We should not live in fear, but we should all be terrified by the lapse of New START, which was a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the US & Russia. Now there are no longer any limits to nuclear arsenals, and this may very likely precipitate a 2nd Cold War. www.npr.org/2026/02/04/n...

I gotta say though... they've known about this person's behavior for *decades*. I first heard rumours of it on my first trip to the US in 2005! Why would they act now, rather than that time he married *his own undergrad?*

Regarding events of last week in SVP and the wider vertebrate paleontology community.

Newest watercolor is Torvosaurus. Even the biggest carnivore still gets harassed by hungry pterosaurs wanting some spoils. #paleoart #watercolor 🦖

Prehistoric Planet-inspired Tarbosaurus. Commission for a private client. #paleoart #sciart #dinosaur #tarbosaurus #prehistoricplanet

happy #FossilFriday. It is very early in the year and I already have a favorite paper with the newly described Haolong. HOWEVER, this is *not* a feathered dinosaur! The structures on Haolong are very different from filaments. A 🧵

A pair of fragmentary fossilized teeth of a giant beaver or Castoroides dilophidus from Columbia County, Florida, USA. This extinct beaver genus lived alongside American beavers that are still around today. #FossilFriday #synapsid #mammal #fossil #paleontology #castoroides #beaver #rodent

Finally, another fuzzy ornithischian: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... This is a big deal for dinosaur #paleoart, confirming some of what we've been doing for a while now, but also showing that we've probably underestimated how weird the integuments of these animals could be.

Happy #FossilFriday everybody! Today The Crew is celebrating with a #livestream at 9:00pm Eastern to discuss the trailer for the newly announced #Netflix documentary The Dinosaurs, featuring rarely or never before seen Mesozoic critters, environments and behaviors.

Maybe a bit late for web timing, but ehy, NEW PAPER ON #fossilfriday!!! I am proud to present you Haolong dongi gen. nov. sp. nov., a new hadrosauroid from the Early Cretaceous of China! The specimen, almost complete, is a juvenile iguanodontian from the Yixian Formation of the Barremian (125 Mya).

Looks like we're going to see Yutyrannus depicted as a sauropod hunter as well.

VOLUNTEER ON A DINOSAUR DIG: We run one of the only free dinosaur digs in the USA. We work public land and the fossils go in our public museum, forever. It's hard work, but we find some cool things. If this sounds like you, we're taking applications. Link in comms. #dinosaurs

Finally, I can break silence! I did a lot of creature design work for this show (collaborating, of course, with the production team) and think the animals are looking pretty good here! This was a lot of fun to work on - will be watching on Mar. 6! www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4ZB...

SVP Members! I encourage you to join today's town hall on zoom at 12PM ET, and demand that leadership take action to protect our members and attendees at the 2026 Annual Meeting in Cleveland, in light of recent developments regarding the Epstein Files and what occurred at the 2024 Meeting in MN.

You can read my breakdown of the Horner - Epstein contact timeline starting with this comment: www.reddit.com/r/Paleontolo... You can read a shorter summary of my conclusions here: www.reddit.com/r/Paleontolo... Screenshot of the short summary below.

3 hours ago, I shared my results of having combed through ~470 DOJ Epstein files that mention Jack Horner, his MSU email, or "Dinochicken". I posted a copy, w/ screenshots and receipts, to r/Paleontology. It has been pinned by moderators and thus far viewed 38k times. www.reddit.com/r/Paleontolo...

I’ll give @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social another chance for them to do the right thing. Their response was clearly irritating, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that MAYBE, they just want to evaluate this more thoroughly before they take action? I guess.

I've heard there's a meeting for @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social tomorrow. Hopefully they're planning on responding to this in more earnest than their email this morning.

Nanotyrannus (1:1) wip #dinosaur #paleoart #sciart

ok nerds i've been unable to find an answer to this: what kind of mutation has caused this gorgeous asiatic black bear to look like a chonky lion

I'll play your game: As an active member who regularly makes financial contributions to the society, I demand a thorough and TRANSPARENT investigation into the actions of Jack Horner of Chapman University, and that measures be taken to protect our members/colleagues while investigation is ongoing.

Is @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social being serious here? No, the presence of a name on an email doesn't establish wrongdoing. But the *content* of those emails is what so many members, including myself, are outraged about. This response does nothing but further degrade my confidence in SVP leadership

CANNIBALISM OF AN ADULT TYRANNOSAUR BY A JUVENILE: Our new study on a Badlands Dinosaur Museum fossil reveals dinosaur cannibalism where a juvenile tyrannosaur feasted on the carcass of a dead adult! 3D reconstructions supervision Yu Xin, designer Shen Li, sculptor Liang Junwei /1

Three indeterminate crocodylomorph teeth from the Csehbánya Formation in Veszprém County, Hungary. The teeth possibly belong to either cf. Allodaposuchus sp. or cf. Theriosuchus sp. #FossilFriday #crocodylomorph #fossil #paleontology #allodaposuchus #theriosuchus

Another from the era who wasn't creepy was John Ostrom.

