#I love being a paleontologist

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Wordplay Wednesday: Comparative Anatomy

This month is all about comparative anatomy, a very important skill to have in paleontology. Comparative anatomy is the study of the body structures of different species of animals in order to understand adaptive changes.

It's about being able to identify similarities such as arms bones in various animals as shown above and differences like the number of holes in a skull as shown below.

If you want to learn more about comparative anatomy, you can join my Patreon where an early release video on comparative anatomy will be posted in the next week. Fossilize you later!

[asexual-shelly]

hi *throws this at you and runs headfirst into a lamppost*

[opens-up-4-nobody]

about your struggles with your undergrad. i was in the same boat not a few months ago. it got so bad i went to the ER for stress-related internal injuries, i was suicidal, i was convinced i couldnt succeed in my major (or life) no matter what, i felt hopeless... please consider: before you drop out, you have to be honest with yourself and your limits. i switched from compsci to my true passion and its very freeing. your advisor is there to help you. im sure they can help you like they helped me. also look for support from family/friends at this time. (i know its tough. again i was convinced id be better off dead so it was hard to ask for help BUT IM SO GLAD I DID.) instead of quitting, try changing your goals. btw, its never too late to change ur major. i changed 3 years in. better to swap now than live a lifetime, as you said, of stress and difficulty. future you will be so grateful. and past you will be soooo jealous. don't give up!! you've made it this far, you've got the skills! if you don't have the passion or patience to withstand a certain subject, then change it!! its so much easier than you think!! sorry for word wall. i believe in you. it gets better. good luck. and etc :)

Thanks, I wish you the best of luck :-) it is, however, a little more complicated bc im considering dropping out of a phd program and not undergrad

[chunkecheeks]

i appreciate this post but i feel like i need to point out that the road by stonehenge isn't a busy road, it's not even really an accessible road, it's a road where the buses go from the site where you buy tickets to bring tourists up to the stones since there's a pretty big distance. The

MORE surprising thing is that stonehenge is just right up against a bunch of farms and you'll see farmers and farm animals just hanging out right up against the fence. Here some photos i took of sheep while i was there:

And the only one that has sheep and the stones in the same frame:

I really like how many of the world’s most iconic structures and places are just right next to some of the most mundane stuff imaginable, for example

Stonehenge

Is right next to a busy road

The Pyramids of Giza

Are at the outskirts of Cairo

Niagara Falls

Are part of the town of the same name

And Agrippa’s Pantheon

Is crammed inside downtown Rome

It just so interesting to notice.

[amarguerite]

I think there's an interesting overlap or at least a visible evolutionary link between the heroine of a comedy of manners and a screwball comedy-- it is about a (usually) young woman learning how to live in the world. there's wacky characters about her. her family is usually very funny and often mortifying. the plot usually involves her marrying or being married to a hero who embodies at least some of the virtues of the era.

HOWEVER

the screwball heroine is always rewarded for the unconventional choice.

it doesn't matter how insane that unconventional choice is. it always works out for her

as long as she has enough moxie and one-liners, she can do anything. she wants a leopard as a pet? sure, fine, it'll net her a paleontologist. she wants to be a newspaper reporter at a time when papers are still male dominated? she's so goddamn successful she can't quit her field. she wants agency and genuine connections to people (usually in the form of a fiancé) in her life? running away from her life and going on some kind of wacky journey lets her make real connections with people for the first time. she wants to be a detective? she cracks the case. she wants to go on the stage? she becomes the star of the show. she violates class boundaries? she finds love and fortune. she wants a divorce? she gets it, and often a better marriage too

I think that is what is appealing in a way, about the form of that particular narrative-- the starting assumption is The Heroine Triumphant

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

for the record my official paleontologist review of Paleo Pines is

it's gorgeous

it's so cute

it's super fun

it takes too long to get into it, the start is just... slow. too slow.

it needs more tutorials/explanations of things in the game, I had to look up waaaaay too much stuff online just to understand certain things

I am once again begging game devs to hire me as a "taxon balancer" because why did we need four dromaeosaurs and not a single alvarezsaur or small running ornithopod/neornithischian thing? why are there no sauropodomorphs at all when plenty would be smaller than the ornithischians and theropods??? why is Wuerhosaurus in the Game at all when it's just Stegosaurus but Later???

I can accept Postosuchus and Desmatosuchus being there (barely, like I love Triassic Weirdos but like... idk, don't call everything a dinosaur then) but Dimetrodon????? Permia isn't even one of the seasons!!! come on!!!

a farming/ranching game without romance??? I don't have to have a pansexual crisis??? hooray!

how dare the number of dinosaurs you can keep happy on your ranch be finite based on dreamstones and not space

I *love* the flavor system and it took me way too long to figure out that favorite treats are based on each individual animal's specific favorite secondary flavor

I want more dinosaurs and more regions

you should be able to befriend animals without necessarily bringing them home (and yes, I know, you can send them to the wilds, but they look so OFFENDED, like... why can't I just make friends)

I'm addicted to this game, send help, I am hopelessly behind on Fossil Novembirb posts and I want to turn in a grant proposal this week

I'm glad I waited till after my big conference to play because of the aforementioned addiction

anyways I finished work for today, off to play some more la la la

[crazysaru99]

LMK fic au idea

Welp im not good writing fic and my ideas are riots

@quitealotofsodapop and I made an au about the Monkey King's children: Paramita, Sun Luzhen, Yuebei Xing, Jidu and Luohou.

This happens once Wukong finishes his journey and returns home, helping with the reconstruction of the island, mainly because he starts to feel lonely especially for what happened with his partner Macaque. And one of the things he always wanted once the war was over is to be able to have a family with his beloved but this couldn't happen so he will do it with his own hands in the style of Nuwa, he would create clay eggs and even find a hidden one and from there his children would be born.

