This morning's Otago Daily Times. I'm not sure what a cyclone journey is, though 😂.

David Casper worked so hard to make that happen. As an Academy staff, access to the blue whale and the distinct sadness that it was not accessible due to earthquake safety closure of the courtyard and hall of birds made it a key design requirement for the new building in almost every design charet.

A blue whale skeleton @ Fort Funston that was damaged due to being buried too long was not suitable for similar articulation. It did provide source ribs to cast and fill in a few missing rib bones for this one at UCSC SDC back in 1999. Took years to get the blue at Cal. Academy of Sciences back up.

#whalewednesday A couple of weeks ago I visited my old friend the blue whale at the UC Santa Cruz Seymour Discovery Center. It's been partially taken down as the skeleton is currently under desperately needed restoration. 🐬

Very, very happy that our paper is finally out! We look at how tight a fit primates experience at birth, and found really cool results. It has been a long journey from collecting the first data seven years ago! A brief thread (1/8) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#toothtuesday A 31 million year old molar of a tiny toothed baleen whale (likely Fucaia buelli) emerges from a concretion after a few days in an acid bath. Specimen from the Makah Formation of Washington, made available for study by Jim Goedert. 🐬🦖

And here it is! The finalized art piece I commissioned my friend Riamus, which we call "Deadliest Duo". Many thanks to him, but also thanks to Tyler Greenfield, Cetology Hub, and Evoincarnate (on Twitter) for acting as consultants for animal body shape. What exactly is this? Thread below 🧵

#MolluskMonday in the books with a large ammonite. There's a whole debate over whether the holes sometimes found in their conchs represent mosasaur bite marks, or alternatively, homing scars from hitchhiking limpets, but this row looks somewhat convincing in the tooth-or-consequences department. ⚒️🧪

#molluskmonday I recently visited a new (to me) Purisima Formation exposure that didn't have much in the way of vertebrates, but was chock full of giant slipper snails, Grandicrepidula princeps - I must have seen thousands. I've never seen so many before in my life. 🦖🦑

This was also once a temporary structure put up for a fair. Just saying.

Watercolor painting of Brown Garden Eels, Heteroconger longissimus, for Sunday Fish Sketch. #sciart #coralreefs #marinelife #worldwatercolormonth #worldwatercolormonth2026 #sundayfishsketch

A ratfish for #SundayFishSketch - Hydrolagus collei. Working my way through a PNW field guide while at FHL

A few weeks ago I sat bolt upright in bed with this image in my mind as if imparted upon me by the coelacanth deity themself. Happy pride! Available as a sticker in my shop!

Scientists are implementing multiple strategies to protect heat-stressed kelp forests, including urchin population management and transplanting heat-hardy kelp varieties to address ocean warming impacts. https://goodlede.com/story/effortstosavekelpforestsfromoceanwarmingarerampingup

Took my interns on a tour of some offsite collections last week and I must inform you that a lot of creatures have real weird skulls.

Recently discovered this secrete tidefall on the northern California coast 😌

‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios

Whales of the Diamantina Necropolis! ft. Andrews’ Beaked Whale, Sei Whale, Izikoziphius, Strap-toothed Whale, Pterocetus and Antarctic Minke Whale. #paleoart

A short 🧵on our 2023 research on the ~23-30 myo fossil dolphin Xenorophus and early toothed whales. We described a LOT of skulls and skeletons, were able to assess growth variation, pathology, swimming adaptations, tooth wear, feeding adaptations, and name a new species, X. simplicidens. 1/

Have you ever explored the #Charleston Marine Life Center? It's a must-visit destination on the Southern #OregonCoast, where marine science and Indigenous knowledge come together to inspire a deeper understanding of our ocean and coastal ecosystems. www.ijpr.org/podcast/the-... #marinescience

Y'all - the Smithsonian is hiring three new curators - herpetology, ichthyology, and ornithology! Notably, this is a 2nd fish curator position - i.e., not the same as the one advertised last month. So if you applied for that one apply again. www.usajobs.gov/job/873849000

Iris Agate: the layers of quartz do some kind of dispersion or refraction to cause a rainbow effect

The Lonely Race to Save Ukraine’s Past - bioGraphic www.biographic.com/the-lonely-r...

#fossilfriday New blog post! I intended to publish this one a couple years ago: part III of my series on the Oligocene dolphin Xenorophus. all about ontogeny, feeding adaptations, locomotion, asymmetry, and phylogeny of Xenorophus, and much more: coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-...

