#Mid-Cretaceous

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"..."SHARK-TOOTHED LIZARD," AN ALLOSAURID THEROPOD FROM MID-CRETACEOUS NORTH AFRICA."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the original painting and published cover art to "Prehistoric Times" Magazine #86 (Summer 2008), artwork by William Stout, featuring a Carcharodontosaurus “shark-toothed lizard”, an allosaurid theropod from mid-Cretaceous North Africa.

EXTRA INFO: Carcharodontosaurus is a representative of a family of dinosaurs that may well turn out to be the largest meat-eating dinosaurs of all.

Resolution at 876x1157 & 810x1048.

Sources: www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/william-stout & https://blog.everythingdinosaur.com/blog/_archives/2008/07/21/3803292.html.

[etchif]

[st4rrmii]

This isn't targeted at anyone in specific, in fact most of the fanartists in the fandom do not have this issue, which I love and am so relieved to see, but please, for the love of god, draw Sammy plus/mid size.

Sammy is some of the only plus/mid sized rep I've seen in tv that puts ZERO emphasis on the "comedic relief" of her being bigger than the other characters, she's a badass woman who knows how to fight and lived through two dinosaur infested islands without her weight playing any negative parts in it, and that is so relievng to see as a plus size person.

Fat people aren't hard to draw, look up references, look up tutorials, there are plenty, hell she's not even that big to the point where it is drastically different than drawing a skinny person (because yes, while I wouldn't say drawing plus sized characters is hard, it is definitely different) but it is so easy to not draw her with a waist smaller than her neck.

[sparrowrfinch]

I love this stupid dinosaur cartoon so much I think I've rewatched it like 5 times

[landwriter]

Picnic | Dream/Hob | 1.7K | G light and happy fluff, Hob loves springtime, Matthew hates giving dating advice, and the only pining is Dream pining for an A+ in dating, a thing that is both normal to want and possible to achieve

for Domaystic Drabbles, Day 4: Packed Lunch ty to @softest-punk for twigging me to the sweet @domaystic prompts. It got a little out of hand!

----

Hob had seen several thousand fine spring days. He’d seen keen snowdrops surfacing in February, a hundred congregations of crocuses bursting forth to greet the turning of the seasons, and entire delegations of wild daffodils lancing through leaf-fall and trumpeting their blossoms with an attitude that suggested they knew themselves to be the first and only creatures to master the colour yellow. He’d watched six centuries of human habitation dusted with the same fine pollen as alder and birch unfurled their catkins like festival garlands, and he’d— he’d gotten distracted again.

He blinked at the paper in front of him. He’d forgotten it was there. Or that he was meant to be grading it.

That, too: six centuries of the wild joy of spring distracting him from whatever passed for worthy toil at the time. Six centuries of the whiff of warm breeze setting off some yet-unexplained chemical reaction in his brain that made him want to dash outside and not come back in for weeks. Six centuries of him becoming temporarily mad and cheerfully insufferable to all those around him with the joy of it. He’d never get used to it, and Christ help him if he let anyone around him get used to it either.

“What a gorgeous day,” he remarked, to the untouched stack of student work.

It said nothing back, but he beamed down at it anyway, and then, sighing in the manner of a man happy to be defeated, turned his office chair to face the cracked-open window and watch the house martins build their newest nest.

---

“Matthew.”

“Yeah, boss?”

“I require your counsel. For a human matter.” Dream’s brow was furrowed, his manner grave. Hob, then.

Matthew inclined his head and hopped sideways in what he’d decided was the corvid equivalent of girding his loins.

“Hob keeps commenting on the weather on our outings.” He sounded anguished.