Paramita is the firstborn and heir to the throne of the kingdom of the mountain of fruits and flowers and Alolai being the serious of all his brothers and the most elegant of them, he has an elegance that his father lacks but that will not make him less lethal on the battlefield; he is the general of the kingdom's army and has on his shoulders the expectations of the kingdom as crown prince.

Sun Luzhen in his canon is Wukong's twin brother who had taken so long to hatch, and the second to be born when he was found, the king had adopted him as his own son, He has an energetic personality like a showman, He is now a version of Porty light, he is a professional musician and has worked in various musical genres, even in large industries making soundtracks for various movies or video games under an alias.

Yuebei Xing, the only daughter of the monkey king, is daddy's little princess, with a tough character and a very bad temper, with an enormous and muscular build that makes her completely intimidating, but under the dark shell she is a monkey who loves her family and her brothers, she was born with a cleft lip of which she only has a scar, she is a renowned paleontologist in her field who loves her job, she has always loved digging up bones since she was little.

Jidu and Luohou they are mischievous twins who like to cause trouble like their older brother Luzhen, who love theater like Macaque and dedicate their life to that art. Jidu is a comedian in various stand-up comedy shows while Luohou is an actor in musicals and has participated in many.

Jidu

Grande Caeza de pichi

Luohou

King Paramita, Jidu and Luohou desing based in @wuzhiqi-enj0yer

Wukong wanted to experience the possibility of having children by modeling in clay that he created 4 eggs, by the time he found the stone egg of Luzhen he found that the Paramita egg had already hatched and in time only the eggs of the others would hatch turning Wukong into a tired father of 5 energetic children.

Rumors of his existence abounded, especially the fact that Paramita was the son of Princess Iron Fan, which was never lacking (Paramita could never find the author of that aberration in the book and if he had, he would have pulverized it). This rumor was born because he and Red Son WERE childhood friends and a possible marriage union between them was expected (Like Odette and Derek in The Swan Princess). Now their parents wanted them to marry for love like they did, but then the thing at the mountain happened and they lost contact.

Paramita as a cub: "This is my best friend Red. When we grow up, we'll get married and have an island to ourselves!" :3

But that is if the day they meet again they shout with joy and hug each other like little kids who haven't seen each other all summer.

The rumors of the monkey king's children grew to be illustrated in the non-canonical sequels of the journey to the west and at that time they were just children, but due to the isolation of the monkey king the rumors of them became a myth until their existence was doubted, making the shadow of his father grow…

MK would meet the children of the monkey king in ''A hero is born'' is when he lands on the beach of Huaguoshan Island and they were the monkeys in disguise (Headcanon the common monkeys are glamours of yao monkeys)

Making them lose their glamour and scare MK even more until Paramita has to take control of the situation by lining everyone up.

After the initial scare MK asks them to take him to the monkey king and leave them alone; Now you might be wondering why the monkey king would need a successor? Simple, because Wukong has empty nest syndrome.

For the events of season two Paramita and his brothers will be in charge of MK's training so he wouldn't be so far behind and if they would be aware of LBD.

When MKang finds out about their existence it will be at the end of this same season especially when Pigsy is yelling at Wukong and oh boy, if there is something that Paramita does NOT tolerate at all is that HIS FATHER IS INSULTED (He's a daddy's boy)

Pigsy: You're supposed to be his mentor! Paramita: "Excusr me!? He raised five children as a single parent!" HE IS ANYTHING BUT A LAZY MAN WHO DOES NOTHING, DAMN SERVANT!!!

Paramita was millimeters away from beating Pigsy up, he will defend his father's honor knowing how introverted he is and will let that insult pass (He will fight even in mud to prove his point), his brothers would be pulling him to avoid the chef's announced death, even Yuebei has a hard time doing it being the strongest of all her brothers.

And that would be all c:

EDIT: And now the au called ''Wuxing au''

[jasper-dracona]

So uhhh I was just gonna make an addition to this in the tags, but i didn’t realize how verbose I was gonna be, so I ran out of tags. So I’m gonna continue it up here cause I don’t wanna rewrite all the tags:

But writing the words “maybe I won’t become a palaeontologist” caused me to burst into tears in class. I pushed through and kept writing to finish off the piece, but something in my heart had snapped like a twig.

I used short snappy sentences and repetition to show my anger, fear, frustration, and most importantly, my constant anxious thoughts that kept giving me anxiety attacks during tests. Telling me over and over again that I was never gonna make it. That I was stupid. That I’d never make it into university, let alone survive it.

This also, conveniently, was a motif in the text.

Anyways, a week or two later I got the grade back for that piece, and if I’m remembering right, it was pretty solid. But I didn’t… really care about that, which was very weird for me at the time. But for some reason I just wanted to have it back. Despite the pain I felt in writing that phrase, I felt an inexplicable urge to read it again. So, when I got it back, I tucked it away in my backpack.

That night, sitting at my desk, up too late, I pulled the pieces of looseleaf out of my bag, and read what I had wrote in full. Most of it was still just as visceral as when I had written it, and while it was emotional, it didn’t bring me to tears like it had before.

Until I read that phrase.

I sobbed for probably over an hour that night.

After that I made a consistent habit of digging out that piece, reading that line, and letting myself cry for a while whenever I was feeling hopeless about school or my future. And each time I did, it got a little easier to read. Slowly I was convincing myself that this wouldn’t be the end of the world, that things would be okay, that I would be okay.

And I think this was among the top 3 best things I ever did for myself. Along with going to my doctor about getting assessed for ADHD and a particular break up.

