I saw this blessed fish in Fukui last week @mosasaurologist.bsky.social

If you liked my thread, check out fellow @chasmosaurs.bsky.social author Marc’s three part review of it over on Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs! There is a TON of art I didn’t share that you’ll see there, it’s well worth your time.

This adorable oreodont family has had quite a journey. Paul Miller made this mount for the U of Chicago Walker Museum in 1924. They were transferred to the Field when the Walker shut down, then loaned to the BYU museum for 60 years. The oreodonts are now back in Chicago. #FossilFriday

Get really into dinosaurs. That's my recommendation for a happier life. Each day, I get news like "Look at this big freak that used roam the Earth!" or "Ya know the big freak you already loved? Fossils show it was even more freakish!" and it's a blessing every time.

This #FossilFriday, we have our museum's most recognizable fossil: Fish-Within-A-Fish! Featuring Xiphactinus, a large predatory fish, with the smaller Gillicus in its gut contents. It was found and collected by George F. Sternberg in 1952, and is now an iconic part of the Sternberg's collections!

Well my memory was wayyyy off but I found it!!! It's from Dinosaurs: Lifestyles of the Big and Carnivorous, produced by Standard Deviants (an edutainment troupe) in 2001. The rest of it was completely erased from my memory. I presume it was a library rental

Anyway the Historic Museum of the Bamoun Sultanate in Cameroon is the coolest building in the world. momaa.org/directory/mu...

New in @science.org, meet Acronichthys maccagnoi, a new species from Late Creatacous Canada that changes what we know about the origins and evolution of one of the most successful fish groups on Earth.

Is it a lizard? Is it a snake? Maybe a 'false snake'?? As that's what its name means in Gaelic! Hello to Breugnathair, a new fossil from the Jurassic of Skye with a curious mix of snake & lizard features, showing that early squamate evolution was complex www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

New #paleoart posted to #Patreon: woolly mammoths around a duck-filled lake. Accompanying the hi-res and WIPs of this image is a discussion about mammoth colour: the uniform red-brown mammoths of classic palaeoart seem unlikely now. Check it out at www.patreon.com/posts/night-... #fossil #sciart

If you’ve never seen the comic, here it is:

Even when she saw terrible, horrible things, she kept hoping and working and fighting for a better future. May we all carry some of her spirit into the work ahead.

Sad to read Jane Goodall has died. She inspired a whole generation of biologists and conservationists. Read my first book by her in high school. We also happen to share a birthday😊. An absolute LEGEND, the world is lucky to have experienced her talent and compassion. www.nbcnews.com/news/obituar...

Just posted some new #paleoart to #Patreon (www.patreon.com/c/markwitton), full images coming soon. For now, here's a nigh-on-midnight special preview of one new piece, just for other folks who really should be off their screens already: a baby mammoth chasing ducks. Some mammoths are just jerks.

Tyler Greenfield (why isn't he on here?) recently posted that the Field once had a reconstructed set of O. megalodon jaws that predate the famous AMNH version by over a decade. Sure enough, here they are in the OG Field Columbian Museum fossil hall: incertaesedisblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/29/t...

californians - please take 5 minutes to call gavin newsom’s office and ask him to sign these 5 bills. they make a huge difference to protecting the rights of trans people and trans kids in california!

I don’t speak on this very often, but I urge you to call. If this goes through, it won’t just be federal funding that stops for gender affirming care. It’s federal money now, but insurance companies follow what they’re allowed to do and if they’re allowed to drop us, they will. Please call.

New preprint: Brawn before bite in endemic Asian mammals after the end-Cretaceous extinction. #Paleontology #Mammals #Extinction www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... TLDR: S. China mammals diversified dentally, tracked environment, then leveled up bite mechanics all within the first 10 m.y. post K-Pg.

Things keep getting scarier and scarier for trans people with no end in sight. I’m slowly building an emergency fund in case West Virginia becomes totally unsafe for me and my family, and anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated. Commissions are open, just DM me! ko-fi.com/sophiesaurus

After a 3-month hiatus, thread number 3! Band of Brothers is the third episode of WWD2025, and focuses on the coming-of-age story of George the teenage Gastonia as he is pursued by Utahraptor, framed around the Lorrie’s site quarry in the Cedar Mountain Formation. (1/40)

You are not immune to the la brea tar pits

Museums of the future. A digital aquarium tunnel of the Triassic marine life, at the Geological Museum of Guizhou, China.