“The weather?” he repeated dumbly. Thank fuck. Two days ago it had been the number of orgasms human males required. Daily. Which, good for the two of them, but c’mon. Matthew had really not needed that knowledge about the kind of refractory period and appetite you acquire after half a millenia of boning. Hob, unfortunately, was Dream’s first human boyfriend, and the boss was setting about his new function with all the usual terrifying intensity and insane demands of perfection. In service of this, Matthew (unilaterally and undemocratically, he might add) had been named Arbiter Of All Things Men, which seemed kind of like a reach considering he was a bird, and one who’d been only, like, a little bisexual in his human life. The Corinthian was always skulking around. He wasn’t human either, but at least he’d fucked dudes. He’d have tips. Or Loosh! Loosh knew everything. She could give Dream books and send him off. Instead of Matthew trying to remember how the fuck dating worked.

“-time we’ve met this week.”

“Right,” said Matthew vaguely.

“What does he mean by it? He knows I cannot change the weather in the Waking. He asks nothing of me, and yet it is incessant.”

“Complaining about it, huh? Humans love to complain, boss.”

“No,” said Dream, looking wretched. “Worse. Earnest, ceaseless praise.”

“Oh. Sure. Of course.” What?

Dream was pacing the throne room like he was auditioning for community theater. “At the National Gallery, he daydreamed of the city park outside while feigning to contemplate a Pesellino. I took him to a production of Macbeth at the Globe, and afterwards, he said that even after centuries, it was never less than marvelous to watch. He was referring to the swifts feeding above us in the third act. Naturally.”

Matthew made a sympathetic noise. If he didn’t know when to keep his mouth - er, beak - shut, he’d say that Dream sounded like an insecure lover. Jealous, as best he could tell, of the change of seasons for stealing away some of Hob’s uncannily boundless affections.

“Well?” Dream stared at him in askance.

“Uh.” He floundered. Spring shit, spring shit. “You could take him on a picnic.” Yeah. Chicks loved picnics.

---

Dream had appeared in his office with a wicker basket that looked stolen from a Beatrix Potter story. A delicate gingham square peeked from the lid. It looked big enough to set up a naughty rabbit for life. He set it on Hob’s desk and then primly folded his hands behind his back.

“Hullo, you.” Hob stood and kissed him on the cheek. “What’s the occasion?” He suspected that there was none. Dream had been taking dating him very seriously. It was delightful.

“Matthew has suggested you require a picnic,” said Dream. Except he said it the way someone else might say The doctor has suggested it’s terminal.

Dream had been taking dating him very seriously. It was also, sometimes, awful.

“Oh, darling. That’s so sweet. But I don’t require anything special, you know. Just you, when you’ve got time to drop in. We could do something else.”

“We shall not. I have packed us lunch.”

“Alright, you stubborn creature. Maybe I do require a picnic.” He offered his arm to Dream. “Come on, I know a place.”

---

Lunch was too piddling a word for the spread Dream had packed. Lunch was a crust of bread and ale, or pottage. Lunch was a Sainsbury’s Egg & Cress Sandwich wolfed down with the last of the morning’s flask of Yorkshire Tea. This was a feast. A temple offering. For Hob. His chest twinged a little with affection. God, he was in love.

“This pleases you,” said Dream, who was looking unfairly elegant for someone sat on a gingham blanket with a bit of clotted cream on the side of his mouth.

Hob kissed it away. “Oh, yes.”

“More than our other...dates.”

“Oh,” said Hob, who was sometimes slow on the uptake, but after several centuries, didn’t miss much at all. “I’ve loved all of them. But this-” he gestured sweepingly around at Primrose Hill, the green ash shading them, the pleasant urban pastoral of joggers and families and dogs and other love-struck couples, all breathing in the same warm afternoon air, “-is exactly where I want to be, today. Outside, among all the life. In the thick of spring. It’s perfect.”

Dream followed Hob’s gaze, and studied the tableau. “There is nothing exceptional about this weather or setting.” He sounded as nonplussed as creature with nearly infinite age and knowledge could sound.