And now I keep journals with my most visceral of emotions in them, so that I can go back and read them over and over, and learn to accept how I feel, and my situation. I write prose and poems and unorganized swaths of thoughts and feelings. I draw, scratch and scribble with a shitty pen, with no care for beauty, just expression. (I did this a lot during anxiety attacks in my math quizzes and tests. I’ve lost most of them but I remember how much those made me feel too)

The idea is that if I keep writing and drawing these things, I’ll eventually come up with another of those twig-snapping phrases, or a visceral image, and I can look back on those and view them again and again, allowing me to process those emotions.

It’s cathartic and therapeutic, and I’m glad I learned to do it, all thanks to that shitty fucking chemistry test.

(GOD this ended up long, sorry lol)

So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.

Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.

One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.

All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.

So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.

And Mr. Hargrove loved it.

It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.

Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”

And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.

Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.

One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.

That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.

And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.

And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)

So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.

Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.

[mermaidgirl30]

✨Just Breathe: The Dinosaur Diaries✨

✨Part 1: Introductions✨

Series Masterlist

A/N: One of my favorite things is writing about the first time Joel and reader meet, so this is how their story starts off 💚

Chapter Summary: It’s your first day at Sauros Corporation as a research assistant, but what you don’t know is you’ll be working under one of the hottest paleontologists that you’ve ever laid eyes on. Can you keep your wits about yourself, or will you fall fast for your smooth talking boss?

Pairing: paleontologist! Joel x fem researcher! reader

Word Count: 3k

Rating: 18+

Chapter Tags: Reader starts her first day as a research assistant, feelings, Joel being a casual flirt, Joel in a lab coat and glasses, mentions of Jurassic Park, allusions to smut, eventual smut, Joel is so broad, Jurassic Park au, science terminology I had to look up

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Your palms sweat as you enter the intimidating glass building of Sauros Corporation. One of the biggest, most well known science businesses that specializes in paleontology. What you got your master’s in. You strive to continue on to get your PhD, but first you need to get a little work experience. So that’s why you’re here in this massive corporation that might just eat you alive. 

   Your black heels click against the polished white tile as fluorescent lights reflect off the cascading glass windows. You pull at your pressed pink dress and flex your fingers around the soft cotton as nerves rush down your body. Today was the most important day of your life. A gateway to your future, your dream job that you’ve wanted for your entire life. This was it. It was finally here. 

   When you walk up to the pearlescent marble front counter, a bubbly blonde girl smiles and stands from her office chair. “Hi there. How can I help you?”

   You show her your work ID badge that you had gotten in orientation and respond, “This is my first day here. I’m here for…”

   Her eyes brighten the moment she sees your name on the shiny badge. “Oh! You’re the new research assistant. Doctor Miller has been so eager to meet you! Your interviewer, Kylie, couldn’t stop talking about you to him. He’s already spoken so highly of you. He looked at your resume and everything,” she gushes as she comes around the bright desk and smoothes her pencil skirt down. 

   “He’s talked about me? Who is Doctor Miller?” you ask as you knit your eyebrows together and step back as she passes in front of you. You knew of Doctor Kepler, who you thought you’d be working under. But Doctor Miller? You never heard of him before, at least you don’t think.

   “He’s who you’ll be working under,” she smiles warmly as she nods her head and signals for you to follow behind as her blonde hair bounces down her shoulders. “He’s our best scientist in the department, I’m sure you’ll love him.”

   “How long has he been working here?” you ask as you pass through the lavish halls that are covered in glass framed pictures of dinosaur bones and biology cells. 

   “Over five years, he’s the best of the best. If you want to be a great scientist then he’s the perfect one to practice under. And you’re so lucky,” she beams as she looks back at you with big crimson lips.

   “Why’s that?” you laugh as the click of heels echo down the lit up halls.

   “Because,” she stops before entering the pad locked doors where only authorized personnel can get through, “he’s ridiculously good looking, but don’t tell him I said that.” She winks at you before turning to the glowing padlock.

   Just what were you getting yourself into? Doctor Miller? Was he really all she talked him up to be? And was he really impressed by your resume and talks of your interview? Guess you’d find out. 

   She scans her badge and with a click of the door, they part open as she pushes herself through the strong metal doors. Your eyes scan over the expansive lab as your breath hitches in your throat. The lab is absolutely enormous. Colorful test tubes fill various racks on the metal shelves along the cream colored walls. Microscopes line the tables that fill the center of the room. Petri dishes with different organisms in them sit in glass refrigerators, sturdy dinosaur bones sit displayed in glass cases, and expensive scientific materials cover the room. It’s all intimidating as you step through your new work space. 

   “Right over here,” she smiles as she leads you to the middle of the room where two men stand around a fluorescence microscope. 

   Your eyes peel over the tall man that adjusts the lense while he talks confidently to his coworker. You listen as his deep voice carries through the room. “There we go. Think I got it just right this time. The edges are perfect, can actually see the cementum where those tiny black dots are. Fascinatin’,” he says in awe as he adjusts the microscope lense again to get a better look. 

   You study the man in front of you, watching the way his broad shoulders shift everytime he moves his arms. The white lab coat seems to cling to large muscles. He’s so very large and tall, very tall. Standing just above six feet. And his hands. Big, thick hands of a paleontologist for sure. 

   Just when you start to get lost in his words, the girl who had brought you back into the room interrupts their conversation. She clears her voice and steps forward as platinum blonde hair swishes behind her shoulders. “Doctor Miller? Sorry to interrupt, but there’s someone here to meet you.”

   He turns quickly and adjusts his thick, rimmed glasses against his curved nose and smiles gently. You suck in a breath when you see his face, his smile, his eyes. He’s so gorgeous that you think you might fall over and knock a bunch of expensive lab equipment over. 

