#More Fossil Fragments

[red-wolf-youtube]

Dinosaur Zoo Tycoon - More Fossil Fragments

[blueiscoool]

Mammoth Tusk Discovered in Mississippi

Scientists in Mississippi announced a major fossil discovery in the state!

According to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), the agency’s Mississippi State Geological Survey scientists received a message about a the discovery made by Eddie Templeton, an avid artifact and fossil collector. Templeton was exploring in rural Madison County earlier this month when he stumbled upon what appeared to be a portion of an ice-age elephant tusk exposed in a steep embankment.

Mississippi was home to three Proboscideans during the last ice age: Mastodon, Gomphothere, and the Columbian mammoth. All three possessed ivory tusks.

Officials said Mastodons are the most common Proboscidean finds in Mississippi. Mammoths, which were related to modern elephants, are far less common finds in Mississippi.

When Templeton and the State Survey paleontological team arrived to the fossil site, they found the fossil tusk in amazing condition and was only partially exposed just above the water under a bluff in the alluvium of a small drainage. It was suspected based on the strong curvature of the massive tusk that they were dealing with a Columbian mammoth and not that of the more common mastodon. Officials said this would be the first of its kind for the area.

The team was able to carefully remove the clayey sand from around the tusk to expose the seven-foot long fossil. The tusk had been deposited entirely intact. MDEQ officials said most fossil tusk ivory found around the state are just fragments and most are likely to be attributable to the more common mastodon.

The fossil was taken to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science in Jackson for further curation and careful study. It was confirmed by a museum paleontologist as belonging to a mammoth.

Officials said the discovery offers a rare window into the Columbian mammoths that once roamed Madison County along the Jackson Prairie of central Mississippi. Columbian mammoths were much larger than the infamous woolly mammoth that roamed the colder, more northern regions of North America. They grew up to 15 feet at the shoulder and could weigh more than 10 tons.

[bestanimal]

Round 2.5 - Cnidaria - Hexacorallia

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

The anthozoan class Hexacorallia contains five extant (living) orders: Actiniaria (“sea anemones”), Antipatharia (“black corals” or “thorn corals”), Corallimorpharia (“false corals”), Scleractinia (“stony corals” or “hard corals”), and Zoantharia (“zoanthids”). This class contains many of the most important reef builders: the stony corals, sea anemones, and zoanthids.

Like all anthozoans, these organisms are formed of individual soft polyps which in some species live in colonies and can secrete a calcite skeleton. Some species live as solitary polyps. Hexacorals are distinguished from Octocorals by having six or fewer axes of symmetry in their body structure, and tentacles which are simple and unbranched and normally number more than eight. Reef-building or hermatypic corals are mostly colonial, building a communal skeleton around their colony. Corallimorphs are similar to the stony corals, except for the stony skeleton, and have a tendency to overgrow reefs in a carpet formation. Most sea anemones are solitary, single polyps attached to a hard surface by their base but some species float near the surface, or can deatach to escape predators.

Hexacorals are filter-feeding carnivores, using their tentacles armed with stinging cells, called cnidocytes, to catch and neutralize plankton and draw it into their mouth. Larger polyps are able to take correspondingly larger prey, including various invertebrates and even fish. Many species have separate sexes, the whole colony being either male or female, but others are hermaphroditic, with individual polyps having both male and female gonads. Most species release gametes into the sea where fertilisation takes place, and the planula larvae drift as plankton, but a few species brood their eggs. Once the larvae settle in an area, they will metamorphize into a polyp. In colonial species, this initial polyp will repeatedly divide to give rise to an entire colony. Hexacorals can also reproduce by fragmentation, where part of a colony becomes detached and reattaches elsewhere, cloning polyps to grow the colony in the new area.

Hexacorals have existed since the Fortunian. Mackenzia, from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada, is the oldest fossil identified as a sea anemone. Nonetheless, many hexacorals have been declining in numbers and are expected to continue declining due to poaching, ocean acidification and climate change.