Pokemon Yellow :>

Pokemon Blue :>

Pokemon Red :>

Pokemon Green :>

Rather unexpectedly, a paper of mine has just dropped. Say hello to Makrodactylus, a new early monofenestratan from southern Germany. This was published with Rene and Bruce Lauer (www.lauerfoundationpse.org) and Freddie Spindler. palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025...

Today’s the VPN defense day of action! @fightforthefuture.org’s @liaholland.bsky.social tells @techradar.com: “ it’s important to make lawmakers aware that, if they come for this technology, they're gonna be facing an uphill battle against the whole internet." www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-priv...

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

I was asked yesterday to post a walkthrough of Life Over Time, the shortest-lived and generally weirdest iteration of the Field Museum’s fossil halls. If you visited between 1994 and 2004, this is the version you saw. I’ve got some time, so let’s do this.

A megaraptoran skeleton! From the end of the Cretaceous! Excited about the announcement of Joaquinraptor, the top predator down south when tyrannosaurs ruled the north. The Schwarzengger to T. rex's DeVito (at least in the arms category). My thoughts: www.livescience.com/animals/dino...

No matter how well we think we know dinosaurs, there's so much left to learn. New blog from me about Spicomellus, a dinosaur that knew spiked collars are hot. 🧪

Do you think a Pliosaurus would appreciate a Costco rotisserie chicken

Take a moment to think about midcentury dinosaurs today

Mini marsupial bounces back from the brink! Once listed as Endangered, the crest-tailed mulgara expanded its range by more than 48,000 km² between 2015 and 2021, lifting its status to Least Concern. Biocontrol contributed to the heartwarming bounce-back. https://f.mtr.cool/afllseseeb

URUYIELLA, from the ✨NEW VIDEO✨: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YULv... I dedicated to Temnospondyls🐸. Uruyiella lived in the Triassic period in what is now Uruguay #uruyiella #temnospondyli #paleoart

#OTD 19 September 1991, walkers in the high Ötztal alps on the Italian border, found a body melting out of the ice. It turned out to be the remains of a c.5200 year old man preserved with all his kit. Of course, it was essential to replicate him in Playmobil. 1🧵 #PlaymobilÖtzi #PlaymobilInfestation

#pixelart #artpost

That’s a dog

I drawed a dinosaur. #SciArt

Millions of years ago, California had a familiar yet alien landscape from what it sees today. This painting highlights the animals that may have passed through Death Valley long ago. This painting features as a 4ft mural hung in the Copper Canyon Visitor Center in southern Cali.

Paleomedia and/or lost media enthusiasts, I would like your help with resolving a vague childhood memory. Does a visual that looks like this (context being then-recent oviraptorid nest finds) ring any bells? It's the only thing I remember from a VHS (presumably) that I watched like 20 years ago

Mesozoic art is coming this month! Let's talk about it with @tetzoo.bsky.social and @sharkbitesteve.bsky.social What makes good palaeoart? How are we shaping the perception of extinct wildlife? Where lies the future of this craft? cont...

Paleomedia and/or lost media enthusiasts, I would like your help with resolving a vague childhood memory. Does a visual that looks like this (context being then-recent oviraptorid nest finds) ring any bells? It's the only thing I remember from a VHS (presumably) that I watched like 20 years ago

Helicoprion is a large eugeneodont shark, most famous for its buzzsaw-like jaw configuration. Depicted here hunting Mooreoceras. This painting is commissioned by the NPS and highlights fossil specimens known from Guadalupe Mountains Park, TX

While it's easy to make friends with a passing herd, it still pays to watch for what's lurking in the shadows... This painting was commissioned by the NPS to showcase potential species that create the busy trackways from the Naturita Formation and Colorado National Monument.

So many cool fossils are revealed each month that I'm getting the ol' blog going again to enthuse over more of them. Here's the latest, on a 12-foot-long carnivorous croc that stalked terrestrial prey around 70 million years ago. 🧪

#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! ☺️