   He has the most beautiful chocolate brown eyes that you’ve ever seen before. His hair is tousled, curls spilling onto his forehead, dark brown with strings of grey twisting around each strand. His facial hair looks soft to the touch, salt-and-pepper scruff patching along his sharp jawline. And his smile. God, his smile. It’s so gentle and bright that it lights a fire inside your core. And he’s so broad. Strong muscles pulling against the white lab coat that clings to tanned skin. He’s the hottest scientist you’ve ever seen in your life, and you’re working under him?!

   “Oh, you must be my new research assistant, yeah?” he asks as he smiles gently and says your name, pushing himself off the metal table as he starts making his way over to you. You feel like you’re about to topple over at any moment. 

   “That’s me,” you say shyly as you push a lock of hair behind your ear, a nervous habit you wish you wouldn’t do. 

   “Well, so nice to meet you,” he drawls, a Southern accent that rings through your ears like a sweet melody that was made just for you. He sticks his arm out and opens his palm for you to take. You automatically reach out to shake his hand, your own hand shaking as you’re completely intimidated by the hot scientist that stands in front of you. 

   When he clasps his fingers over yours and squeezes, you gulp as you look up into beautiful honey glazed eyes. Eyes that you could wade in and get lost in. His hands are so big, calloused fingers grazing against yours as you feel nerves pulling at every fiber in your body. He probably does a lot with those hands. Hands of an experienced, successful, gorgeous paleontologist. 

   “It’s nice to meet you, too, Doctor Miller,” you say in a daze.

   “Jus’ Joel is fine. You don’t have to call me Doctor Miller, unless you want to,” he mutters softly. 

   “Oh okay, Joel…” you answer barely above a whisper, your palm sweating from how close he is. 

   He lets his hand linger in yours for a few seconds too long, and you swear he’s staring deep into your eyes as you see the glint of a sparkle flash in the flecks of light brown. When he releases his grip, he runs a hand slowly through his tousled, thick curls and just for that moment you wonder what it’d be like to be underneath his large body, running your own fingers through messy, soft curls…

   “I took a look at your resume the other day. I was quite impressed by what I saw.”

   Your eyes go a little wide at what he just said. “Impressed? Of me?” you ask, floored by the obvious compliment. He was impressed with you? 

   “Mhm,” he smiles as he pulls at the sleeves of his pristine lab coat, “straight A student, top of your class? And you went to the dig site in Montana to do some research last summer? Very impressive.” 

   He stares at you a moment with one eyebrow cocked up, his eyes flicking over your figure as you swear he checks you out. Your cheeks burn red as he looks so intently at you, and it’s in that moment that you don’t know how you’ll ever work with this man. He’s so distracting, all you want to do is get lost in those syrupy brown eyes. 

   “I umm... I’m not that impressive,” you say shyly as you look nervously up at him. 

   “Oh, but you are. M’sorry if you were lookin’ forward to workin’ with Doctor Kepler, but I kinda convinced him to let me take you under my wing instead. Yours was the most impressive resume of them all, and trust me when I say I read them all.”

   “Oh.” Your eyes widen and every bone in your body stiffens as you take in what he just said. He thinks you’re smart? He wanted you to work under him. Oh, fuck. “No, I… I’m sure I’ll enjoy you just as much as I would him.” Your cheeks glow red as you turn your head when you hear him chuckling under his breath. Did you really just say that out loud? Christ. 

   “C’mere. Wanna show you somethin’.” He nods his head as a tousled curl bounces against the side of his forehead, and you follow him over to the table that has the microscope all set up with a tiny fossil underneath. 

   “Go ahead,” he says with a nod to his head, asking you to look through the ocular lense. 

   You nervously walk up and dip your head down as you close one eye and focus intently on the fossil that sits beneath the lense. You take in the yellow tint of the amber, examine each particle that makes up the masterpiece of what sits beneath you, study exactly what you think it is. 

   Joel’s honeydew voice comes out deep and raspy as it stirs you to jump in your skin. “Let me pick your brain a minute. I wanna know if you can figure out what fossil that right there is,” he says as he comes to stand right beside you. 

   His hand presses against the base of the microscope, and you feel his warm breath run down the side of your neck. You can feel his body heat reverberate against yours as you start to breathe faster. Your mind is a blur as his body weight shifts against the counter, his lab coat brushing against the side of your arm as you hold tight to the tube of the microscope. It’s so hard to focus on what’s in front of you when his large, all consuming presence is right next to you. He’s not even touching you, and you’re already all worked up, and you know your thighs are sticky from sweat. What the hell is wrong with you?

   “Hmm, let me think a minute,” you say as you try to depict what sits in front of you. You squint your eye as you try to register what sits underneath the glow of the fossil. There’s a small beak-like impression as you assess dark lines that almost looks like a hummingbird.

   “It almost looks like… wait, maybe if I can get a closer look I can see,” you murmur as you continue to assess the shiny fossil. 

   “Here, let me jus’ fix this.” His large hand comes to sit on your shoulder as he pushes you carefully away from the eyepiece. His patchy scruff brushes against the side of your cheek, and you gasp at how close he is to you. You feel tension in your shoulders as you watch him adjust the dials to the right on the lense as he carefully looks through with one eye closed. 

   You watch him with bated breath, your eyes lock on his broad figure, thick fingers brushing against the crevice of the lense. You wonder what it’d feel like to be pinned underneath those strong arms, his thick fingers exploring every inch of your sweltering skin as he consumes you with the entirety of his mouth. 

