Whenever I see pseudoscientific conspiracy theories about ancient aliens or giant petrified trees or ice age satellites or whatever it drives me crazy because THE EARTH IS COOL ENOUGH JUST AS IT IS! WE DON’T NEED TO REACH FOR REASONS TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING! HAVE YOU SEEN A TULLY MONSTER??!!

Whale evolution makes me uncomfortable

Flirting~ 🩷✨️🦀🎀❤️

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

Some more commensal brittle stars (Ophiothela mirabilis) on a purple octocoral (Leptogorgia rigida). Playa Balandra, La Paz, Baja California. 🦀🦑 #baja #tidepool #echinoderm

Similar fossils from cut Egyptian limestone have been described before so quite possible to be local & Eocene in age. www.livescience.com/16905-ancien...

happy “the iss is as big as a football field” day!!

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

I found this fossil vertebra on the floor of a hotel spa in Egypt! #urbangeology

Welcome little guy! On Thursday @tetrameryx.bsky.social saw this one-hour old pup - someone else filmed the birth just before we got there. 🦑🐬

The finless porpoise is a very "himb face" sort of animal

Happy #FossilFriday from this stupid Xiphactinus that I found last April! She is fresh out od prep and just as ugly as I imagined she would be.

For #FossilFriday just to show that #IsleofWight is so much more than dinosaurs a mammal jaw with roots exposed from the Oligocene some 34 million years ago. From an anthracothere a distant relation of the modern hippopotamus.

#fossilfriday crocodilian tooth in jaw from the Calver Formation. It’s interesting to think about how long of a fossil record crocodilians have in Maryland!

The bulky herbivore, Barylambda faberi, a pantodont from the Paleocene. #FossilFriday ⚒️🧪

Um marlim fóssil, de idade miocenica (mais de +7 milhões de anos atrás) encontrado no Panama, em exibição no Biomuseo, Cidade do Panama. #FossilFriday

#FossilFriday at the University of Alabama Museums' Department of Museum Research & Collections‼️ This nice nautiloid, Cimomia haltomi, found in Paleocene rocks from Alabama shows the infilled air chambers. Found and donated by an avocational paleontologist! 😀 #fossil #paleontology

happy #fossilfriday! this is paleoparadoxia, a desmostylian from the miocene that ranged between japan, alaska, and mexico. desmostylians were hippo-like marine herbivores native to the north pacific, variously recovered as afrotherians or basal perissodactyls (art by @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social)

A horn core tip from a Middle Pleistocene buffalo from Turkana, Kenya for #FossilFriday

Happy #FossilFriday from this pair of Triceratops beaks! We're looking at the underside of the tips of the lower jaw. Interestingly the one on the left has a deep midline cleft, likely due to a congenital defect. Didn't slow this Trike down though, as it lived a long life growing large. 🧪🦕

For #FossilFriday , preserved fur and osteoderms (base for underlying armor) of Darwin's ground sloth, Mylodon darwinii

Happy #FossilFriday! #Beelzebufo, a large frog from the #Cretaceous of #Madagascar, may have eaten baby #dinosaurs. This “devil toad” hops into MOR with Frogs: A Chorus of Colors. The exhibit features living #frogs & fossil #amphibians. Cast donated by Triebold Paleontology Inc.

#fossilfriday Walrus bones from Santa Cruz, California. A partial femur and astragalus (ankle bone) of the early Pliocene (4-5 myo) 'toothless' walrus Valenictus sheperdi from the Purisima Formation. Specimens donated by Dave Landes and Wayne Thompson to Santa Cruz NHM and UCMP. 🐬🦖

A new species of scrub-ox joins North America's Ovibovine diversity during the Pleistocene! Formerly classified as a species of Euceratherium, it is now known as Speleotherium logani.

A bit more refining on this woolly friend! Blender hair is tricky.

Result from the Joggins Formation #paleostream! This Canadian site is an absolute classic and even if you are not familiar with its name you probably know at least one of its major players...

woah!! google photos just reminded me i looked like this 9 years ago!!! come a long way!!!

New museum exhibit incoming. Smilodon scratching post (ignore the old sign, that's for another exhibit hanging overhead)

I teach a science media literacy module in all my courses. It includes knowing the difference between a press release and a reported news story. Here's a really interesting new research paper about public understsanding of that difference! #SciComm 🧪 jcom.sissa.it/article/pubi...

For once, I'm actually remembering to post appropriately for #WormWednesday. A feather duster worm from Anilao. #MarineLife #Invertebrates 🌿

The Helicoprion puzzled scientists for years, who couldn't figure out where to place its spiral-shaped jaw loaded with teeth. Dr. Nathan Lujan (Curator of Fishes) @potamophile.bsky.social sheds some light on this mysterious, extinct shark. Learn more at Sharks, on now through March 22!

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

NEW: Children are developing encephalitis as the South Carolina measles outbreak continues. @emilymullin.bsky.social has more:

The stunning blue eye and throat patch of a Brandt's cormorant (Urile penicillatus) last breeding season. La Jolla, CA. #birding #bird #cormorant #seabird #photography

Seems real bad that the end point of ~25 years of War on Terror architecture is an agency of thin-skinned goons who will send armed men to your house if you email the government asking for compassion on behalf of someone else. newrepublic.com/post/206088/...

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

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in the museum? You’re invited for a peek into the fossil mammals collection to see just some of the amazing animals we look after ⬇️

⛏️ This block of bones was excavated back in 1914 from one of the smallest pits at the #TarPits, Pit 81, and contains numerous fossil bones and shows the amazing density of specimens found in the excavations. Explore more amazing discoveries at TARPITS.org!

Sea cucumbers spend their lives burrowing into and eating mud + sand. But this beautiful species—Enypniastes—is also capable of swimming by slowly undulating the cape-like structure around its top. And it's not a trick of the light: its organs actually glow in the dark, which may deter predators.

Should have just gotten a dog

A hidden Northwest gem Oregon's Harris Beach State Park: soft sand, rocky tide pools, wildlife, and sea stacks. Uncrowded, yet accessible, with modern facilities and yurt camping options. #OregonCoastline #HarrisBeachStatePark #WildlifeReserve © Rob Tilley / SuperStock

Went tidepooling in the dark tonight and saw a rose star! Also a yellow Dorid (I think) and the cutest baby leather star ever. #AlaskaSky

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.

the sea only exists because fish cry a lot

they should make a movie series about how it’s irresponsible to use technology to mess with the natural order of things for profit

I've seen some crazy-amazing shit in Maui but this may be the amazingest! Apparently, it's a Miniature Melo. A marine bubble snail that seems impossibly cool. And it was tiny. TINY! #tidepool #marinelife #nature #amazeballs #love #snails #smallwonders #ocean #alien #colorful #goodnight #nokings

My 14 yo told me today that he read Epstein was responsible for micro transactions in call of duty and I can’t tell if he’s serious or not and I hate that this is our reality now

I've seen fossils in some remarkable places, but this takes the prize: the benthic foram Nummulites in the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. These massive blocks were quarried from the Eocene Mokkatam Formation when a relictual population of woolly mammoths still lived on Wrangel Island.

#MolluscMonday Sectioned specimen of the ammonite Parkinsonia parkinsoni on display in the Enlightenment gallery at the British Museum. This Jurassic fossil was named for the great James Parkinson (1755–1824).