Hob laced his fingers through Dream’s, and tried to see what he saw. No great stories, really. Pedestrian daydreams of food and sun and sex, probably, of pay raises and summer vacations to Mallorca and Ibiza. Humanity being predictable, and life doing the same thing it did every year, to Dream’s uncountable thousands.

“No, I suppose not, but that’s why I love it, too. It’s familiar. Constant. Centuries, and it catches me out each time. It’s always arrived, no matter how bad things were for me. Always been there to celebrate with me when they’re wonderful. Like now.”

Dream looked sidelong at Hob. “Like now,” he echoed. Unsure, and stubbornly unwilling to make a question of it. The ache in Hob’s chest redoubled itself.

“Like now,” he promised. “It reminds me of you, too, you know. We always met in June, Dream. In 1789, watching the first trees budding nearly drove me mad with anticipation. Ninety-nine years and nine months. And you were always heralded by the same signs.” He traced circles on Dream’s pale palm, imagining it sun-kissed. “In 1989, when spring turned all the way into summer and you were still gone, I think my heart broke a little. I’d hoped, until then. That you were just late. With the swifts,” he said, quiet.

“Hob.” Dream had moved across the picnic blanket in his preternaturally fast way, and was now more or less in his lap, gripping Hob’s shoulders.

“Sorry,” he said, grimacing. “I’m being horrifically soppy. Must’ve been the scones. It’s alright. You’re here now. All that matters.”

“Robert Gadling,” said Dream. Hob blinked at that. He’d only ever gotten the full name treatment when Dream was still his Stranger, and only then when he’d disappointed him. “If you dare apologize for such a fine expression of your sentiment, I will be wroth with you.”

“Sorry,” he said again, smiling this time.

“I am honoured you associate me with the season you most adore. I would have it that you never pass another Spring waiting for me. If you wished such a thing.”

It sounded a little like a marriage proposal, which was something his heart really could not cope with the full size of at the minute. Not with so much love already around. Not if Dream didn’t intend to say it like that. He went for levity instead.

“Even though it’s driven me to distraction every time you’ve taken me out this week? Even if all I want to do for weeks is lie around outdoors and hold hands?”

Nearby, a baby started wailing. Dream, to his credit, didn’t even glance away. “Yes,” he said, perfectly solemn, perfectly certain. “Even then.”

“Well, that’s alright then,” said Hob, fighting an urge to start crying a little as well. “I would, as a matter of fact. Wish such a thing.”

They looked at each other, besotted, while the wailing continued.

“Only,” murmured Dream, “must it be in Anthropocene?”

“What?”

“Lie down, lover.” Hob did, a delighted suspicion creeping over him as Dream reached into his jacket pocket. Dream stretched over him, and spoke it low into his ear: “And I will take you to a Spring no man has seen.”

---

Matthew was eating scone crumbs and congratulating himself on his good sense to suggest a picnic. Birds loved picnics too. He hadn’t realized how much until this moment. Jesus. Picnics were a great idea. He was going to tell Dream that human men required them weekly during courtship.

“Thanks for bringing home leftovers, boss,” he said, spraying crumbs all over Dream’s shoulder.

Dream was too preoccupied to mind, or even notice. He waved an imperious hand. “It’s nothing. We absconded from the Waking shortly after we arrived. I have finally given Hob a worthy date. I showed him the virtues of picnicking in a Dreaming Spring.” Oh my god. Dream actually had been jealous of the weather. Because he hadn’t made it for Hob.

“What, no ants?” he offered.

“Hardly so prosaic,” said Dream. He glowed with satisfaction. “The very first.”

[pa-pa-plasma]

[idkz19]

just witnessed a bunch of skippstone shippers attack a vinnie stone shipper on yt,, wow.. 😡😡😡😡

[nocountryforiguanodon]

Feathered Philosoraptor on the intersection of geology and linguistics.

