Spiny friends! Stegosaurs bore a fantastical variety of bony plates, spines and osteoderms, probably a mix between ornamental, defensive and offensive.

Shelter cats. I visited the animal shelter at Lohja, southern Finland, in preparation for an upcoming book project. Despite decades of work, cats still end up in shelters in shocking numbers. I’m not usually a cat person but seeing these poor guys, I might have taken a few home with me if I could.

Wake me up when spring comes, please.

Phew, finally done with the introductions! It took almost three weeks this time, but all the big boy rats have now accepted the newcomers. There doesn't seem to be any rule to the varying difficulty of rat introductions. It can take a couple of ours or a month - just roll the dice and try.

I haven’t had much time for drawing anything personal lately, but here’s a quick doodle of my rat Hönö, who curled into this seemingly very uncomfortable position and then promptly fell asleep using himself as a pillow.

Beginning of the Polar Night. It's this time of the year again - sun barely rises and is most of the time obscured by clouds. Back in the Cretaceous, Arctic winters would have been even darker and greyer: warmer climate meant little snow, and studies suggest a permanent polar cloud cap. Poor dinos.

Spiny friends! Stegosaurs bore a fantastical variety of bony plates, spines and osteoderms, probably a mix between ornamental, defensive and offensive.

Tulkaa tällä viikolla moikkaamaan kirjamessuille! 😊 If you happen to be around Helsinki this week, come meet me and @villesinkkonen.bsky.social at the book fair!

These are seriously wonderful books with so many talented artists featured! I'm honored (and still a bit amazed) to be featured in part II.

Pet rat update: we have new babies! 💗 These adorable little boys moved in a week ago. I’ve been getting to know them, trying to think of names and slowly introducing them to the big boys. It has been a bit more of a hassle than anticipated. A little thread on introducing new pets to older ones.

Our new book of nonfiction comics is out now! 🎉 In English: www.arador.info/mindofdog In Finnish: www.arador.info/koiranmieli Created by the same scientist-artist team as the multiple-award-winning book "The Mind of a Horse. Science Meets Comics" 🏆 #dogs #pets #animals #nonfiction #comics

Nyt se on ilmestynyt! 🎉 Loistava lahjaidea tai iloksi itselle. Sopii aikuisille ja nuorille. Katso näytesivuja suomenkielisestä kirjasta: www.arador.info/koiranmieli Check out sample pages of the English-language book: www.arador.info/mindofdog #koirat #lemmikit #eläimet #tietokirjat #sarjakuvat

Goblins behind a screen of feathers, old and new. Since living dinosaurs look somewhat unhinged without their feathers, the same was probably true of their ancient non-avian cousins, such as Velociraptor. #Sciart

The earth has reached its first catastrophic tipping point linked to greenhouse gas emissions, with warm water coral reefs now facing a long-term decline and risking the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, according to a new report. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

October moths Even now it’s not too late to cling to the last remnants of summer and go looking for moths. These are some of the species that can still be seen in Finland & elsewhere in Northern Europe, drawn after my own photos.

Pet rat update! Today, I’d like to introduce Elmo, one of the six-month old teenagers. He’s not only very cute, but also has some interesting genetics – a homeobox mutation, temperature-dependent albinism, and a complex ancestry. Here's a thread on pet rat genetics.

"Similar radiocarbon dates for woolly mammoth and woolly rhino fossils from the same sites imply the presence of both faunas during this period." 🦣🦏🦛

Nähdään parin viikon päästä Kirjamessuilla!

Drepanosaurs have such character! Drepanosaurus, a Late Triassic arboreal reptile not closely related to anything living today. #Sciart

I missed World Animal Day, but here in Finland, it's an entire theme week. This year, it's about the welfare of small furry pets: rodents and rabbits. They make amazing pets when treated right - but they are not the "easy" children's pets often thought. Could also be #Rattober 1 - Friend-shaped rat

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Well, looking at this! I went hunting for wild truffles and brought this truffle-scented tissue for the rats. Taika's first idea was to grab it and bring it to me. Taika has such a keen interest in mushrooms I'm sure he would be an excellent searcher if I could take him into the woods safely.

Sad news: the kakapo population is down to 237 after a female bird called Solstice died of an infection. According to the Kakapo Recovery Facebook page, she had • 8 clutches • 24 eggs laid • 13 fertile eggs • 6 chicks hatched • 4 living offspring • 27 descendants

A lovely story about Dr Jane Goodall's career & legacy, from Rachel Fieldhouse & Mohana Basu, in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41.... Includes some comments from me about how researchers _can also_ be advocates and science communicators, and still be taken seriously (I hope)! Vale, Jane.

Another Triassic oddball: Hypuronector. This little one looks like he has an attitude. Since the publication of a feather-like crest on related Mirasaura, it’s plausible to imagine other drepanosaurs also having something similar - perhaps they just haven’t been preserved.

I hope people spend days and days talking about her (she is 10,000,000 times more important than Charlie Kirk) and the amazing work she did. This photo will always be so powerful and as defining of who we all can be. Be like Jane Goodall. Photographer: Hugo van Lawick

What a terrible loss: Jane Goodall has died.