Julian Huxley (1887–1975), an evolutionary biologist. The first director of UNESCO, and one of the founding members of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Also, a long-sitting president of the British Eugenics Society, even after WW2, he connected socioeconomic class with genetics.

Nathaniel Shaler (1841-1906). Professor of paleontology and geology at Harvard. Pro-Slavery Aryan supremacist (continuing idea of polygenism), known for writing pieces such as "The [N-word] Problem" for the Atlantic.

Georges Cuvier, the French "founding father of paleontology". Establishing ideas of extinction and naming first prehistoric animals, such as Pterodactylus. Also, promotor of scientific racism, propagating own ideas while experimenting on Sarah Baartman, a young South African Khoikhoi woman.

Marie Stopes, the first female academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester. A palaeobotanist, founded the first birth control clinic in Britain and idea of "family planning". Vocal supporter of eugenics and race improvement.

Henry De la Beche, the first director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. A palaeontologist cited for creating one of first pieces of palaeoart, Duria Antiquior. Owner of Sugar Plantation, Halse Hall in Jamaica, and 200 enslaved people.

William Buckland, responsible for naming Megalosaurus. Below communicating the need for women to not attend academic lectures in Oxford, where he was a lecturer (and relied on his wife to transcribe, illustrate his own papers, and curate geological collections)

Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, founder of their Museum of Comparative Zoology, and promotor of an idea of an "ice age". Also, vocal supporter of a racist idea of "polygenism" (pictured) and promoting scientific racism.

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), responsible for coining terms such as phylum, phylogeny, ontogeny. An advocate of scientific racism. Sporting proto-Nazi Social Darwinist views. Honorary invited member of the German Society for Racial Hygiene.

This thread is a great reminder that a lot of people who were highly influential to paleontology were horrible human beings. The world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, after all.

Founders of modern paleontology, and their contributions to systemic racism, classism and sexism (🧵) Henry Osborn (1857–1935), responsible for naming of Tyrannosaurus & Velociraptor; president of ANHM. Co-founder of the American Eugenics Society. Contributing to books later praised by Hitler.

Alickmeron Sen & Ray, 2025 is an objective junior synonym of Alwalkeria Chatterjee & Creisler, 1994 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I mean... not *that* surprising, in retrospect, people.com/celebrity/ja...

Filing this under "well, clearly all the signs were there but I guess I didn't expect him to be LITERALLY hanging out with Epstein"

As if Horner couldn't get any worse than marrying his 19-year old student at 70...and then this comes up.

This dude’s been on my shitlist ever since I was six years old for suggesting that Tyrannosaurus Rex was exclusively a scavenger, so I can’t help but feel a little vindicated here

I think one Redditor put it best: wasn’t expecting any paleontologist to be involved with *Epstein*, but if you had to guess which one…

Completely unsurprising as many have already said. Begging MOR to distance themselves from Horner's legacy akin to what AMNH has done with Henry Osborn.

Message from a friend that could be useful: the SVP has a committee of ethics, to which you can report unethical conducts, if you're upset about the whole thing feel free to let them know about it by including emails or any piece of information/proof about the case⬇️ vertpaleo.org/protocols-fo...

You didn't include some of the most ick ones www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

Jack Horner being in the Epstein files is not something I had on my bingo card for 2026.... Horner seemingly visited Epstein's ranch multiple times, including apparently with a student.

Honestly, between being exposed as bing tied to Jeffery Epstein and the Tyrannosaurus ontogny model being invalidated by "Nano", the universe is really trying to destroy Jack Horner's legacy - as it should be.

Remember, this is before Epstein's arrest and conviction. Searching for funding is difficult. I only learned that I was dealing with Nazis by comments made right before they left.....No Nazis T-shirts... I changed my mind right there, about seeking sponsorship of our our highly underfunded research.

Jack Horner in the Epstein File trying to raise money to fund dinosaur research. When I discovered we had rich nazis on our dig in 2008, I dropped them like a rancid turd; ask Don. There will never be a Trumpasaurus with my name attached! @paleontologizing.bsky.social @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social

Video for the other Morrison Formation megavolume paper I'm on is up! youtu.be/GW1raha_qRA

Okay I don’t watch most of GojiCenter’s videos, but I recommend giving this one a watch. It’s an interesting what if scenario with a surprising ending. youtu.be/E5vXkpseaNo?...