[nicxxx5]

up till 5am because i finished camp cretaceous and i love her

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Chordata - Myxini

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Myxini, commonly called “hagfish”, “slime eels”, or even “snot snakes”, is the most simple class of vertebrates. They have one order, the Myxiniformes, and 3 families.

Hagfish have a cartilaginous skull but no vertebral column, though they do have rudimentary vertebrae. They also have tooth-like structures composed of keratin. Species range from 4 cm (1.6 in) to 127 cm (4 ft 2 in) long. They have elongated, worm-like bodies, and paddle-like tails. The skin is naked and loose, attached only along the center ridge of the back and at the slime glands. They have simple eyespots which only detect light, six or eight barbels around the mouth, and a single nostril. Their jaws move horizontally rather than vertically like other vertebrates, projecting two pairs of horny, comb-shaped tooth plates that grasp food and pull it into the mouth. They are marine predators and/or scavengers.

Hagfish are most well-known for their defense mechanism: releasing copious amounts of slime from specialized mucous glands in their skin. The slime reacts to seawater, expanding to 10,000 times its original size in 0.4 seconds. This slime is flexible, more durable and retentive than the slime excreted by any other animals. If a predator is not deterred by the sudden mouthful of slime, hagfish can also tie themselves into a knot to scrape more slime off of their bodies, wiggling free from their captor while its gills are clogged. Hagfish will also use this traveling knot behavior to clean themselves of any excess mucous.

Very little is known about hagfish reproduction. They are split into males and females, with females usually outnumbering males. Depending on species, females lay from 1 to 30 tough, yolky eggs. The eggs stick together with velcro-like tufts at either end. They do not have a larval stage and hatch as miniature adults.

The oldest-known stem group hagfish are known from the Late Carboniferous, with modern forms first being recorded from the mid-Cretaceous.

Propaganda under the cut:

Hagfish thread keratin, the protein that make up their slime filaments, is under investigation as an alternative to spider silk for use in applications such as body armor.

Hagfish slime threads can also be used as ultra-strong fiber for clothing.

Hagfish skin, used in a variety of clothing accessories, is usually referred to as "eel skin". It produces a particularly durable leather used for wallets and belts.

Remember this?

In 2017, a truck carrying 7,500 pounds of live hagfish got into a road accident on U.S. Highway 101. The aggravated hagfish then released enough slime to cover the road and nearby cars. Horror movie situation tbh.

But why were several tons of hagfish being shipped in a truck? Well, they were on their way to Korea for seafood purposes. Yeah. They are eaten in Korea and Japan.

Hagfish have a sluggish metabolism and can survive months between feedings; this is likely due to the scarcity of food on the seafloor. When food is present, such as a dead whale, they can go into a feeding frenzy.

Here I am listing all these ways that humans use them, but hagfish are also an important part of the deep sea ecosystem. Plus… I think they’re cute and I too wish I could produce a bunch of slime when I don’t want people to touch me. I mean, Howl in “Howl’s Moving Castle” does it and people love him, so…

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Daily fish fact #506

Genus Mawsonia!

They were large, shallow water coelacanths that went extinct in the mid-Cretaceous Period! They were very large, reaching estimated sizes of about four meters (13 feet).

[mindblowingscience]

The age of dinosaurs wasn't conducted solely above ground. A newly discovered ancestor of Thescelosaurus shows evidence that these animals spent at least part of their time in underground burrows. The new species contributes to a fuller understanding of life during the mid-Cretaceous—both above and below ground. The new dinosaur, Fona [/Foat'NAH/] herzogae lived 99 million years ago in what is now Utah. At that time, the area was a large floodplain ecosystem sandwiched between the shores of a massive inland ocean to the east and active volcanoes and mountains to the west. It was a warm, wet, muddy environment with numerous rivers running through it.

Continue Reading.

[st4rrmii]

Hold on I'm tryin to spell gorjus

[alphynix]

Ellimmichthyiformes were a group of ray-finned fish known from the early Cretaceous to the mid-Oligocene, about 140-30 million years ago. For much of that time they were quite widespread, found in various marine, estuarine, and freshwater environments across Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas.

