Happy #FossilFriday! This week Dr. Cary Woodruff is visiting #MOR to study the largest animals to walk the Earth, the #sauropods. Here, Woodruff is standing next to the hindlimb of a #Diplodocus (#MOR738) from the #Jurassic #MorrisonFormation of #Wyoming.

The Cenomanian-aged Khodzakul Formation of Uzbekistan has quite a number of fragmentary dinosaur remains, but it's actually a mammal called "Oxlestes grandis" that I find most intriguing about this formation.

allosaurus likely not being the only allosaurid :D the specimen that could prove that not being open to study D:

RECONSTRUCTING A HELL PIG: This really big entelodont snout is possibly the biggest found in North Dakota! To reconstruct it, Amanda laser scanned a smaller skull, then we scaled it up, and 3D printed the missing back half #fossilfriday #scicomm #museums #mammals #fossil

Yes. They’re actually doing this. This is a wonderful study.

Yay!

Today's four random pieces of palaeoart: Sergey Krasovskiy's Tyrannosaurus, Rod Ruth's Struthiomimus, Steve Kirk's Compsognathus, and @caxela.bsky.social's Koreaceratops!

✨️EPISODE #96 GUEST FEATURE✨️ James Napoli @jgn-paleo.bsky.social is a vertebrate paleontologist and evolutionary biologist who studies vertebrate evolution through the lens of intraspecific trait variation. [THREAD ⬇️]

“Abolish all zoos” people will be instantly blocked, unless I have reason to believe you’re joking.

SVP is a really important organization to me, so understand that this is all in effort to make it a safer community space long-term. I may not do much research, but I know a thing or two about community interface and brand management. So those are the skills I’m bringing to this ongoing problem.

wow! a new study by glup and shitto has recovered the alleged mexican tyrannosaur labocania aguillonae as a giant early palaeognath with teeth, hereby renamed labokiwi aguillonae! mind-blowing stuff 🤯🦖 doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101314 (art by @hodarinundu.bsky.social)

Nanotyrannus lancensis wrapping up its pursuit of a prey item. Based on Anthony Hutching’s press release art.

Paleontology just gives weirdness and unveils the non-analogue worlds. New giant sail-backed saurolophine dinosaur from China Gongshuilong fanwei. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

A new saurolophine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of South China, providing further support for the possible Asian origin of Brachylophosaurini: Journal of Systematic Palaeontology: Vol 24 , No 1 - Get Access www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

THANK YOU! I’ve been aware of issues with the peer review system recently. I especially agree with the part about paying the peer reviewers. I think that could help give peer reviewers more incentive to look at flawed papers and offer up constructive criticism.

Timeline cleanse: The gorgeous, masterful fossil photography of Andre Gogol (in collaboration with the Royal Tyrrell Museum collections) #paleontology #photography #paleoart

birds are reptiles

Yeah. I will say that the whole Nanotyrannus debate was probably made out to be a bigger deal than it actually was, and tbf it was a big paleo finding for the decade. But it’s definitely not the biggest U-turn in paleo. I think that goes to birds are dinosaurs and the asteroid extinction findings.

"Monsters Down Under" | Dinosauria Series | Animated Short Film (2026) youtu.be/Sc-RYjjOtNQ?... via @YouTube Another SPECTACULAR video by Dead Sound!

Biggest surprise of #DinosaursAndMOR so far: Yoshi’s Trike (long-horned Triceratops specimen) is WAAAY bigger than I thought! I’ll try to get a pic with me for scale before the conference ends 📍Museum of the Rockies

"They're going to have sex" *two seconds later* "They're going to fight" *two more seconds later* "They're going to have sex" *two more seconds later* "...They're going to do both" *30 seconds later* ".........That was one hella weird mating ritual"

Few discoveries have been quite as ✨️exciting✨️ or contentious for dinosaur paleontology as the #Nanotyrannus debate. Luckily, we got James Napoli, co-author of the Nanotyrannus debate to give his insights and evidence! 🔊 Learn all about Nanotyrannus in episode #96: www.paleonerds.com/podcast/jame...

Man, this sort of framing really frustrates me

Some sabertooth fun for #FossilFriday! A colleague recently asked me what parts of a Smilodon skull that we published on (bit.ly/4dfOInK) were real. CT is the easiest way to detect restoration. Here, the right canine (saber), a carnassial crown, & all lower incisors needed to be restored. ⚔️🦷🐱

Peak here was the first thing I watched in the morning.