   Fuck. This man is your boss, you can’t be having wet fantasies about him. He’s off limits, it can’t happen. You need to be professional, but why is it so hard to clear your clouded mind? He’s good looking, smart, nice. That does not give you the right to fantasize about him. Get a fucking grip on yourself for Christ’s sake. Enough. 

   “Ahh there we go. Go on now, take another peek.” He places his hand gently over the small of your back and pushes you forward as your breath hitches at the hand that burns through your dress and goes straight down to your skin that’s tingling from him. 

   You shake your head and get yourself composed as you lower your head and focus back on the fossil that’s waiting for you to examine. Your eyes widen as you see so much more clearly, the bright light shining straight through the yellow glow of the fossil as you can see exactly what’s in front of you now. 

   You gasp as you realize what it is. “No way! Is that an Oculudentavis? The smallest dinosaur to ever walk the planet?” You hear him chuckle and look up to see him smiling down at you. 

   “Very good,” he smiles as he gives you another once over glance, making your heart thump loudly in your chest as his honey eyes slip over you. “Now, how did you know that?” he asks curiously as he ticks his jaw and cocks an eyebrow up.

   “I read a lot,” you shrug as you bite your lower lip. His eyes drop down to your glossy lips, and it makes you burn with need. Focus. 

   “Yeah, I’m sure ya do,” he chuckles as he leans against the table and crosses his arms over his broad chest. 

   “How old is this fossil?” you ask wondrously as your eyes flick back to the ancient fossil. 

   “Over fifty million years old,” he replies as his eyes weigh carefully on you. “Y’know, it’s not really a bird like everyone suspected it to be. It’s actually a genus of a lizard.”

   “Fascinating,” you say dreamily as you lean up against the table and bump the side of your hip as your eyes train solely on him. 

   “It came from the domain Eukaryota, and the phylum it belongs to is Chordata. Funny how the Latin words revolve around a bird when really it’s a reptile. Some scientists even argue whether it was really a dinosaur or just a large lizard. But if you wanna hear my voice on the matter, I say it was a dinosaur.” He winks at you, and you feel your cheeks flush crimson again as you slip another lock of hair behind your ear and clear your throat before you decide to be a complete puddle on the floor. 

   “Think you’re right, Doctor Miller,” you respond shakily. 

   “Jus’ Joel, darlin’.”

   Darlin’? Christ, a pet name? Or maybe it was just his Southern hospitality. But whatever it was made you weak at the knees. 

   “Joel…” you repeat, letting the name slip against your tongue as you swallow all feelings of want and desire down your throat. You are not falling for your boss. 

   “Attagirl,” he smirks. 

   Fuck. 

   “So, you want to be a real paleontologist?” he asks as his eyes flicker down to yours.

   “Mhm,” you nod as you shift your weight in your heels.

   “So tell me, how do you feel about real dinosaurs?” he asks as he shifts his weight to stand in front of you, his arms still crossed tight against the fabric of the button-up green flannel underneath his lab coat. 

   “Real dinosaurs?” you question as you knit your eyebrows together and try to decipher his question. 

   “That’s right. Real dinosaurs.” He smirks and the glisten in his chocolate coated eyes are pressing into yours like he knows something you don’t, and he’s chuckling about it in front of your face. 

   “Ummm I mean, I’m in the field trying to study them. I’d say I love them?” Your answer is hesitant as you still question him. What does he mean real dinosaurs?

   “Well, guess it’s your lucky day cause your first assignment is about Stegosauruses.”

   Your eyes shift to his as yours widen just a smidge. “What’s the assignment about?” 

   “Guess you’ll find out when we get there,” he chuckles as he adjusts his glasses and moves just enough to brush his arm against yours. You step out of the danger zone and pull yourself together instead of staring down into forearms that are filled with thick, twisting veins against tanned skin. 

   “Get where?” you ask carefully as you slide your tongue against the bottom of your teeth. 

   “To Jurassic Park. Home of the dinosaurs. Real dinosaurs,” he smirks as you see trouble brewing in those dark eyes of his. He’s going to get you into trouble with those honey eyes and sly smirk, you just know it. 

   “Real dinosaurs? But they’re… they’re extinct,” you whisper as you raise your eyebrows in question.

   “Not at Jurassic Park they’re not,” he teases as he crosses his arms again. You just stare speechless at him as you get the feeling this man would never lie to you. 

   “So, how ‘bout it? My new research partner wanna go on a little adventure with me? Promise I’ll make it worth your while,” he smirks as you taste trouble on just his words alone.

   And that’s where the adventure started, right there in his gigantic lab. Right when you saw those gorgeous brown eyes. You knew. This is where it’d all begin. 

Tags: @amyispxnk @sawymredfox @burntheedges @mountainsandmayhem @littlevenicebitch69 @vivian-pascal @pedrostories @survivingandenduring @msjarvis @syd-djarin @mothandpidgeon @eugenedream @cozylittlepigeon @marvlstark @rav3n-pascal22

Please consider reblogging or leaving me a comment if you enjoyed. Reblogging is the only way for our work to reach others 🩷

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Fossil Friday: Brachiosaurus altithorax

Another well known sauropod, Brachiosaurus has captured the imaginations of many for over a century with its incredible size.

Found in 1900 by Elmer S. Riggs in Fruita, Colorado near the Colorado River, the name Riggs chose means "arm lizard with a deep chest." Apt name if you ask me.

Riggs worked for the Field Columbian Museum now known as the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago. Riggs was actually looking for Eocene mammals when he was informed of the dinosaurs near Grand Junction. Little did he know he would find the biggest dinosaur to date!

As you can see, there really isn't a ton of material found from Brachiosaurus. In fact, most of what we know has been extrapolated from the African cousin, Giraffatitan which was believed to be a species of Brachiosaurus until 1991.

