Uintatherium WIP

Some display cases in the old brontosaur hall at AMNH (1956–1990)

Since it came up in a conversation I ended up googling if the rhinos in the Salzburg Zoo get out in Winter and not only do they, it also makes for some impressive photos Images by Manuel Bukovics

look at this kind and friendly face and big silly nose

Platecarpus & Hoploscaphites

Out now: latest addition to the Grande volume! Guang-Hui Xu reevaluates Guizhoubrachysomus from the Middle Triassic of southern China. Interpreted as a "luganoiid" in the past, this work argues Guizhoubrachysomus is instead an early dapediid, a group most famous from Jurassic deposits of Europe.

Sensory biology and evidence for nocturnality in the extinct Hawaiian ibis Apteribis: academic.oup.com/icb/advance-... 🪶🧪 (📷 @evolsara.bsky.social et al.)

I was asked yesterday to post a walkthrough of Life Over Time, the shortest-lived and generally weirdest iteration of the Field Museum’s fossil halls. If you visited between 1994 and 2004, this is the version you saw. I’ve got some time, so let’s do this.

Growth dynamics, skeletochronology, and histovariability of the theropod dinosaur Berthasaura leopoldinae - Souza - The Anatomical Record - Wiley Online Library anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

That bottom part of the wing is where chicken nuggets come from

New paper! Here we look at shape evolution of the mandible in Pelagiaria, a group of open-ocean fishes that includes tuna and mackerel. We find that shape disparity accumulated rapidly at the origin of the clade at around the K/Pg boundary... academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Finally have time to upload things to Sketchfab. Here's the dead eel I found at an aquarium store! Thanks to the generosity of the store owner, everyone can see the scary extra jaws these guys have! sketchfab.com/3d-models/sn...

Wow, look at how detrimental an effect world wars 1 and 2 had on the progress of taxonomy. Not the type of signal I thought I’d see.

Fact-Checking Trump On Affordability https://theonion.com/fact-checking-trump-on-affordability/

A large mosasaur finds a meal in a Komoksodon kwutchakuth. Named in honour of the K'ómoks people of BC and the word for shark, kwutchakuth, in the Comox language. The diving birds are Maaqwi cascadensis whose fossils were found on Hornby Island here in BC. Ma'aqwi means "water bird" in Coast Salish.

We can all relax now, ROM put out some press photos over the weekend! Basically, the space between the Jurassic/hadrosaur hall and the T. rex/Cenozoic hall has been opened up, and now houses the real Zuul fossil plus the cast Gorgosaurus vs Zuul created for a temporary exhibit in 2019.

An (ecto)parasitic #Crustmas. This is Dolops (above), which swims around and attaches to fishes (below), but unlike its relative Argulus, which has suckers, it has hooks to hold on. Also, is bizarrely cute! 🧪🦑

I love mammoth (painted this one having zoomies) 🦣

A new mid-sized pareiasaur from the upper Permian Naobaogou Formation of China & implications for the phylogenetic relationships of pareiasaurs onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I have a new paper out in Environmental Biology of Fishes on the effects of parasites on the life history of White Sands Pupfish! The two main findings being: 🧵(1/3) rdcu.be/eptDZ

Please enjoy this ridiculously cute butterfly, which was about the size of my pinkie fingernail. It's in the butterfly family called metalmarks (Riodinidae). Males, like these, have reduced front legs and perch using only the rear 4 (females can use all 6). Sarota acantus; Costa Rica 🐙🌿 #insects

Everything is on fire but we have an awesome new lab logo from @nepeteaa.bsky.social who you should definitely have make one for your organization!

Nothing like a visit to the dentist costing more than double what I expected. 😭 Commissions and, if you’re feeling generous, donations would be hugely appreciated right now. Get in touch if you want me to draw some dinosaurs or other creatures for you!