Closely related to modern clupeiformes (herrings, sardines, and anchovies), and characterized by two rows of bony scutes – one in front of the dorsal fin and the other along the belly – they're also known by the nickname "double‐armored herrings".

Rhombichthys intoccabilis was a rather unusual-looking ellimmichthyiform from the mid-Cretaceous, around 95 million years ago. Living in shallow reef and lagoon waters covering what is now the West Bank in the Middle East, it was about 20cm long (~8") and had a tall narrow dorsal fin along with incredibly elongated belly scutes that gave its body a rhombus-like profile.

Juveniles of this species seem to have lacked the extended belly scutes, instead having a much more rounded body shape. This may indicate that adults and juveniles occupied very different ecological roles, or that the distinctive scutes might have been a secondary sexual characteristic involved in displaying for courtship and reproduction.

———

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[officiallordvetinari]

Below are 10 Wikipedia featured articles. Links and descriptions are below the cut.

The American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula), also known as a Mississippi paddlefish, spoon-billed cat, or spoonbill, is a species of ray-finned fish. It is the last living species of paddlefish (Polyodontidae). This family is most closely related to the sturgeons; together they make up the order Acipenseriformes, which are one of the most primitive living groups of ray-finned fish. Fossil records of other paddlefish species date back 125 million years to the Early Cretaceous, with records of Polyodon extending back 65 million years to the early Paleocene. The American paddlefish is a smooth-skinned freshwater fish with an almost entirely cartilaginous skeleton and a paddle-shaped rostrum (snout), which extends nearly one-third its body length. It has been referred to as a freshwater shark because of its heterocercal tail or caudal fin resembling that of sharks, though it is not closely related. The American paddlefish is a highly derived fish because it has evolved specialised adaptations such as filter feeding. Its rostrum and cranium are covered with tens of thousands of sensory receptors for locating swarms of zooplankton, its primary food source.

The fauna of Scotland is generally typical of the northwest European part of the Palearctic realm, although several of the country's larger mammals were hunted to extinction in historic times and human activity has also led to various species of wildlife being introduced. Scotland's diverse temperate environments support 62 species of wild mammals, including a population of wild cats, important numbers of grey and harbour seals and the most northerly colony of bottlenose dolphins in the world. Many populations of moorland birds, including the black and red grouse, live here, and the country has internationally significant nesting grounds for seabirds such as the northern gannet. The Scottish crossbill is the only endemic vertebrate species in the UK. Scotland's seas are among the most biologically productive in the world; it is estimated that the total number of Scottish marine species exceeds 40,000. The Darwin Mounds are an important area of deep sea cold water coral reefs discovered in 1998. Only six amphibians and four land reptiles are native to Scotland, but many species of invertebrates live there that are otherwise rare in the United Kingdom.

Several attempts at a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Islamic caliphates, their common enemy, were made by various leaders among the Frankish Crusaders and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. Such an alliance might have seemed an obvious choice: the Mongols were already sympathetic to Christianity, given the presence of many influential Nestorian Christians in the Mongol court. The Franks—Western Europeans, and those in the Levantine Crusader states—were open to the idea of support from the East, in part owing to the long-running legend of the mythical Prester John, an Eastern king in an Eastern kingdom who many believed would one day come to the assistance of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. The Franks and Mongols also shared a common enemy in the Muslims. However, despite many messages, gifts, and emissaries over the course of several decades, the often-proposed alliance never came to fruition.

