#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! ♥️🦬♥️🦬♥️🦬

For #FossilFriday a few iconic dinosaur tracks from the St George Dinosaur Discovery Site a Johnson Farm when discovered. Of course, Dr. Shelden Johnson's initial discovery block. @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social @paleontologizing.bsky.social @jeremybroberts.bsky.social @tetzoo.bsky.social

Our preparator (Dan Large) shared this on FB: Alright paleo peeps this #fossilfriday is a question for the hive mind…. WHAT IS THIS?? . This was tentatively ID’d as a theropod hip bone in the field… . Oldman Formation, Montana. . I agree w/ Denver Fowler, it looks *very* familiar...

‪Juvenile Triceratops skull diagram #sciart #paleoart

I watch all these Cold War documentaries, & I'm always blown away by the interviews with people who knew in that moment that they were witnessing history. Like a switch, they just knew. The shameful temper tantrum of Trump and Vance against Zelensky...we've just watched history.

(photo of me this morning after FINALLY being fast enough, and winning this wonderful Camarasaurus piece by @SerpenIllus 🤣)

It's been an awesome few days for sauropodomorph research! 1) Paleobio & histology of S African sauropodomorphs by Toefy et al. 2) An update on the Argentinian sauropodomorph Leyesaurus by Peyre de Fabrègues et al. 🧵

Vert morphologists today:

The fact I'm posting something about a theropod should signify the importance enough - but a L Jur Pygostylia?!?! I know the phylogeny (DON'T @ ME INTERNET!), but a "real" "bird"?! Secretly, I *LOVE* that "birds" have a much longer history than several dino clades 🥰

A very cool new 🦕paper led by Adams et al! Among the most famous of dinosaur tracks, the 'swimming sauropod' tracks collected by RT Bird from Texas in 1940 aren't actually swimming traces according to this new study! ('25 is shaping up to be a year for cool 🦕trace studies...)

Some sad paleo news today: Dave Gillette, who named "Seismosaurus" (Diplodocus) hallorum, has passed away. Dave was an incredibly kind & generous individual, and he had a great impact on sauropod & Morrison Formation research. Dave, you will be greatly missed. 🦕😢

THIS! I get asked about "gentle giants" A MILLION times - and my answer is always the same: "Yeah, sauropods were probably real dicks." 🤣

89 seconds to midnight 😳😱⚛️ In over 70 years, this is the closest to midnight the Doomsday Clock has EVER been. This is completely unacceptable to humanity and all life on Earth. Please speak out. Please elect officials who want to reduce the risk of saving us and our planet.