A *GREAT* new sauropod cervical ligament system paper just dropped. 🧵 Gonna start with the paper: Williams, A.R., & Harris, J.D. (2025). Cervical ligament systems in sauropod dinosaurs: what support is there? Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology 13: 81–97. doi.org/10.18435/vam...

NO!!!! The New Safe Confinement was supposed to last 100 years! 😭😭😭😭 Make Putin *bleed* *every* penny! www.cnn.com/2025/12/06/e...

Check out our cover article by @timjanicke.bsky.social and colleagues about the role of sexual selection in animal speciation. academic.oup.com/evlett/artic.... The beautiful illustration is by Katharina Bóth.

For #FossilFriday, my *secret project* that I've been dying to share with y'all is finally here! 🥁🥁🥁🥁 HUNTER! Or, more specifically, Hunter the Dino-Digging Dog! 🧵

Hunter's favorite category is the Sporting Group. 🐕🏆 @TheNatlDogShow

AGH! I forgot to post it for #FossilFriday, but yesterday, my review of the book "Balancing a Sauropod: The Physiology of a Dinosaur" came out in The Quarterly Review of Biology. 2 second synopsis: Did I like it? No, I did not. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

I have laughed at this WAY more than I should! The satire in this is 🤌🏆

I knew going into A House of Dynamite that I was gonna cry. But never *THAT* that much. And I think about this subject. *A LOT*. Kathryn Bigelow, @netflix.com, @nti.org, bravo! This is an *exceptional* 'wake up' film. Please watch it. And please get everyone you know to watch it.

We have a GREAT sauropod-themed #FossilFriday with two awesome studies that came out this week! 🧵

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUNTER!!!!!! The big man turns **6** today! **SIX** Seems like just yesterday he was small enough to be my carry-on....😅 Here's to my love and the bestest boy on his bestest day, and may it be filled with tennis balls and cheeseburgers!

For #FossilFriday, it's a *NEW PACHYCEPHALOSAURID*(!), and a project that is very near and dear to my heart. Let's welcome #Brontotholus_harmoni!

After we published the new specimen of #Spicomellus a few weeks ago, we were contacted by George Blasing, who said he'd bought some on the commercial market, and wanted to return it to Morocco. It arrived last week. Thanks George for doing the right thing in the name of science!

#ZAVACEPHALE IS FINALLY OUT! 🥳 Our first definitive Early Cretaceous pachycephalosaur! (~15 my older than the previous oldest pachycephalosaurs) And the first hand material for the clade! I can't tell y'all how much of a pleasure it was to review this paper! ☺️

Phil and co. have found *EVEN MORE* of the #Prenocephale holotype?!?!?! @MongoliaQuest

We took the paywall down on this one. defector.com/how-the-fuck...

For #FossilFriday some more images from the discovery & study of the new Spicomellus skeleton. An amazingly fun project with great people.

Reposting this because with all of the wonderful #Spicomellus news, riding Frank the donkey around the Moroccan badlands (ok, right around the house...) was unequivocally the highlight of the entire dig for me 😅 x.com/i/status/165...

Out today in Nature is the most exciting dinosaur paper I've ever been involved in - led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social we describe a partial skeleton of the UTTERLY BIZARRE Spicomellus from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco, the oldest known ankylosaur. (1/x) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It's already blowing up on the paleo sphere, but let's welcome another #Spicomellus post! (reconstruction by the insanely talented @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

Listen to the seagull!!

*THIS* is a story I want to know more about! 😨

For #FossilFriday we recently imaged a bunch of microfossils with a Keyence microscope at @univmiami.bsky.social, & this #Troodon tooth was one of my favorites! Their teeth are something...but under such high mag, they really are wicked, and "wounding tooth" is certainly an appropriate name!

Hunter *LOVES* pools. Hunter *HATES* sharing pools. 🤣

NEW PAPER DAY! 🥳I'll start by sharing the OPEN ACCESS paper: 🧵 www.app.pan.pl/article/item...

I will never NOT be amazed by 3D tanystropheid or azhdarchid cervicals 😮 bioone.org/journals/Pal...

New paper day! Phil Bell led a great study on some *INSANELY COOL* titanosaur tracks our expedition found in Mongolia. The scales in particular are extra awesome - they're like little pyramids, and they *may* have helped with scratch digging and/or walking on sandy surfaces!