The Free State of Galveston (sometimes referred to as the Republic of Galveston Island) was a satirical name given to the coastal city of Galveston in the U.S. state of Texas during the early-to-mid-20th century. Today, the term is sometimes used to describe the culture and history of that era. During the Roaring Twenties, Galveston Island emerged as a popular resort town, attracting celebrities from around the country. Gambling, illegal liquor, and other vice-oriented businesses were a major part of tourism. The "Free State" moniker embodied a belief held by many locals that Galveston was beyond what they perceived were repressive mores and laws of Texas and the United States. In one of the more famous examples of this, a state committee, investigating gambling at the fabled Balinese Room, was told by the local sheriff that he had not raided the establishment because it was a "private club" and because he was not a "member".

The Kylfings (Old Norse Kylfingar; Estonian Kalevid; Hungarian Kölpények; Old East Slavic Колбяги, Kolbiagi; Byzantine Greek Κουλπίγγοι, Koulpingoi; Arabic al-Kilabiyya) were a people of uncertain origin active in Northern Europe during the Viking Age, roughly from the late ninth century to the early twelfth century. They could be found in areas of Lapland, Russia, and the Byzantine Empire that were frequented by Scandinavian traders, raiders and mercenaries. Scholars differ on whether the Kylfings were ethnically Finnic or Norse. Also disputed is their geographic origin, with Denmark, Sweden and the Eastern Baltic all put forward as candidates. Whether the name Kylfing denotes a particular tribal, socio-political, or economic grouping is also a matter of much debate.

Mosasaurus (/ˌmoʊzəˈsɔːrəs/; "lizard of the Meuse River") is the type genus (defining example) of the mosasaurs, an extinct group of aquatic squamate reptiles. It lived from about 82 to 66 million years ago during the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous. The genus was one of the first Mesozoic marine reptiles known to science—the first fossils of Mosasaurus were found as skulls in a chalk quarry near the Dutch city of Maastricht in the late 18th century, and were initially thought to be crocodiles or whales. One skull discovered around 1780 was famously nicknamed the "great animal of Maastricht". In 1808, naturalist Georges Cuvier concluded that it belonged to a giant marine lizard with similarities to monitor lizards but otherwise unlike any known living animal. This concept was revolutionary at the time and helped support the then-developing ideas of extinction.

Several organisms are capable of rolling locomotion. However, true wheels and propellers—despite their utility in human vehicles—do not play a significant role in the movement of living things (with the exception of certain flagella, which work like corkscrews). Biologists have offered several explanations for the apparent absence of biological wheels, and wheeled creatures have appeared often in speculative fiction.

The existence of a slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then rapidly during the Industrial Revolution in Wales until the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in northwest Wales. These sites included the Penrhyn Quarry near Bethesda, the Dinorwic Quarry near Llanberis, the Nantlle Valley quarries, and Blaenau Ffestiniog, where the slate was mined rather than quarried. Penrhyn and Dinorwig were the two largest slate quarries in the world, and the Oakeley mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog was the largest slate mine in the world.

The social history of viruses describes the influence of viruses and viral infections on human history. Epidemics caused by viruses began when human behaviour changed during the Neolithic period, around 12,000 years ago, when humans developed more densely populated agricultural communities. This allowed viruses to spread rapidly and subsequently to become endemic. Viruses of plants and livestock also increased, and as humans became dependent on agriculture and farming, diseases such as potyviruses of potatoes and rinderpest of cattle had devastating consequences.

The High Middle Ages of Scotland encompass Scotland in the era between the death of Domnall II in 900 AD and the death of King Alexander III in 1286, which was an indirect cause of the Wars of Scottish Independence. At the close of the ninth century, various competing kingdoms occupied the territory of modern Scotland. Scandinavian influence was dominant in the northern and western islands, Brythonic culture in the southwest, the Anglo-Saxon or English Kingdom of Northumbria in the southeast and the Pictish and Gaelic Kingdom of Alba in the east, north of the River Forth. By the tenth and eleventh centuries, northern Great Britain was increasingly dominated by Gaelic culture, and by the Gaelic regal lordship of Alba, known in Latin as either Albania or Scotia, and in English as "Scotland".