Selasin Meranon ja @persut.bsky.social pamfletin Suomen tiederahoituksesta (oikeasti: Akatemiasta). Kansi sanoo ”analyysi”, mutta pamfletti on osuvampi, ja kun kirjoittaja on sitä käyttänyt, mennään sillä. Luin nopsaan = ehkä jotain meni ohi, mutta nämä kantsii kirjoittaa selkeästi. 🧶

The Triassic was a time of weird reptiles of every description. This is one of the more recent finds: Mirasaura from France. It's one of the drepanosaurs, an odd group of arboreal reptiles with superficially bird-like heads and, in some cases, equally superficially feather-like appendages.

#SciArtSeptember 29 - Foresight On the darkest days of environmental and political news, one might find solace in weird things. Sometimes, I look at my pet rats and think "well, whatever happens, you guys will still be around in the future."

#SciArtSeptember 24 - Numbered The kakapo is one of the few species on the planet whose population is known exactly. After nearly going extinct, they have been intensively protected and managed for decades. After the recent death of Lisa, who was at least 50 years old, there are now 238 kakapos.

63 years ago, on the 27th of September 1962, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was published. It handled the environmental harm caused by the pesticide DDT and the disinformation spread by the chemical industry. Carson managed to sway public opinion and even policy. #otd #history 🗃️

Cheers from the edge of a crater! This is lake Lappajärvi, an impact crater formed in the Late Cretaceous, 78 million years ago. It’s fascinating to imagine dinosaurs roaming Finland at the time. There’s a lakeside resort literally called ”Stone Drop” (Kivitippu) nearby. Always makes me laugh.

New @gutsickgibbon.bsky.social video with thumbnail art by yours truly ^^ youtu.be/CQvCzoOcQw8?...

#SciArtSeptember 22 - Fellowship For as long as we have had imaginations and languages to convey them, humans have been seeing our fellow creatures as more than just food. Here, an elderly neanderthal is pondering an unusual injured bird - a yellow-breasted bunting, today critically endangered.

Falling behind in schedule, but #SciArtSeptember 21 - Reef Currently, our ocean life is threatened by the climate crisis. Fossils tell us it’s not the first time: in the past, many species have been wiped out by heating. This one is set in the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, 201 million years ago.

Tänään Alajärvellä puhumassa dinosauruksista. Tervetuloa! 😊

"In its latest annual assessment, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said ocean acidity had crossed a critical threshold for marine life. This makes it the seventh of nine planetary boundaries to be transgressed.." 1/3

a warm welcome to joaquinraptor casali, a megaraptorid from maastrichtian patagonia 🦖 several features of the animal's anatomy suggest that megaraptorans retained robust arms and gracile skulls even at large body sizes, contrasting other massive theropods (art by andrew mcafee)

#SciArtSeptember 20 - Glacial A bit of a stretch, maybe, but orcas live from pole to pole, also where the ocean meets glaciers. These two represent the transient (top) and resident (bottom) types found on the west coast of North America. They are quite likely separate species.

#SciArtSeptember 19 - Depths Fintail angler is one of the nightmarish-looking fishes haunting the ocean depths. They are diverse, fascinating, and virtually unknown. This species was first observed alive in 2018. This is a mating pair: the male is the little worm-like thing hanging from her belly.

It's being printed! Our science comic The Mind of a Dog / Koiran mieli is done and will be out for sale next month, in English and Finnish. It answers such questions as "how do dogs think and feel?" and "What does a dog need to be happy?" I learned so much myself in the process of illustrating it.

#SciArtSeptember 18 - Cenote Cenotes are sinkholes with unique fish faunas, found all over the world but especially common on the Yukatán Peninsula lining the Chicxulub crater, formed by the asteroid that ended the time of the dinosaurs. Big events still impact the world after millions of years.

#SciArtSeptember 17 - Trawl Bottom trawling has a devastating effect on deep-sea fish, including the roundnose grenadier, which is now classified as critically endangered. Like other deep-sea fish, the grenadier grows and reproduces slowly, making it unable to tolerate industrial fishing.

Out today in @commsearth.nature.com from some of my newest colleagues at UMMP: evidence that the extinction of dinosaurs led to fundamental shifts in terrestrial environments, and that this signal is recorded in facies shifts tied to the K-Pg boundary: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

#SciArtSeptember 16 - Rift The Great Rift Valley of Eastern Africa forms a chain of deep lakes, famous for their numerous endemic fish and other animals. One of them is Lake Turkana. It's better known for the ancient human remains found around it, but it also has a unique fauna.

#SciArtSeptember 15 - Spawning Made for a newspaper article 11 years ago, this one depicts an interspecies spawning: a female Mexican golden trout and a male rainbow trout. When people stock exotic fish around the world, one of the risks is wiping out endemic species through interbreeding.

Ooh, this is lovely!

#SciArtSeptember 14 - Mimic The existence of social bees and wasps is a cornerstone of biodiversity, supporting a vast number of mimics, commensals, parasites and much more. Volucella inanis is a species of hoverfly that not only mimics wasps, its larvae also live in wasp nests as parasites.

#SciArtSeptember 13 - Bottleneck We almost lost the last wild horses. At the end of the 1950s, there were only 12 Przewalski's horses left. After decades of conservation efforts, there are now a couple thousand horses living in zoos and conservation areas in several countries, from Spain to China.