The last day of 2025. An unsettling year, especially for science, medicine, universities, human rights, democracy... But in The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, I wrote this passage. Things can be bad, but things have always gotten better. Best wishes for a better 2026!

The last bombshell paleontology discovery of a year of bombshell discoveries: Ammonites survived the K-PG extinction! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sitting a stewing in frustration isn't nearly as cathartic as just designing a poster. Let's see how often I remember that in 2026.

Photographer Simone Baumeister shows an orb weaver spider on its web on a pedestrian bridge, silhouetted by lights from the cars below. In urban environments, orb weaver spiders often spin webs near artificial lights that attract insects at night. 📸: Caught in the Headlights by Simone Baumeister

Can finally share this #watercolor #paleoart I did a few years back of the “King of the Riverside” I did for the new paper by @melanieduring.com which shows that in Hell Creek there were giant Prognathodon mosasaurs that were living in freshwater (not just visiting)

More Herefordshire animals. Offacolus, Kenostrychus, Punk, and a faint Cinerocaris in the background. #paleoart #sciart #art

Some primitive SYNAPSIDS, from the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWx... 💀 More are included in there 💀 This poster is now also available for prints and more at Redbubble/people/MarioLanzas 💀 #synapsida #permian #triassic #paleoart #gorgonops #lisowicia

a sebecid and a dyrosaurid squabble over a delicious turtle #paleoart

Daidal, one of the earliest Mantis Shrimp. #paleoart #sciart #crustmas

Otodus #paleoart

wow, it's Shonisaurus, the giant Triassic ichthyosaur!

Silhouette illustrations always are a banger.

Going into 2026, a reminder for everyone who's fallen off the creative wagon, game dev, writing, art, music, whatever, no matter how long:

The issue is not that we don't talk to each other. It's that some people think that "talking" means getting to debate your existence, and that's abusive and controlling.

"they don't know how to express the idea" here's rian johnson's storyboard for knives out pick up a pencil and a napkin

Can the elites, just unexist? I'd rather them trade incredibly ugly ape JPEGs over shared natural heritage.

This is really gross: a book full of plagiarised #paleoart published by a legit UK publisher. As if we don't have enough problems with AI! There is no excuse for the author/artist not knowing better, either: this isn't the first time they've been caught committing major acts of plagiarism.

The thing thats so insidious about using AI this way is that one of the main ways artists get hired are studios looking for art references and they find us and reach out. This is removing a major avenue to get work if they can just generate nameless derivations of our ideas.

I love when a paper makes me feel stupid by finding an obvious, overlooked solution: “perhaps most great whales have an unrecognized potential for great longevity that has been masked by the demographic disruptions of industrial whaling”; we killed all the old ones, only the babies are left. Duh. 🧪

it's actually kinda funny in a way to get to the finish line of curing cancer and having the government go eh you know what. never mind

This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites. The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.

Excited to announce that my second manuscript, “Fossilised Melanosomes Reveal Colour Patterning in A Sauropod Dinosaur” has been published in @royalsociety.org !! Diplodocus scales are complex and diverse, and it turns out their color patterning was even more so. A 🧵🦕 1/26

“I am so bored by AI. One of the things I love about the theatre is AI can’t do it.” Ethan Hawke is a dude 👌🏻

In light of @tessasaurus.bsky.social's amazing paper on paleocoloration of the MDQ Diplodocus, I would *highly* recommend those interested to check out @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social's paleo color doc! they've done great work researching it and have been very responsive to sources I've found for it. 👇

Its wild that businessmen just decided that the world didnt really need animation as an art medium much anymore.

This passage shocked me to my core. The loss of biodiversity isn't a tragic accident or oversight, it was the plan!

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

AI creates an illusion of work, not work proper. It's not for writers, it's for people who want to 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯. It's not for creators, it's for people who want a portfolio or a container full of "content." It is opposite to human expression; it is simulacra. A plastic hamburger on a tray.

Prompters discovering there isnt a shortcut to sayisfying art, in real time. There is only... the Way of Pain.

I found it genuinely useful. Then I found out they stole everything and powered it with methane burning turbine generators to make it work and it became rather less appealing.

Endangered Species of the Philippines 🇵🇭

Massive shoutout out to whoever handles the Royal Canadian Air Force’s social media account. They responded to every single comment on their already very solid Trans Day of Remembrance post and they responded like this…

🦎✨ New research delivers the 1st full 3D anatomical atlases of the veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus)! Open-access atlases + lesson plans offer powerful new tools for studying reptile evolution and teaching comparative anatomy. Leavey et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The real “Dolores”? I was recently commissioned to create a pencil sketch of Aquilops - a dinosaur which I’d never really paid proper attention to. In the l course of my research I became a bit obsessed and felt compelled to also create this more detailed illustration as a personal project. #SciArt

Racism is not justified by immigration levels or rising poverty, unemployment or crime. It is not justified, period. I see the rising wave of voices & arguments justifying the rising levels of racism as the most sinister political development in 2025 on the British landscape.

Honestly, I don’t care at this point, use AI and perish. Get a better publisher, this one is SHIT. Why would you want to continue with them?? They clearly don’t give a shit about art and artists, probably including writers.

What might be my favourite fossil has been just published by Kiat et al. 2025. Years ago I saw a pic of this Anchiornis specimen in nat geo article and I audibly gasped.preserving not only the feathers but also the original patterns as well. I made this drawing on the spot. Maybe its time to do v2.0

Sad and cold day. Feeling more isolated than usual. I don’t know what else to do to say. It’s not like someone will magically appear to hug me for hours.

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, I hope Albertans will remember that trans kids and teens are living breathing humans who just want to be themselves, without fear of hate and discrimination. Demonizing kids merely to score political points in some weird culture war is craven and cruel.

Doing this two days before TDoR is particularly vile.

Thanks to @thetyee.ca for republishing my op-ed about Danielle Smith and the Notwithstanding Clause. ✨ Always glad to see outlets beyond LGBTQ2S+ publications platforming and highlighting trans voices on issues like this

Alberta's government is engaged in something I can only describe as psychopathic politics. What else do you call it when a government so set on pushing ahead with policies that WILL cause more trans youth to try to leave us? When they'll trample on the charter to hurt these kids? It's disturbing:

Mood.

Oh my...

Reposing/articulating the Smithsonian Triceratops mount (available for download on their Sketchfab page: sketchfab.com/.../tricerat.... ) certainly was not on my bingo card for today. But here we are. A solid new baseline for me to work off of. For... reasons.

Proper thread time! Today marks the publication of my fourth book, Spinosaur Tales, this one written with and illustrated by @markwitton.bsky.social. It's out now in the UK (hardback, audiobook, ebook) and will be out elsewhere in Jan 2026. It covers all things spinosaurian, including Spinosaurus.

IT’s HERE! The trailer from Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age! I cannot wait for you to watch it! Once again, I’m so proud to be part of the amazing and talented group of people who help put this series together! #PrehistoricPlanet youtu.be/f7kvwp9aIyM?...

I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.