#Tyrannosaur hand claw? Found 2 hrs ago, live on @Paleontologizin. From US public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. #dinosaur park Fm, 76 million yrs old, Montana. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs. Badlands Dinosaur Museum, Dickinson ND. Loads of good fossils today!

Today for the #FossilFriday I have some #Aotearoa #NewZealand fossils we worked on- country is home to Fantastic a fossil record of Insects, including exquisitely preserved Foulden Maar Fossils and Otago ambers. Oldest "bloodworms" (Chironomus) fossils come from NZ. Paper links in Alt text 🦖🛠️🦟

#FossilFriday First appearing in the fossil record a mere 700K years after Chicxulub, the wolf-sized triisodontid mesonychian Eoconodon is the oldest known mammalian apex predator.

#FossilFriday: Psiloceras planorbis from the Lower Lias of Watchet in Somerset. From the collection of geologist and surveyor William Smith (1769–1839), purchased by @nhm-london.bsky.social in 1816.

#FossilFriday In honor of #SurvivingEarth, the stem-primate Plesiadapis @amnh.org

Happy #FossilFriday! Check out these cast lower and upper jaws of Procoptodon, the giant, short-faced kangaroo of #Australia, at the Science Museum of Minnesota! One species (P. goliah) could get over 8 feet tall! These herbivores went extinct about 45,000 yrs ago, possibly due to human hunting.

wandered off from the quarry yesterday just to find a pelvis and hindlimb of a phytosaur waiting for its turn. Here is the tibia. #fossilfriday #triassicpark 🧪🦖

This #FossilFriday, go face to snout with Futabasaurus suzukii at the wonderful Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep now on @nhm-london.bsky.social. This long necked Plesiosaur is from the Cretaceous of Japan and is a beautifully mounted centrepiece of the exhibition!

For #FossilFriday: the Charlotte Whale, a fossil beluga found in the Champlain Valley in Vermont and now in the Perkins Geology Museum at UVM

Manuscript accepted 🥰

🦐

Generally speaking, polls have shown the Democratic Party's problem is not being seen as too woke, but weak and ineffective. Judging by tonight's primary results, Democratic Primary voters are intent on fixing this www.gelliottmorris.com/p/new-poll-d...

Disappointing night for those of us who believe Republican lawyers should be in charge of the Democratic Party

george conway lost by a bajillion votes which we can all agree is fucking hilarious

#SciArt Spotlight 🐗 Florida Oligocene Art in our Florida Fossils exhibit helps to illustrate what Florida might have looked like as the sea levels dropped and animals migrated to this newly exposed land. 🗝️ Check out the art + key: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/exhibits/blo... 🖼️: by Carl Buell

Employees at Scientific American were told today that the magazine has been sold to LabX Media Group, the outfit that runs Discover Magazine and IFLScience. And that means -- of course! -- editorial layoffs. The media mass extinction rolls ever onward.

Some dreamy shots of a moon jelly (Aurelia aurita) at the Birch Aquarium in San Diego. 🦑

aw yes I thought I recognized him

So far, the theme of my 2026 publications seems to be "fish making poor life choices." 🧪 In this example, we have multiple blastoid specimens that seem to preserve partially healed fish bite marks: www.scup.com/eprint/AQIF3...

Both totally unnecessary and extremely funny that the Guardian has an interactive graphic for you to change the color of the US flag's blue to the color of the Reflecting Pool from 8 to 19 June and counting

I took some awkward photos of a harbor seal yawning 😴 La Jolla, CA. 🐬🦑

Angular unconformity north of Yaquina Head, Oregon. Pleistocene terrace deposits over Miocene Astoria Formation. ⚒️

Happy #fathersday to my dad - on Thursday I went with him to Sonoma where he gave a talk in the Sonoma Barracks (an 1820s adobe) about the Mexican bandido Joaquin Murrieta in his new book, "Bring me the head of Joaquin Murrieta".

Loads of kelp washed up from the rough surf in Santa Cruz this week - I found this 5 myo fossil whale rib pulled to shore by this oarweed (Laminaria sinclairii) that had attached its holdfast to it! This bone eroded out of the Purisima Formation. 🦑🐬🦀

One of those sea lions almost eat the president

Venus emerging from behind the Moon after being occulted for an hour by the Moon on June 17, 2026. Clouds made it difficult to photograph but in the end, they added to the scene. #astrophotography #astronomy #venusmoon