Propaganda under the cut:

Hexacorals provide housing, shelter, food, and protection for so many other animals. They are The Givers of the Animal Kingdom.

The largest coral ever recorded, a Pavona clavus colony dubbed the “mega coral” lives off the Solomon Islands. It is 34m (112 ft )wide, 32m (105 ft) long and 4.9m (16 ft) high, larger than a Blue Whale, composed of nearly one billion polyps, and more than 300 years old!

Coral is loud. It can hear and it communicates with each other via sound. We’re only beginning to discover this information and understand the implications of it, and more research needs to be done, but the amount of noise-making humans do in the ocean tends to disrupt the communication corals have with each other and other reef life.

Black Corals have historically been used by Pacific Islanders for medical treatment and in rituals, and are used in modern day for making jewelry.

Sea anemones and zoanthids are popular in the aquarium trade, however, their popularity threatens some populations as the trade depends on collection from the wild.

In southwestern Spain and Sardinia, the Snakelocks Anemone (Anemonia viridis) is consumed as a delicacy. The whole animal is marinated in vinegar, then coated in a batter similar to that used to make calamari, and deep-fried in olive oil.

Most sea anemones are harmless to humans, but a few highly toxic species (notably Actinodendron arboreum, Phyllodiscus semoni and Stichodactyla spp.) have caused severe injuries and are potentially lethal.

Clownfish and Anemonefish (Subfamily Amphiprioninae) are most famous for having a mutualistic relationship with sea anemones, receiving protection from predators by hiding in the anemone's stinging tentacles, and providing the anemone nutrients in the form of faeces. Some other animals have been recorded utilizing sea anemones in a similar way, including cardinalfish, juvenile threespot dascyllus, incognito (or anemone) gobies, juvenile painted greenlings, various crabs (such as Inachus phalangium, Mithraculus cinctimanus and Neopetrolisthes), shrimp (such as certain Alpheus, Lebbeus, Periclimenes and Thor), opossum shrimp (such as Heteromysis and Leptomysis), and various marine snails. One of the more unusual relationships are those between certain anemones (such as Adamsia, Calliactis and Neoaiptasia) and hermit crabs or snails, where the anemones live on the shell of the hermit crab or snail, providing protection from predators while being provided with transportation. Another unusual relationship is between Bundeopsis or Triactis anemones and Lybia boxing crabs, where the small anemones are actually carried around in the claws of the boxing crab as little weapons.

Look at this anemone eating an entire Mola:

(source)

[inspofromancientworld]

Spinning Plant and Animal Fibers

By Brooklyn Museum - Spindle without Whorl, whole or Spindle with Cotton Yarn, Fragment. Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved on 2019-11-04.Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83653957

The beginning of twisting fibers from plants or animal coats is difficult to date because they don't fossilize, so we have to rely on trace evidence, such as imprints in mud that did fossilize. We have these of string-like skirts from the Upper Paleolithic that date to about 20,000 years ago. Recent discoveries, though, show that Neanderthals spun cording as well.

Photo of Neanderthal cord from Abri du Maras. M-H. Moncel

The evidence from the Neanderthals was actual fibers that were preserved in a cave in southern France. The fragment was 6mm long and was three bundles of twisted tree fibers twisted together. The most likely usage of the fiber was to be wrapped around a handle of some type or as part of a net bag. This implies many areas of knowledge held by Neanderthals to make the cording including the growth patterns of the trees the fibers came from, spinning, and spinning the resultant thread into a stronger yarn. 'In order to get this fiber, you have to strop the outer bark off a tree to scrape off the innter bark. This is best done in the spring or early summer,' according to Bruce Hardy, co-author of the study of these fibers and professor of anthropology at Kenyon College in Gambler, Ohio.

This spinning was most likely done against the thigh, twisting the fibers as the hand rolls it down the thigh, pinching them, and then bringing them back to the top of the thigh to be twisted more. The product was likely wound around a stick or stone.