Well, if you ever wondered what it's like to vomit/shit with disgust/rage, here's some light reading that will elicit that response: www.cnn.com/2025/07/07/p...

In a democracy, government employees can voice respectful dissent to their leadership. But today, EPA leadership retaliated against its own employees for expressing disagreement w/ the admin’s actions & policy directions. Punishing gov't employees for this expression is an alarming development. 🧵

I'm a few days late, but NEW PAPER day! 🥳 This paper is a synthesis on our current knowledge about Diplodocoidea (Diplodocus and kin) - ranging from their paleo history, life history, appearance, behavior, so much more.

It's a Saurischian-airport kind of day....

Obligatory* selfie with #Brachiosaurus at #ORD. (* any photo with a sauropod is a good photo)

Yes, nonproliferation across the board. But the 'leader of the free world' openly saying that "we" won't kill Iran's Supreme Leader "for now"?! 😬 Could you imagine that comment being said about Trump from any other leadership in the world?! www.bbc.com/news/live/cx...

"Humans are imperfect, so nuclear near-misses and accidents are a fact of life for as long as these weapons exist." @nukestrat.bsky.social, @mattkorda.bsky.social, @elianajjohns.bsky.social and @alliemaloney.bsky.social of @scientistsorg.bsky.social have the latest: wapo.st/4jK0VjO

Buckle up paleo folks! An epic sauropod paper has just dropped. I got a sneak peak last week for a media preview, but the implications and importance of this paper really cannot be stressed enough! 🧵

Millions of birds nest in the Arctic each year. But did you know they’ve been doing this since the Cretaceous? Can’t believe I finally get to share that our paper on the birds of the Prince Creek Formation is out in ‪@science.org (and on the cover)! 🧵 Art: Gabriel Ugueto ‪@serpenillus.bsky.social

I'm a few days late, but my goodness! Look at the exceptional skull of the new eusauropod #Jinchuanloong_niedu by Li et al! LOOK AT IT!!!! I'd wager you don't have too many more fingers & toes than we have great 🦕 skulls, & #Jinchuanloong's is definitely top tier 🏆

🤩🤩🤩🤩

Hunter is **very** disappointed that he can't get any more peanut butter out of the jar 🤣

For #FossilFriday, I want to point out this image from Matt Dempsey's new paper. While this is meant to be an abstract visualization based on avian neck volumes (blue) & non-avian sauropsids (green), I 100% buy it! We should be reconstructing sauropods with **much** thicker necks!

EXTREMELY important new paper by Plotnick et al. on the job prospectus of paleontology in the US. We don't want to sound like harbingers of doom, nor turn away excited students who want to be paleontologists...but this is exactly the kind of info & realities they need to know. 🧵

oh.....the boat has been rocked.... and I, for one, am ready for the ride 🤣 bioone.org/journals/bul...

@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social - The preprint posted by Saitta et al. infringes copyright in Fig 1 and contains a number of statements that are probably libelous (I'm consulting). At the very least it contains unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks. Please remove it.

corythosaurus

OK…I know. This is a preprint. Not peer-reviewed/not the final version/all of that & etc. So, we shouldn’t be discussing any of the science or results at-large… (/many)

I woke up and chose violence... 😂

New diplodocoid day!!!! 🦕🥳🦕🥳🦕🥳 Welcome the rebbachisaurid #Cienciargentina_sanchezi by Simón & Salgado (2025)! Look at that gorgeous 'shark fin' neural spine! 😍 And that sharp podl - that's a mantle, not a lamina! 😂

Resource alert for all evolutionary biology teachers: get your students playing with OneZoom, a fabulous visualisation of the tree of life from @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social Warning - it's addictive. 🧪 #academicsky 🌍🌳 www.onezoom.org

Dan Large sent me this one, and it is too good not to share!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I know I'm behind in posting 🦕 news, but this is great news for the American 🦬: The study of Stroupe et al (2025) finds that after 120 years of conservation efforts, 🦬 in Yellowstone Nat. Park are a single breeding population! I can't say enough how much I love our national mammal! ♥️🦬♥️🦬♥️🦬