Fabulous animation and cinematography of the prehistoric life by the "Dead Sound" studio. 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

Ooh, diagnostic.

For this week's #FossilFriday here's the holotype tooth of Troodon formosus, a specimen that has caused no headaches whatsoever in its long and storied history

Fantastic video about the challenges of identifying species in the fossil record. www.youtube.com/watch?v=myCa...

✨️ HEY IT'S NEW EPISODE DAY ✨️! In our latest episode, Ray and Dave review the evidence with Dr. James Napoli @jgn-paleo.bsky.social, co-author of the new research paper 📝 that resolves the validity of #Nanotyrannus 🦖. 🔊 Listen now! www.paleonerds.com/podcast/jame...

A group of Permian lungfish tooth plates from the Wellington Formation in Waurika, Jefferson County, Oklahoma, USA. I'm not sure what genus these belong to, but they seem closer to the younger aged Ceratodus than to things like Gnathorhiza. #FossilFriday #fish #lungfish #fossil #paleontology

Good morning from @altyellonatpark.org

HOT TAKE THREAD: I DON'T think that paleo docus NEED to explicitly distinguish between 'fact' and 'speculation', and I also don't think 'not presenting speculation as speculation' 'disqualifies' a paleo docu from 'being a docu'. (Shots are from #TheDinosaurs; 1/6)

Australopithcus afarensis skulls fro. Aethiopia for #FossilFriday: is it sexual dimorphism, or are they two different species?

For #FossilFriday have this lovely picture of a baby Protoceratops to accompany this short piece I've written on problems with current trends in publications in science. TLDR: all references in a paper should be cited. It'd fix some problems. archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2026/03/27/t...

#FossilFriday Specimens of the Triassic theropod Coelophysis from Ghost Ranch, NM at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

Sigh. I don't even know you anymore.

Okay, twice so far I’ve seen news sources saying something like “T. rex wasn’t the king of dinosaurs/unchallenged” or “the story’s been rewritten”. T. rex was still an apex predator, the largest one in its ecosystem (and it’s not even close), just perhaps not the only one.

To be clear, I don’t cry over animals that went extinct millions of years ago due to natural causes. That’s not why I’m saying this. But like, it’s just an overgrown millipede. You’d be fine if it were alive today.

I think it’s silly to be “thankful” that an animal is extinct just because “ooh scary”. You literally share this planet with multiple species that kill hundreds if not thousands of people a year. You wouldn’t say you’d be thankful if they disappeared. I hope.

This little piggy went to the dentist. Unfortunate for the dentist. #sciart #paleoart #blender

The first #Nanotyrannus skull was discovered in 1942 by a Cleveland Museum of Natural History team led by David Dunkle in Montana. Legend has it that Dunkle simply walked over to a hoodoo and popped it off the top. 🎨 Art by Ray Troll. 🔊 Learn more in episode #96: www.paleonerds.com/podcast/jame...

I like how even though “Deinodon” is a dubious tyrannosaur genus, the word still gets to be the species name of a raptorial sperm whale (Acrophyseter deinodon).

Love in the Time of Cryptarcus doesn’t have quite the same punch to it, does it?

Novas informações sobre o holótipo de “Chasmosaurus” russelli (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae) tornam necessária o estabelecimento de um novo gênero para abrigar a espécie cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/...

#FossilFriday musings: A recent revisiting of a 2021 paper on #mammoth genetics, and the recent uptick in Colossal talk in the paleo community has got me thinking about some stuff. A brief thread: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The tooth features a notable twist of the mesial carinae which is unusual for theropods in this region. While associated and commonly seen in coelurosaurs, noasaurids I believe can also have this condition. These are occasionally seen amongst common abelisaurids and young carcharodontosaurid teeth.

A dinosaur tooth of an indeterminate theropod, possibly a coelurosaur from the Kem Kem Group in Morocco. It's hard to say what this tooth belongs to. Megaraptorans are a possibility, as are dromaeosaurids and basal coelurosaurs. #FossilFriday #dinosaur #fossil #paleontology #theropod

I'm just gonna say of the current Bigfoot situation: I honestly think at this point, belief in Bigfoot and other cryptids like it existing is as faulty pseudoscience as creationism and shed no tears for anyone heartbroken at the revalation.

I wanted to add to an example he gives in this video, because if he can talk about the nitty gritty of it, so can I. He mentions bobcats vs coyotes. Although bobcats can successfully defend themselves and their food from coyotes, coyotes can kill bobcats.