Back from the field on this #FossilFriday to see the humbling news that a gorgeous little Carboniferous fish bears a new name: Unionichthys friedmani. Thanks to Struan Henderson and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social for this honor. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Anyway meet my new son Smolder

When you become a paleontologist chances are you'll be assigned either a cat or a reptile (foreshadowing)

Great summary by @friedmanlab.bsky.social of why this new study is so valuable!

Big congrats to @sanaaelsayed.bsky.social on this incredible work! This study helps fill in a critical gap in fish evolution, and shows how quickly modern fish lineages diversified in the wake of the K-Pg extinction. Looking forward to reading through this! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

As someone with a bachelor's in earth science, I can confidently say this is one of the sexiest rocks I've ever seen

Weekend trip down to NJ to check out the Edelman Fossil Museum, and wow I am blown away by the quality of their models! Here's some quick sketches I did of the Hadrosaurus and Priconodon. Absolutely stop by if you're in the area. #dinosaurs #paleontology #paleoart

Arctodus simus, the Giant Short-faced Bear, dozes off in the southern Black Hills of late Pleistocene South Dakota. Illustration from 2024. Sorry for not posting for several months, I forgor #paleoart #bear #arctodus

Update: the Stoplight Loosejaw model is now functional! Later on I'll paint it and give it teeth and gills, but for now I'm setting it aside to focus on other projects. This fish is quite small, with known specimens usually not growing over a foot long, so my model is about 3-4x life size.

Please enjoy some forward-facing fish from the Biomes Marine Biology Center in RI. Species names in alt text. #fish #aquarium

Picked up these two from Barnes & Noble today! I've been meaning to read The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by @restingdinoface.bsky.social for a while now, so far it's captivating. I'm afraid I can't tag Darwin but rly looking forward to finally reading Origin too.

Working on a prototype for a Stoplight Loosejaw kinetic model! I wanted to test all the pivot points with paper before doing it with cardboard. This deep sea fish has one of the most unique and bizarre jaw arrangements, utilizing both the "true" jaw and the hyoid in its gape.

Tried drawing a generic fish skull from memory. Who needs a suspensorium anyway.

Out now in Contributions from me and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social, a deep dive into an early member of the sturgeon and paddlefish lineage. Bear with me, but there’s a long backstory highlighting uncertainty about the anatomy of living species and how well-studied fossils can still yield new insights.

Beautiful sunrise Mola mola often lay on their side at the water surface to sun themselves and warm up their bodies, earning them the common name "sunfish". I was thinking about them a lot at 2 am the other night which spawned whatever this is. #molamola #sunfish #fish

Look at my fesh #Art #SciArt

Another brilliant example that nature has never been limited by the strict human definitions of "male and female". Fish especially show a mind-blowing variety of reproductive strategies!

feesh

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

I'm making a fish-core playlist! What songs should I add? -looking for fish related lyrics or just vibes -no soundtracks please, unless you feel strongly about one particular song (I know subnautica exists, love it, not what I'm looking for here)

Who up deciphering they taphonomic processes

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.

Absolutely thrilled to have seen the new Chicago Archaeopteryx exhibit. This specimen never ceases to amaze me. Featuring my fanart of said dead bird. #chicagoarchaeopteryx #fieldmuseum

SUE looking delightfully green #fieldmuseum #trex

This is one of the most absurd things I've ever seen in a crystal shop. Top tier impulse purchase.

Tomorrow :D

Reptiles doing the reptile things (Burpee museum)

Got to pet a sturgeon at the Burpee museum, my life has peaked

Hi Jane

Mahjong in Chicago with friends and my Therizinosaurus son named Chad Kroger

Flags with extinct animals on them: - California (California grizzly bear) - Chernyshevsky District, Russia (Kulindadromeus) - Doronogovi, Mongolia (sauropod) - Srednekolymsk, Russia woolly (mammoth)

Listening to Limp Bizkit while drawing fish skeletals. Not sure if this is making me feel more or less sane tbh

Gaze upon this magnificent artifact I found at the local thrift store the other day

I also checked out the new Impact exhibit at the AMNH yesterday. I didn't have too much time for an in depth look, but first impressions were good! Mixed reviews on the models and illustrations. Looking forward to more thoroughly reading through everything next time I'm there.

Practicing skeletal sketches with Stegosaurus at the AMNH yesterday!

We are NOMINATED‼️ This gonna be the LAST CHANCE for anime adaptation, and I believe we have the power to make it happen! Please VOTE for Dinosaur Sanctuary from the link below▼ anime-japan.jp/activities/a... I'll show you how to vote in the replay below.

Cimolichthys nepaholica was a Late Cretaceous Big Ol' Fish™. A lot of our well-known Mesozoic ray-finned fish represent early-diverging groups that have no modern close relatives, but not this guy! Cimolichthys belongs to the order Aulopiformes, which is still around today in the form of...

I painted a Jurassic classic, #Stegosaurus. 💚

Result from the Mammoth Site #paleostream! This has been our first mammoth steppe formation stream, dwelling into some the classic giants of the Pleistocene. This site in South Dakota offered a unique opportunity is that is has so much stuff preserved in situ that we can...

I can't get over how cool this cover is!!!

Arapaima necklace I made! A couple of you might have seen me wearing it at SVP a few weeks ago. #fish #arapaima

Regretting multiple life decisions right now but we persevere.

In related news, working on this guy! If any of you lovely fish people know anything about Arapaima hyoids please do let me know if I got this remotely correct.

Surely Arapaima skulls will at least somewhat resemble a standard fish skull... oops all infraorbitals. Never get complacent.

Go my Bothriolepis... This year's fish pecan pie! Bothriolepis was a peculiar-looking placoderm from the Devonian period or the Paleozoic. It had two long pointed pectoral fins and silly little eyes on top of its head. #fossil #fish #paleontology #bothriolepis

Last year I made a Xiphactinus pecan pie for Thanksgiving. What prehistoric fish should I do this year?

Two Denversaurus meet at sunset. Referenced from a photo I took in Montana this summer. Denversaurus belongs to the ankylosaurian family nodosauridae. Unlike ankylosauridae, nodosaurids lack a tail club and many have shoulder spikes.

At last I have a real coaster instead of... a rock

My second SVP meeting! It was an honor meeting all you lovely folks in the UK, seeing old friends, and presenting my fish research (more on that hopefully soon!)

Can I drag your attention to the artworks by contemporary Czech palaeoartist, Vladimir Rimbala. His works are a perfect mix of modern science and retro composition (🧵)