Despite the apparent lack of material, what has been described has come from Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. The holotype skeleton (the first one) consists of a right humerus, a right femur, the right ilium, the right coracoid, the sacrum, 7 dorsal vertebrae, two caudal vertebrae and several ribs.

In 1883, Marshall Parker Felch who worked for Othniel Charles Marsh, found a sauropod skull in Garden Park, Colorado. It was incorporated into the Brontosaurus skeleton at the Yale Peabody Museum but in 1975 a couple of paleontologists said it was closer to Camarasaurus than an any diplodocid skull. One of them brought it to the attention of Kenneth Carpenter, a well known paleontologist in Utah and Virginia Tidwell. In 1998 they tentatively assigned it to Brachiosaurus sp. as there are no overlapping elements with the holotype it's impossible to determine if it belongs to B. altithorax.

There are some possible dorsal verts from Dry Mesa Quarry, Colorado, possibly a nearly complete juvenile from the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming, and possibly a foot from the Black Hills in Wyoming.

As you can see, finding more Brachiosaurus material would be awesome and we believe we may have one in our bonebed.

This rib alone is about 3m and still diving into the hillside. Hopefully, we will be able to get it out this year.

This could potentially be part of the scapular coracoid. Again, it's diving into the rock so it is difficult to tell. But the sucker is pretty big.

We also pulled out an articulated sequence of caudal vertebrae from the same general spot that all these bones are located. Fingers crossed that a skull is in there somewhere waiting for us to find.

Thanks for reading and tune in on Monday for a bit of focused talk on Macronarian sauropods like Brachiosaurs!

[charlotteharlatan]

A list (non-exhaustive) of why the 1941 flashback scenes are haunting both me and The Narrative, Part 1:

1. Both S1 and S2 have scenes that take place that night - THAT CERTAIN NIGHT - in 1941. It is specifically revisited in S2, which leads the audience to believe that night was of particular importance, both to Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship and to the overall plot of the show.

2. In the same vein of things that are referenced more than once, the song “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” was first released in 1940, and it’s entirely plausible that they both heard it for the first time in 1941 while in each other’s company.

All evidence points to the song being personally significant to Aziraphale and Crowley. We know it as Their Song, and they seem to think of it that way as well - otherwise Crowley’s “no nightingales” comment in the last 15 minutes of S2ep6 would not have struck Aziraphale so hard; we can see by his expression that the words affect him. With that statement, Crowley seems to be referencing not only the song itself, but possibly also a specific memory they share that involves that song.

At first, one might assume he means the occasion at the Ritz at the end of S1, because that song is indeed playing in that scene. However, I think that scene itself is also partially a reference back to 1941, which I’ll get to in a later item.

3. When examined closely, many scenes and plot elements from the rest of the show may be nodding to 1941. When Crowley and Aziraphale discuss ways that humans fall in love in the pub scene in S2ep2, Crowley references being caught under an awning in the rain, a very transparent callback to Eden when they huddled under Aziraphale’s wing.

So, Crowley’s contribution harkens back to Eden, but what does Aziraphale mention? What is called to his mind when he thinks of falling in love? Cotillion balls. Music and dancing. Things he’s read about in Jane Austen novels, the moments therein where the protagonists realize they’re in love. On its surface, Aziraphale’s idea of falling in love seems more like an abstraction than something the angel has experienced himself. Except: perhaps he has. Perhaps, just like with almost everything Aziraphale says and does, we should be looking at it much deeper than surface level.

Maybe he’s projecting just like Crowley is, just in a less straightforward, more opaque sort of way, which you have to admit would be very in-character of him. Maybe he’s thinking of a moment we have not directly seen yet, a moment that has only been gestured to. In other words, “a joke the paleontologists haven’t seen yet,” the paleontologists in this case being, well, us. We know Aziraphale is actually capable of sleight of hand in the right circumstances, so maybe him talking about a ball is only a feint, a flamboyantly waving hand as a distraction to keep our attention away from what the other hand is doing. Maybe he is also recalling a specific memory of himself and Crowley, one that involved music and dancing, and the realization that the feeling between them was love.

So with all that in mind, what moment from the show do we have great reason to believe was Aziraphale’s realization of his own feelings, and to an extent, Crowley’s as well? Yup, you’ve got it: 1941 again. The aftermath of Crowley rescuing him at the church and saving his books. The face that launched a ship. (Sorry.)

4. Backtracking slightly to the topic of music and dancing and The Ball, let’s talk about this: just like Crowley “did a rainstorm” to try to get Nina and Crowley to fall for each other the same way he fell for Aziraphale, The Ball may have been Aziraphale’s effort to recreate the occasion on which he realized he’d fallen for Crowley. Perhaps it was intended to be a “do-over” of past events where they almost connected, with the aim of finally reaching each other this time. We’re all aware by now that while Aziraphale did fully intend to get Maggie and Nina together, he also threw a ball specifically to dance with Crowley.

It does initially seem odd that he thinks Crowley will respond well to such a big, ostentatious party, but perhaps Aziraphale has tried the subtle route before to little avail. Like when, you may well ask?

5. Well, for one: their rendezvous in 2008, right after the Antichrist arrives on Earth, in S1ep1. Crowley has been unsuccessful in convincing Aziraphale to help him avert the apocalypse, but the angel has fewer qualms about a lunch date at the Ritz.

After the Ritz, they go back to the bookshop, with Aziraphale telling Crowley he still has some Chateauneuf du Pape left “for special occasions,” which is an interesting comment - the reason why this is a special occasion to Aziraphale is never named, as Crowley glosses over it in favor of pointing out that nobody will be having any wine anymore if Heaven wins the upcoming war. Aziraphale reiterates his refusal to engage with that topic, and ushers Crowley into the shop.

