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social

On Jan 6th, the world was forever changed Across marble floors, through hallowed halls, a radical cry would upset the established order That's right — Alfred Wegener announced his continental drift hypothesis to the Geological Association at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt on Jan 6th, 1912 ⛏🌍

Carlotta Joaquina Maury, geologist, paleontologist and one of the first women to work as a professional scientist in the oil and gas industry, was born #OTD 1874. #womeninSTEM #paleontology #histSTM 🧪⚒️ paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/f...

It's the first #MolluskMonday of 2026! Sticking with the Cretaceous, we have a nautiloid from the Pierre shale of South Dakota. This was deposited in deep waters of the Cretaceous Interior Seaway, which divided North America into Appalachia and Laramidia. ⚒️🧪

First #FossilFriday of 2026: we begin with one of the tiniest kinds of fossils: an asterolith, a star-shaped calcareous nannofossil produced by the discoasters, a group of poorly known, extinct unicellular algae, that are however very important for the biostratigraphy of the Paleogene and Neogene.

For the first #FossilFriday of 2026, an ichnological 2-for-1 deal: shorebird tracks & tiny invertebrate trails on a surface with probable gas-bubble escape structures from a former lakeshore in the Green River Formation (Eocene Epoch, ~50-55 mya), Utah. 🧪🐦🐾🪱🪨⚒️

Great piece on this morning's Today program on Radio 4 about the discovery of the weird and very spiky Jurassic ankylosaur Spicomellus from Morocco, featuring @tweetisaurus.bsky.social, @richardjbutler.bsky.social, @ahmedoussou.bsky.social and @simonwills.bsky.social. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

This is a delightful article about an event we all are familiar with. The world needs more philosophical mirth. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary confirmed by new data from Denmark www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The foot of the #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur Comptonatus chasei and a 125 million year old foot cast also from the island. The island provided Richard Owen with the first good evidence for the dinosaur origins of the tracks. #FossilFriday.

In the 6th largest economy, 103000 people died in poverty in 2024. 120,000 died in fuel poverty, couldn't afford adequate heating. Ethnic minorities, pensioners, single working age adults more likely to die in poverty. Poverty and death sentence is a political choice as govts appease the rich.

Open up this picture fully. Then look at the surface of Mars. Then look up to the top right. Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky. Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos. That's Earth.

Huge news from Blakeney Point...

Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction

2026 could be the year to ‘Bring back the family Doctor’ Wes Streeting To do so will require a patient centred GP contract with the vision & resources to genuinely bring quality, safe, focused care This is in the hands of Govt, DHSC, NHSEngland dauk.org/our-call-for...

December 27, 1831: The HMS Beagle embarks on its second voyage with a young Charles Darwin aboard. wp.me/p3ihHu-ji #OTD #histSTM 🧪⚒️

On #Christmas Day 1833, #Darwin wrote: “Christmas. After dining in the Gun-room, the officers & almost every man in the ship went on shore. — The Captain distributed prizes to the best runners, leapers, wrestlers. — These Olympic games were very amusing.” paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2021/12/24/c...

Letter to the FT that stingingly sums up Brexit and the shit creek we now find ourselves in. A terrible idea (naive, prejudiced and uninformed) that has deeply divided us and left us poorer and less secure… but unwilling to face up to the damage we’ve done to ourselves. While the EU moves on.

For #FossilFriday today it has to be Mary Anning's 1823 near-complete Plesiosaurus. On 26 December 1823 she wrote to Sir Charles Bunbury sending a scale drawing of the specimen. This was one of several drawings she sent to potential buyers. For more check out www.researchgate.net/publication/...

A doubly old 'Christmas tree' this #FossilFriday! This was taken on Dec. 23 2010 during my 1st trip to Antarctica & shows a large fossil tree from the Triassic, 240 million years ago. The locality is high in the Transantarctic Mountains, above the Antarctic icesheet 🌿⛏️🏔️ Happy holidays! #paleobotany

It doesn’t feel like a Friday. It’s been three weeks since I was getting ready to go to Florida, so here are Alligator coprolites from Haile 7C and 7G. Two are filled with the remains of bony fish. #FossilFriday

How can we not help but love the largest known land invertebrate? Also? Think of the tracks this absolute unit would've have left. (ht to @susieoftraken.bsky.social for reposting @caseystegman.com for the original post.) #FossilFriday #Invertefest

#FossilFriday Fine specimen of the problematical fossil Dickinsonia costata from the Ediacaran. On display at the South Australia Museum, Adelaide.

A posterior view of an incomplete braincase of a large iguanodontian dinosaur allowing a peek through the foramen magnum into the cavity occupied by the brain (~12x5 cms). Found by Reginald Hooley who also found Mantellisaurus in 1914. From #IsleofWight now @NHM-London.bsky.social. #FossilFriday

It's #ChristmasEve, so I depicted Parasaurolophus under UV light, lit up like a Christmas tree - you can check out the rationale of this #paleoart on my #Patreon if you're already bored of holiday TV. Oh, and Happy Christmas to those who celebrate! #sciart #fossils www.patreon.com/posts/146578...

A reminder that if you fancy a bit of dinosaur anatomy at the end of Christmas dinner: The tendons along the spine in later Iguanodontians became bony or ossified in a lattice pattern as seen in box girder bridges. The turkey’s leg tendons are also ossified and easy to dissect out.

JOB KLAXON! The @nhm-london.bsky.social is recruiting a micro-CT specialist! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

My message for Wes Streeting let’s ‘Bring back the Family Doctor’ in 2026 It’s possible! Have a great Christmas, hoping for a great New Year!