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J.T. Voris et al. 2025 Ontogenetic Changes in Endocranial Anatomy in Gorgosaurus libratus (Theropoda: Tyrannosauridae) Provide Insight Into the Evolution of the Tyrannosauroid Endocranium Journal of Comparative Neurology 533: e70056 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Bumping to the Fishes! and Science feeds.🐟🧪

Cool new study on Deinosuchus just dropped.🐊🧪 www.cnn.com/2025/04/23/s...

To celebrate Earth Day, here are some CT scans of several fabulous fishes that live on our planet.

Bloat and Float

"gentle giants"? I don't think so. Get smushed, theropod. Acrocanthosaurus vs "Astrodon"

We take tariffs on our beautiful Heard Island very seriously. We will be consulting all mammals and flightless birds and will make an announcement in the near future detailing our response. #heardisland #tariff #mcdonaldisland #trumptariff

Can someone please explain why journalists have stopped pointing out that the executive branch has no constitutional authority to end these programs?

#SciArt Spotlight 🎨 Florida Pliocene Scientific art helps to illustrate Florida's evolving ecosystems, bringing life to the fossils we display in our exhibits. 🗝️ Check out the art + key and bonus fossils for gomphotheres, early artiodactyls and more: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/blo...

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology... 2022 Korean translation of Locked in Time (by @deanrlomax.bsky.social) commissioned me to colourise my 50 greyscale illustrations. Here's "The Transient Oasis," showing a colony of #Crinoids drifting on deadwood. #SciArt #PaleoArt #Ichthyosaurs #JurassicWorld

New Plioplatecarpus peckensis skeletal mount 🤩🤩🤩 love to see Bearpaw mosasaurs and ESPECIALLY plioplatecarpines getting the limelight. I’m super lucky to have consulted a bit for this and some other upcoming mounts… Stop by the MOR the first week of July for the rest!

This isn't the first time a branch of government has attempted to control Smithsonian exhibit content. In 1994, a draft script for a National Air and Space Museum exhibit featuring the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped two atomic bombs on Japan) was circulated among interested parties. 🧵

how come in Japan you can get cool figures of every weird animal ever for literally ~ 2 USD, why can't we be a proper country and have Shrimp Figures

This is it folks, time to see the face of my thesis defense…

My take on the Dungeons and Dragons Tarrasque. Mole Cricket, African Spurred Tortoise, Gila Monster. #dnd #tarrasque

Great news. Nay, the best news. Flickr user and all-around hero grafxmangrafxman has uploaded photos of every single fossil and text graphic from the old NMNH fossil halls. Including many that I had failed to document. I'm ecstatic! Thanks Enzo B for the heads up. www.flickr.com/photos/80431...

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology... Here's some zooms into the packaging art for my Temnodontosaurus coin design. This was for the 2021 Mary Anning Coin Collection, from The Royal Mint & the Natural History Museum. #SciComm #PaleoArt #MaryAnning #Ichthyosaurus #Temnodontosaurus #MarineReptiles

“Rapacious Assault” #paleoart #paleontology #sciart

Old Dunkleosteus terrelli art #paleoart #paleontology #sciart

Old sketch of Rice’s Whale. #whaleart #sciart

New Jurassic avialan Baminornis zhenghensis: www.nature.com/articles/s41... The oldest known avialan with a pygostyle! 🪶🧪 (📷Chen et al.)

Painting from early 2020 - I think i finally started figuring out oil paints at that point Oils on wood - can't remember the size, I don't have it anymore

Today’s random piece of nostalgic palaeoart: Brian Franczak’s Stygimoloch! This painting was one of the very first Stygimoloch reconstructions I ever saw and totally framed the way I imagine this animal. The colour choices are lovely, both for the animals and the environment. (1/4)

Current methods and best practice recommendations for skate and ray (Batoidea) research: capture, handling, anaesthesia, euthanasia, and tag attachment | Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries

Ajji M, J. & Lang, J.W. (2025) Gharial acoustic signaling: Novel underwater pops are temporally based, context-dependent, seasonally stable, male-specific, and individually distinctive. Journal of Anatomy, 00, 1–29. Available from: doi.org/10.1111/joa....