All this leaves the vague impression that Aziraphale has his own agenda for the evening (because all appearances of passivity aside, the angel almost always has his own agenda). And Crowley, not noticing this or perhaps choosing to not notice it, is throwing a spanner in the works of said agenda by continuing to bring up the apocalypse. And so, stuck at this stalemate, they drink the ‘special occasion’ wine in the shop, and listen to music, and get very drunk. It’s a small detail, but we know the music is coming from the gramophone because it’s the same record Aziraphale was listening to when Crowley called him the night prior.

So, wine and music. Why are these elements significant? It isn’t named, but in S2ep4 when Aziraphale and Crowley have returned to the bookshop after the magic show, the bottle of wine they share in the back room is the same kind, Chateauneuf du Pape.

And while there is noticeably no music playing when the two of them are sitting in the quiet, private, candlelit back room of the shop, the gramophone can be seen over Aziraphale’s shoulder in many parts of the scene, looming over their conversation like a musical Chekhov’s gun.

And here’s the real kicker: the gramophone, as it happens, is normally positioned facing the opposite direction. In bookshop scenes from the rest of S2, even earlier on in that very same episode, we see it facing the usual way, in the direction of Aziraphale’s desk.

This means that it was intentionally turned so that the “mouth” of the gramophone would be visible in this scene, and turned towards Aziraphale and Crowley. You may well ask: “the background of this scene is dark and out of focus, how can you tell for sure which way the gramophone is facing?” If you look closely, you can see the gramophone’s crank is on the right side, visible in some shots past the lip of the wine bottle. If the gramophone were facing in its usual direction, the crank would be on the left and invisible in these shots.

And, to add another layer to it, we know how important cranks are as a symbolic object in this series, how much power these objects can hold in the hands of the correct wielder. Crowley turns a crank to prime the engine of the universe - in other words, to begin the music of the spheres; and much later, he uses the Bentley’s crank when he restarts time on the Tadfield airbase. What if the gramophone’s crank was used in a similar way in 1941, to temporally create a little universe of their own, either metaphorically or literally?

Great care was taken in planning every aspect, every little detail of this show; almost nothing is a coincidence; staging scenes especially is done with the utmost degree of care. All of this to say, we as the audience seem to be meant to relate the scenes from 1941, 2008, and 2023 narratively, even though they take place decades apart. Throughout the years, Aziraphale may be trying - subtly at first, but then less so - to recreate the events of 1941.

Okay, that’s items 1 through 5. I definitely have more but I hit the limit for gifs and images for posting via the mobile app, so I’m going to have to post the rest in at least two more parts. Because I still have ghosts in my head and I must write about it. Hauntings are easier to handle if there’s someone in the house with you who sees the ghosts too.

Link to part 2

[r-i-o0]

As a non-professional paleontologist, I agree with this. This is real.

- A dinosaur autistic

(ACTUAL RANT IN THE TAGS BARE WITH ME)

Okay so like we’re all away that queerness is everywhere in nature right? Like every animal has some form of queer relationships formed within the species? Okay cool now hear me out

Gay dinosaurs

Like I’m not a palaeontologist by any means (can’t even spell the word apparently) and I’m not entirely sure if we’ll ever be able to fully understand dinosaur behaviours, but since queerness is so prevalent in nature in the modern day, surely it goes back far enough to the dinosaurs right?

T-Rex? Gay.

Stegosaurus? Bisexual.

Triceratops? Lesbian.

Raptor? Asexual.

You see you understand you get me

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[tyrantisterror]

Say TT, what would be your top 10 T-rexes from media?

Ooo, tough one. I don't know if I can even rank them - I think I'll just share ten I love.

We'll start with the queen, the goddess, my inspiration, the T.rex(es) from Jurassic Park (and its sequels). An elegant design with so many iconic features, from the angry eyebrows to the overbite and of course the iconic roar. The franchise itself stops treating the T.rex with respect from the third movie on, but that doesn't stop it from being its flagship creature.

As villainous rexes go, I don't think any have surpassed that bastard Sharp Tooth, who channels the raw horror of the most fearsome fighting animal in the fossil record.

Every single moment of the T.rexes in Prehistoric Planet filled me with delight and childlike wonder - yes, even when one got chased away my quetzalcoatluses. It was just nice to see a dino documentary where T.rex doesn't die for once, and seeing rexes be tender and social was also something I deeply crave but rarely get to see in dinosaur media.

For dino documentaries that break my heart, the Walking With Dinosaurs rex reigns supreme. I know it's not a particularly accurate reconstruction (and in fact kind of mind bogglingly weird if you look at the details closely - what is going on with the area where her skull meets her neck?), but the story they tell with the rexes here is so tragic that it's burned into my mind. There's the one scene of a rex howling alone in the forest in search of a mate, where the narration notes that it's unlikely anyone will answer the call, that's just lodged into my memory as the ultimate illustration of romance-based loneliness. I feel that rex, man. I feel that howl into the empty woods.

I know it's not a "good" movie, but fuck it, I love The Last Dinosaur. I love the suitamation, I love how the T.rex is presented as this borderline supernatural threat in the vein of Moby Dick, I love that it actually gives us a T.rex vs. Triceratops fight (an odd rarity in dinosaur media despite it being a matchup that 1. happened a LOT in reality and 2. pits two of the most popular and fearsome dinosaurs against each other - "T.rex vs. Triceratops" is, like, someone who's so hot that no one ever asks them out because they think they have no chance).