By Rama - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49227927

The next step was to spin onto the stick, or spindle, directly, then to create a split or hook in the top of the stick to hold the twisted part on the stick. Exactly when this happened, we don't know, as there are, as yet, no direct remains of this process. What we do have evidence of improved technology is small bone and later metal hooks that replaced the slit or hook cut into wood as well as weights made of stone, wood, metal, clay, or later metal that went on the end of the sticks to keep them spinning longer called spinning whorl. These have been found as early as the Neolithic. The combination of these technological improvements is called the drop spindle and we have artwork depicting spinning from many cultures.

By © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2596494

The other item needed to make spinning easier is an item called a distaff, which would hold a prepared bundle of fibers is loosely wrapped onto, which freed the hand that would have previously held the fiber and allowed a larger quantity of fiber to be held at one time. The distaff could be tucked under the arm or into a loop or holder in a belt. Again, since this didn't fossilize, we don't know when it was developed, though it does appear in Bronze Age artwork.

If you're interested in learning to spin, local independent yarn stores are a good place to start. Other places to look are reenactment guilds, fiber craft guilds, or online for spinning classes. The benefit of guilds is in-person help learning and the benefit of companionship and experience.

[pkmnprofloblolly]

Hello! Trainer from Alola here, big fan of your work. I was wondering; is there any evidence of any legendary pokemon being related to other pokemon? For example, does Rayquaza share any DNA with other dragon pokemon? (I know it would be extremely difficult to get any rayquaza DNA fhshfjd) Or are pokemon like that entirely their own species?

the answer is, as with many things on this blog.. it depends!

"legendary pokemon" aren't really a cohesive category like, say, a type or a taxonomic group. the only common factors are that they tend to be very rare and that they have legends about them. as our examples, let's use two groups of hoenn legendary pokemon: latios and latias, and groudon, kyogre, and rayquaza.

latios and latias (like other pairs such as nidoqueen and nidoking, or volbeat and illumise, latios and latias are sexually dimorphic members of the same species) are indeed related to other pokemon- they're birds! specifically, they're in the auk family, which are a group of generally stout, seafaring birds like guillemots and puffins. this may seem strange- the latis appear to have wings and arms, and no legs, very unlike birds. however, if we take a look at their skeleton, the connection becomes much more obvious:

what we generally interpret as arms are actually the lati's legs, the thighs of which are obscured by flesh and feathers. while they use their wings to steer and for some lift, the latis generally stay aloft with their psychic powers rather than traditional flight, which is why they can hover in place. this has freed up their legs for use in manipulating objects, and they are rarely seen standing on their feet. because they mostly rely on hovering, their legs no longer have the strength to hold their large bodies up for very long.

these pokemon are indeed exceptionally rare, having very low population numbers in only a few regions, and spending most of their time over open ocean. like many pelagic seabirds, they breed on only a few small islands, like alto mare off the johto region and southern island off hoenn's south coast. their populations are on the upswing, though, in large part due to concentrated conservation efforts on those islands. point being, though, they are indeed just animals. rare, powerful animals, but animals nonetheless.

many legendary pokemon fall into this camp. articuno, zapdos, and moltres, lugia and ho-oh, heatran, and various others.

.

conversely, the so-called weather trio of hoenn: groudon, kyogre, and rayquaza. these three are even more rarely seen than the latis, only having been sighted in recent times during their clash in hoenn nearly two decades ago. despite the three's resemblance to other living pokemon, as far as we know they are entirely unrelated to any known animals, or even any other life on earth.

this is known because evidence of these pokemon have been found dating back over 3 billion years ago, that is to say over a billion years before multicellular life even existed. gigantic fragments of footprints attributed to groudon have been sighted alongside some of the earliest fossils we know of of early bacteria. modern physical samples from these pokemon- the extremely few that have ever been recovered- have never resulted in any dna evidence, and appear in structure much more similar to inorganic matter.

as it stands, it appears these pokemon arose some time early (relatively speaking) after the earth formed, being (as opposed to natural living organisms) animate representations of the forces of nature themselves. a similar condition is often assumed for some other grandiose legendary pokemon, such as dialga and palkia, though much less tangible evidence exists for their presence in prehistoric time, so this is mostly an assumption based on their infrequent appearances & legends surrounding their origins.

[neovenatorgirlteeth]

DINOVEMBER 3/13: Sinosaurus triassicus

WE'RE GONNA DO IT FOLKS I'M GONNA DO IT I AM GOING TO COMPLETE THIS CHALLENGE ¡4 DAYS REMAIN! Tbh I've had this drawing sat in my drafts for probably 2 weeks at this point, I've been struggling with no.4 and with the description for this one. She's in colour this time, not because of any premeditated choice but because there wasn't enough contrast between the feathered and nonfeathered parts of the animal.

Anyhoo, Sinosaurus is a theropod from Yunnan province, China that lived roughly 200Ma ago. It's very similar to the North-american Dilophosaurus, being roughly the same size and build, with a pair of head crests that have a distinctive V shape when viewed from the front. Although it's been named since 1940, it was only really properly understood when Specimen KMV8701 was unearthed in the 1980s; this fossil was originally referred to as Dilophosaurus sinensis until it was linked to the jaw fragments of the holotype and reassigned to Sinosaurus.

I'm featuring this animal because another important step has been taken towards understanding it's biology this year: specimen ZLJ0057, another more complete Sinosaurus triassicus found in recent years, has been modelled and analysed in depth by Liang, Falkingham and Xing to help understand it's biomechanics. It was found that Sinosaurus weighed in at almost 850kg, heavier than previously thought, and that it was a strong runner that used both its arms and jaws together to capture prey. These kinds of studies can be a slog to put together, but they form the base on which the rest of palaeontology is built.

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 2: Walking With Victorian Dinosaurs

[Previously: the Permian and the Triassic]

The next part of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur trail depicts the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Most of the featured animals here are actually marine reptiles, but a few dinosaur species do make an appearance towards the end of this section.

Although there are supposed to be three Jurassic ichthyosaur statues here, only the big Temnodontosaurus platyodon could really be seen at the time of my visit. The two smaller Ichthyosaurus communis and Leptonectes tenuirostris were almost entirely hidden by the dense plant growth on the island.

Ichthyosaurs when fully visible vs currently obscured Left side image by Nick Richards (CC BY SA 2.0)

Head, flipper, and tail details of the Temnodontosaurus. A second ichthyosaur is just barely visible in the background.

Ichthyosaurs were already known from some very complete and well-preserved fossils in the 1850s, so a lot of the anatomy here still holds up fairly well even 170 years later. They even have an attempt at a tail fin despite no impressions of such a structure having been discovered yet! Some details are still noticeably wrong compared to modern knowledge, though, such as the unusual amount of shrinkwrapping on the sclerotic rings of the eyes and the bones of the flippers.

———

Arranged around the ichthyosaur, three different Jurassic plesiosaurs are also represented – “Plesiosaurus” macrocephalus with the especially sinuous neck on the left, Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus in the middle, and Thalassiodracon hawkinsi on the right.

They're all depicted here as amphibious and rather seal-like, hauling out onto the shore in the same manner as the ichthyosaurs. While good efforts for the time, we now know these animals were actually fully aquatic, that they had a lot more soft tissue bulking out their bodies, and that their necks were much less flexible.

———

The recently-installed new pivot bridge is also visible here behind some of the marine reptiles.

———

Positioned to the left of the other marine reptiles, this partly-obscured pair of croc-like animals are teleosaurs (Teleosaurus cadomensis), a group of Jurassic semi-aquatic marine crocodylomorphs.

A better view of the two teleosaurs by MrsEllacott (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Crystal Palace statues have the general proportions right, with long thin gharial-like snouts and fairly small limbs. But some things like the shape of the back of the head and the pattern of armored scutes are wrong, which is odd considering that those details were already well-known in the 1850s.

———

Finally we reach the first actual dinosaur, and one of the most iconic statues in the park: the Jurassic Megalosaurus!

Megalosaurus bucklandi was the very first non-avian dinosaur known to science, discovered in the 1820s almost twenty years before the term "dinosaur" was even coined.

At a time when only fragments of the full skeleton were known, and before any evidence of bipedalism had been found, the Crystal Palace rendition of Megalosaurus is a bulky quadrupedal reptile with a humped back and upright bear-like limbs. It's a surprisingly progressive interpretation for the period, giving the impression of an active mammal-like predator.

This statue suffered extensive damage to its snout in 2020, which was repaired a year later with a fiberglass "prosthesis".

———

Reaching the Cretaceous period now, we find Hylaeosaurus (and one of the upcoming Iguanodon peeking in from the side).

Hylaeosaurus armatus was the first known ankylosaur, although much like the other dinosaurs here its life appearance was very poorly understood in the early days of paleontology. Considering how weird ankylosaurs would later turn out to be, the Crystal Palace depiction is a pretty good guess, showing a large heavy iguana-like quadruped with hoof-like claws and armored spiky scaly skin.

It's positioned facing away from viewers, so its face isn't very visible – but due to the head needing to be replaced with a fiberglass replica some years ago, the original can now be seen (and touched!) up close near the start of the trail.

———

Two pterosaurs (or "pterodactyles" according to the park signs) were also supposed to be just beyond the Hylaeosaurus, but plant growth had completely blocked any view of them.

Although these two statues are supposed to represent a Cretaceous species now known as Cimoliopterus cuvieri, they were probably actually modeled based on the much better known Jurassic-aged Pterodactylus antiquus.

A second set of pterosaur sculptures once stood near the teleosaurs, also based on Pterodactylus but supposed to represent a Jurassic species now known as Dolicorhamphus bucklandii. These statues went missing in the 1930s, and were eventually replaced with new fiberglass replicas in the early 2000s… only to be destroyed by vandalism just a few years later.

(The surviving pair near the Hylaeosaurus are apparently in a bit of disrepair these days, too, with the right one currently missing most of its jaws.)

Image by Ben Sutherland (CC BY 2.0)

The Crystal Palace pterosaurs weren't especially accurate even for the time, with heads much too small, swan-like necks, and bird-like wings that don't attach the membranes to the hindlimbs. Hair-like fuzz had been observed in pterosaur fossils in the 1830s, but these depictions are covered in large overlapping diamond-shaped scales due to Richard Owen's opinion that they should be scaly because they were reptiles.

But some details still hold up – the individual with folded wings is in a quadrupedal pose quite similar to modern interpretations, and the bird-like features give an overall impression of something more active and alert than the later barely-able-to-fly sluggish reptilian pterosaur depictions that would become common by the mid-20th century.

(Much like the statues themselves, the "modern" reconstruction above is based on Pterodactylus rather than Cimoliopterus)

———

The last actual dinosaurs on this dinosaur trail are the two Cretaceous Iguanodon sculptures. At the time of my visit they weren't easy to make out behind the overgrown trees, and only the back end of the standing individual was clearly visible.

Named only a year after Megalosaurus, Iguanodon was the second dinosaur ever discovered, and early reconstructions depicted it as a giant iguana-like lizard.

The Crystal Palace statues depict large bulky animals, one in an upright mammal-like stance and another reclining with one hand raised up. (This hand is usually resting on a cycad trunk, but that element appeared to be either missing or fallen over when I was there.)

Famously a New Year's dinner party was held in the body of the standing Iguanodon during its construction, although the accounts of how many people could actually fit inside it at once are probably slightly exaggerated.

A clearer view by Jim Linwood (CC BY 2.0)

Considering that the skull of Iguanodon wasn't actually known at the time of these sculpture's creation, the head shape with a beak at the front of the jaws is actually an excellent guess. The only major issue was the nose horn, which was an understandable mistake when something as strange as a giant thumb spike had never been seen in any known animal before.

(The fossils the Crystal Palace statues are based on are actually now classified as Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis, but the "modern" reconstruction above depicts the chunkier Iguanodon bernissartensis.)

———

Image by Doyle of London (CC BY-SA 4.0)

I also wasn't able to spot the Cretaceous mosasaur on the other side of the island due to heavy foliage obscuring the view.

Depicting Mosasaurus hoffmannii, this model consists of only the front half of the animal lurking at the water's edge. It's unclear whether this partial reconstruction is due to uncertainty about the full appearance, or just a result of money and time running out during its creation.

The head is boxier than modern depictions, and the scales are too large, but the monitor-lizard like features and paddle-shaped flippers are still pretty close to our current understanding of these marine reptiles. It even apparently has the correct palatal teeth!

Next time: the final Cenozoic section!

[yolk-the-joke]

i finally did a design of twisted shelly that i like yippee! also heads up bones, body horror, blood, and rot not drawn the best but it's implied below the readmore

so, i spinned a wheel to see who to work on next and shelly got picked. the dealo of endless is that gardenview got distorted and corrupted by an ichor creature the only one who didnt get twisted is dandy and shrimpo. the corruption made gardenview center into a whole world with fragments of garden view mixed with like minecarft inspired biomes. there's dungens for all the twisted toon and the mains twisted are not the only one with more fucked up form, and they each have their own fighting mechanism. shelly's dungen location is in a badlands, the enemeies are based on fossils, bones and dinosaurs. shrimpo must defat her and take her to dandy so he can use ichor to mend her wounds and go back to her og form. i'll design her after everything later.

[arminreindl]

A size comparisson of the infamous Quinkana fortirostrum, the terrestrial mekosuchine of Pleistocene Australia.

Quinkana is an....interesting animal. A lot remains unknown about it due to the fact that we only have skull material that is properly assigned to the genus, but some hip bones from the Oligocene Riversleigh indicate that at least one mekosuchine had erect-limbs, something that best fits Quinkana.

The size is also something that is fraught with missconceptions. Sometimes people will cite lengths of 6 to 7 meters, but those are not well supported. True enough, a jaw fragment of a croc that size has been assigned to Quinkana in the 90s, but it was never described beyond a conference abstract and a brief mention in Molnar's "Dragon's in the Dust". Given the mess Mekosuchinae was at the time and how much we learned since, I doubt the assignment and by extension "mega Quinkana" (personally I would not be surprised if said fossil turned out to be Paludirex) and went with the much more concrete estimates centered around the holotype skull, which indicates an animal no more than three meters long.

Finally, with the silhouette I mostly tried to accomodate the published estimates with the actual skull size, while going with limbs that are adapted better to moving on land without being too overly lanky (after all it is still a crocodilian). I ended up pulling a lot from Cuban Crocodiles, but as I mentioned the lack of proper fossils means that this is ultimately just one possible interpretation.

I've recently written a major expansion of Quinkana's wikipedia page, which should reflect our current state of knowledge on this fascinating crocodile.

[geologyin-blog]

While some rocks consist of a single mineral, most are combinations of several minerals. Additionally, rocks can include organic materials, such as fossils or plant fragments, further enhancing their diversity and complexity.

[saritapaleo]

Archovember 2024 Day 25 - Pteranodon longiceps

As one of the main species to make up the mythical “Pterodactyl” conglomerate, Pteranodon longiceps is possibly the most familiar pterosaur to the public. However, most people don’t know much about the real animal behind the pop culture monster. Living in the Late Cretaceous USA, Pteranodon is also the most well-known pterosaur to science, as over 1,200 specimens have been found! It was the first pterosaur found outside of Europe, the first toothless pterosaur found, and, before the discovery of the giant azhdarchids, was also the largest pterosaur known. Pteranodon is also one of the few prehistoric animals with confirmed sexual dimorphism, and it’s a bit extreme to boot! The larger male Pteranodons had huge pointed crests and an average wingspan of 5.6 m (18 ft), while the smaller female Pteranodons had small, rounded crests, wider pelvic canals, and an average wingspan of 3.8 m (12 ft).

Pteranodon lived around the Western Interior Seaway, a massive sea that split North America in two during the Late Cretaceous into the Early Paleocene. With wings shaped like modern day albatrosses, Pteranodons were likely gliders who relied on thermals, but did seem to be more capable of sustained flapping. As one would expect, their diet was made up mostly of fish, though they may have eaten invertebrates as well. With their more heavy build, they could probably dive into the water like modern day gannets, folding up their wings and plunging beneath the waves, snatching up fish with their pointed, birdlike beaks. Pteranodon crests were most likely for display, as there was variation between not only males and females, but also individual males. As females were twice as common as males, they were probably polygynous, with males competing for the mating rights in rookeries of females. Competition was likely not physical, and instead would depend on females determining the age and fitness of males based on the size of their crest.

Pteranodon has been found in both the Niobrara Formation and the younger Pierre Shale Formation. Some possible fragments from the Mooreville Formation and Merchantville Formation also exist. While Pteranodon was much more common, it would have lived alongside, and possibly competed with, the fork-crested pterosaur Nyctosaurus and the toothed seabird Ichthyornis. It is probable that Pteranodon lived in offshore rookeries, raising their flaplings far from land-based predators, as most fossils are found far from what would have been the Interior Seaway’s coastline. Under the waves, Pteranodon would have hunted a variety of fish, ammonites, and squid. It would have come across sea turtles such as Toxochelys, plesiosaurs such as Styxosaurus, and flightless birds like Parahesperornis. It would have had to look out for mosasaurs like Tylosaurus and sharks like Cretoxyrhina. Aside from birds, most Pteranodons would rarely come across dinosaurs. Their main exposure to dinosaurs would be corpses, like that of the hadrosaur Claosaurus, being swept out to sea.

This art may be used for educational purposes, with credit, but please contact me first for permission before using my art. I would like to know where and how it is being used. If you don’t have something to add that was not already addressed in this caption, please do not repost this art. Thank you!

[blueiscoool]

Complete Mastodon Jaw Fossil Found in New York

The homeowner initially found two teeth hidden by a plant on the property, and after digging just a few inches underneath that, two more teeth were found.

A historic (or perhaps more accurately, prehistoric) discovery was made just under the surface of a New York homeowner’s lawn.

A complete mastodon jaw was found in the backyard of a home in the Orange County town of Scotchtown, according to state officials. The jaw, along with additional bone fragments, was recovered by researchers from the New York State Museum and SUNY Orange, the state Education Department said in a press release Tuesday.

It was the first find of its kind in New York in more than 11 years, the officials said.

The mastodon jaw, which was believed to be from an adult, was unearthed by researchers after the homeowner spotted it coming out from his lawn. The homeowner initially found two teeth hidden by a plant on the property, and after digging just a few inches underneath that, two more teeth were found.

“When I found the teeth and examined them in my hands, I knew they were something special and decided to call in the experts,” the homeowner said.

Staff from the museum and university led excavation efforts after that, and uncovered the well-preserved jaw of the mastodon — an ancient relative of modern elephants. A piece of a toe bone and a rib fragment were found as well, officials said.

“While the jaw is the star of the show, the additional toe and rib fragments offer valuable context and the potential for additional research,” said Dr. Cory Harris, Chair of SUNY Orange’s Behavioral Sciences Department. “We are also hoping to further explore the immediate area to see if there are any additional bones that were preserved.”

The fossils will undergo carbon dating and analysis in order to determine just how long ago the mammal was roaming the area, what the diet consisted of, and details of its habitat, according to officials, who noted that the discovery will be featured in public programming starting in 2025.

“This discovery is a testament to the rich paleontological history of New York and the ongoing efforts to understand its past,” said Dr. Robert Feranec, director of Research & Collections and curator of Ice Age Animals at the New York State Museum. “This mastodon jaw provides a unique opportunity to study the ecology of this magnificent species, which will enhance our understanding of the Ice Age ecosystems from this region.”

About 150 mastodon fossils have been found to date across New York, about a third of which found in Orange County.

[paleoforest]

Various Udanoceratops

I started drawing 'em on October 30. I had to draw something Halloween, and found this dinosaur. This early ceratopsian is a giant leptoceratopsid. