dromeoraptor

[dromeoraptor]

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Just realized you could make a turducken out of Sally, Oogie Boogie, and Jack

[dromeoraptor]

Just realized you could make a turducken out of Sally, Oogie Boogie, and Jack

[dromeoraptor]

Test video from the costume I made. Despite Halloween being really big in my life I actually never wore a costume to a costume party or really did much with costumes at all in my adult life; this is the first time in 15 years I even made one and the last one was never used anywhere. It might have looked a lot better if I started early but I only became determined to make one and decided on a concept October 29th then I built it in 7 hours on October 30. It's 90% paper bags and cardboard wrapped in electrical tape and duct tape. Then I hot glued all the fabric on. The neck is twisted plastic bags wrapped in the tape with a loop that can hang off your shoulders, and the skeleton arms dangle off that loop with a bent coat hanger. The sticks are the metal poles we never use from our window blinds, wrapped in more tape to make them black and hold them onto a wire that threads through the mask. I won 2nd place at a contest!

[dromeoraptor]

Therocephalians were a group of synapsids very closely related to – or possibly even ancestral to – the lineage leading to modern mammals. They were a diverse and successful group of carnivores during the latter half of the Permian, but suffered massively during the "Great Dying" mass extinction, with only a handful of representatives making it a few million years into the Triassic.

Tetracynodon darti was one of these rare Triassic therocephalian survivors, living in what is now South Africa around 251 million years ago. Only about 25cm long (~10"), it had slender limbs and strong claws that suggest it was a scratch-digger. Its long snout was lined with pointed teeth, and it was probably an active predator hunting by snapping its jaws at fast-moving prey like insects and smaller vertebrates.

Its combination of small size, burrow-digging habits, and unspecialized diet may be the reason it scraped through the Great Dying when most of its relatives didn't – but unfortunately it seems to have been a "dead clade walking", disappearing only a short way into early Triassic deposits.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Fontanarrosa, Gabriela, et al. "The manus of Tetracynodon (Therapsida: Therocephalia) provides evidence for survival strategies following the Permo-Triassic extinction." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 38.4 (2018): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2018.1491404

Sigurdsen, Trond, et al. "Reassessment of the morphology and paleobiology of the therocephalian Tetracynodon darti (Therapsida), and the phylogenetic relationships of Baurioidea." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32.5 (2012): 1113-1134. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254315180_Reassessment_of_the_Morphology_and_Paleobiology_of_the_Therocephalian_Tetracynodon_Darti_Therapsida_And_The_Phylogenetic_Relationships_of_Baurioidea

Wikipedia contributors. “Tetracynodon” Wikipedia, 21 Aug. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetracynodon

Wikipedia contributors. “Therocephalia” Wikipedia, 01 Oct. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therocephalia

[dromeoraptor]

This is an Animal Planet brand dog toy but I dare you to assert with the utmost confident certainty which Animal from what Planet.

[dromeoraptor]

[dromeoraptor]

DRAGONITE + MAGIKARP - WATER/DRAGON

if it finds someone shipwrecked out at sea, it tries to guide them back to land. however, its hopelessly poor memory and sense of direction means it's rarely successful

[dromeoraptor]

The shape of a fish's caudal tail can tell you a lot about how fast the fish moves! A rounded tail is the slowest and a lunate tail is the fastest! The lunate tail has the most optimal ratio of high thrust and low draw, making it the fastest.

Ichthyology Notes 2/?

[dromeoraptor]

Bats are incredibly diverse animals: They can climb onto other animals to drink their blood, pluck insects from leaves or hover to drink nectar from tropical flowers, all of which require distinctive wing designs. But why aren't there any flightless bats that behave like ostriches—long-legged creatures that wade along riverbanks for fish like herons—or bats that spend their lives at sea, like the wandering albatross? Researchers may have just found the answer: Unlike birds, the evolution of bats' wings and legs is tightly coupled, which may have prevented them from filling as many ecological niches as birds. "We initially expected to confirm that bat evolution is similar to that of birds, and that their wings and legs evolve independently of one another. The fact we found the opposite was greatly surprising," said Andrew Orkney, postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Brandon Hedrick, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Continue Reading.

[dromeoraptor]

Aughaerkuhfayie they're so silly and cute I wanna snuggle them and nibble them they're like little rats I love them nomnomnom.

Ahem, sorry.

I think I found my second favorite monster:

Don't ask.

Monster Hunter Wilds © Capcom

Reference pic for the first drawing HERE.

[dromeoraptor]

An early Halloween cartoon for Guardian Books

[dromeoraptor]

if i had to explain what tumblr is like i’d only show this

[dromeoraptor]

if you have a long beak it must feel sooo good to hold a little red fruit in it

[dromeoraptor]

In Super Mario World, whenever a Magikoopa is loaded on the current screen, it will pick a different point on the ground on the screen on each frame. If the point picked is completely free, i.e. in front of a transparent tile through which the background is visible, then the Magikoopa will manifest into a visible form as usual.

However, if it is in front of a semisolid platform, then even though the tile is technically "free" (as in, objects can move through it as though it was air), the Magikoopa will not be able to spawn in front of it. As such, if the screen were completely filled with semisolid platforms as seen in the footage, the Magikoopa would continuously fail to spawn even though no tile on that screen is actually solid.

The footage shows a debug view of the game that shows hitboxes of objects, with the object that is teleporting around wildly on each frame being the Magikoopa as it is frantically searching for a place to manifest and failing.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: Kaizoman666

[dromeoraptor]

Ya girl has been published 👀👀

My gynandromorph amazon ant find and photoshoot is featured in the fall edition of the American Entomologist journal! Just a perfect bizarre creature ❤️🖤

(Polyergus longicornis, male alate/female worker split)

When I found this creature in 2022, I would have been far more comfortable starting this post with "ya boy"

Another reason this creature is and probably always will remain my favorite find.

Happy Intersex Awareness Day. ♥️

[dromeoraptor]

character design

[dromeoraptor]

Meet the seven new frog species we just named after iconic Star Trek captains!

Artwork by A. Petzold, CC BY-ND 4.0

At the right time of year along rushing streams in the humid rainforests that stretch the length of Madagascar's eastern and northern mountain ridges, otherworldly trills of piercing whistles can be heard.

Are they birds? Insects? Communicator beeps? Tricorder noises?

No, they're little treefrogs!

Boophis janewayae. Photo by M. Vences, CC BY-SA 4.0

Until recently, we thought all of the populations of these little brown frogs across the island were one widespread species, Boophis marojezensis, described in 1994. But genetics in the early 2000s and 2010s showed that there were several species here, not just one.

Now my colleagues and I have shown that they are in fact eight separate species, each with unique calls!

These whistling sounds reminded us so much of Star Trek sound effects that we decided to name the seven new species after Star Trek captains: Boophis kirki, B. picardi, B. janewayae, B. siskoi, B. pikei, B. archeri, and B. burnhamae.

Photos of all new species described by Vences et al. 2024. CC BY-SA 4.0

I subtly and not-so-subtly built some Star Trek references into the paper, but probably the best one is this one:

'Finding these frogs sometimes requires considerable trekking; pursuing strange new calls, to seek out new frogs in new forests; boldly going where no herpetologist has gone before.'

— Vences et al. 2024

There’s a real sense of scientific discovery and exploration here, which we think is in the spirit of Star Trek.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that there are at least two Trekkies amongst the authors (including yours truly). As fans of Star Trek, we are also just pleased to dedicate these new species to the characters who have inspired and entertained us over the decades.

On a personal note, this marks a milestone for me, as it means I have now described over 100 frog species! I am very pleased that the 100th is Captain Janeway's Bright-eyed Frog, Boophis janewayae (if you count them in order of appearance in the paper)—she is probably my favourite captain, and I really love Star Trek: Voyager.

You can read more about the discovery of these new species on my website! You can also read the Open Access paper published in Vertebrate Zoology here.