There's a Japanese kid's movie about a girl who's trying to reconnect with her estranged paleontologist mother and ends up adopting a baby T.rex, and it's very cute and deeply emotional and has scenes of a baby T.rex in a Christmas cape and Santa hat evading the Feds because that's just what you have to do when you're a weird animal companion to a child. It love it. It's called Rex: A Dinosaur Story and I watch it illegally every year because there's no US release of it.

You Are Umasou is another Japanese piece of paleomedia aimed at children with a deeply emotional story about strained parent-child relationships that involves a T.rex - several T.rexes, actual, one of which invents the art of kickboxing to style over his opponents - and l also used to watch it illegally, but luckily Discotek Media released a blu-ray collection of it and its sequels (called "The Heart and Yummie Collection" in an atttempt to translate the pun of the original title that only kinda works), so now I can just watch it whenever, to my delight.

Fang from Primal is one of the most well-rounded T.rex characters in media and I love her so much, even if I can't watch the first episode of that show ever again. It's a shame that show never got a second season, I would have loved to see more of Fang's adventures in a prehistoric world full of dinosaurs and monsters. A damn shame that they didn't continue it - they certainly wouldn't have made the show be about ancient human civilizations with almost no monsters and a weird scene where a woman sleeps with a caveman covered in third degree burns.

Speaking of tyrannosaurs who get a great deal of characterization and team up with cavemen to fight dinosaurs and monsters in a fantastical prehistoric world, none have ever done it better than the original Devil Dinosaur. He lost all of that characterization and, like, any agency at all really when Jack Kirby stopped writing him, sadly, but at least he had a fun team up with Godzilla before he was reduced to a mindless brute and/or glorified pet in subsequent Marvel stories.

Finally we end with Gon, the star of the manga of the same name, a tiny little T.rex (well, arguments could be made he's more of a generic theropod, but he's been called a T.rex enough for me to count him here) whose anthology series tells some of the most dramatic, emotional stories about animals surviving in the harshness of nature without a single line of dialogue. Gon's stories range from the humorous to the downright tragic, and you can always tell what this little dinosaurs is thinking and feeling without him saying a goddamn word. Also he personally beat the shit out of every single fighter in Tekken, which basically makes him as powerful as twenty Gokus.

[darthcatboy]

all of this aside

konrad could easily be the BEST primarch at catching fish w that lovely lack of incisors and he could go hang out with the crocodiles and odontocetes if he truly has nothing but true canines in that mouth of his

however, there is also the question of serration, as seen in many carnivores w homodont or monophyodont dentition, which, while less specialized than (most) mammalian incisors, do allow for slicing through flesh to create smaller chunks before consumption

think big theropod dinosaurs (tyrannosauroidea, allosauria) and how they had to slice off chunks of very large prey (some even doing it in 'hit and run' attacks on ENORMOUS sauropods!) efficiently. So, they evolved serrations along the back edges of their teeth to act as knives. It's likely that konrad may have these too, just so he can really eat at all

most animals w these serrated homodont teeth are not mammals, but the primarchs are goofy warp critters, idk if they have to follow too many biological rules, esp bc there's only so many ways to describe someone having a mouth full of sharp teeth and idk if any BL author wants to get into the minutiae of checks notes tooth form and function. there are dissertations on this shit, there are 12 page papers with and additional replies that add on 20 pages. i would not fault adb or dabnett for not giving too much of a damn and just saying canines 😅

I headcanon that Konrad has PROBABLY tried to eat another human being before. things got rough out there, and his teeth aren’t insanely sharp for no reason.

What’s funny is that BECAUSE of his sharp teeth, it’s actually probably harder for him to eat human beings or any sort of animal for that matter because a mouth of straight canines and nothing else is very bad for chewing, assuming he doesn’t have a second row of teeth. The likelihood that Konrad has been on a soup diet before isn’t exactly impossible, it’s probably more comfortable for him.

On that note, that means that Sanguinius is more likely have the ability to consume animals/humans with ease. He doesn’t want to, most of the time at least, but he absolutely can. His mouth is built relatively similar to a human being, although his canines are probably much sharper due to the whole vampire thing. What he has that I assume Konrad doesn’t have, is incisors and molars.

Canines are sharp to begin with, and Konrad and Sanguinius both have them, difference being that Konrad has a whole mouth of them (this is heavily implied in canon btw) and your canines are built to help “grip and tear” and they help you keep your grip while you tear your food from it’s attached tissue. Though having only those would be very uncomfortable and make eating a whole lot of work

The reason why is because your inscisors do most of the actual cutting when it comes to eating your food. The absence of Konrad’s put Sanguinius at an advantage already. Assuming he also has no molars and those are sharp too, he can’t crush or break up his food too well either. In the case he did end up consuming meat, it would have to be swallowed in chunks unless he took tiny bites and spent a lot of time chewing. This kind of makes Konrad the throat goat.

Also, how often does Konrad brush his teeth? probably never. He’s disheveled and is probably experiencing loads of cavities and headaches if his teeth haven’t fallen out already. Please encourage him to have better hygiene.

So who’s more likely to want to consume a human being? Konrad, probably

Who’s more capable of doing it? Likely Sanguinius

I could be wrong about all of this too :p

[hurglewurm]

While blue whales are sleek, fast-swimming divers, Perucetus was a very different beast. The researchers suspect that it drifted lazily through shallow coastal waters like a mammoth manatee, propelling its sausage-like body with a paddle-shaped tail. “This is a weird and stupendous fossil, for sure,” said Nicholas Pyenson, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the study. “It’s clear from this discovery that there are so many other ways of being a whale that we have not yet discovered.” The head of Perucetus would have adaptations for whichever way of life it pursued. “I would love to see the skull of this guy,” Dr. Thewissen said.

excerpts from the NYT article about the Perucetus colossus by Carl Zimmer

(illustration by Alberto Gennari, 2023)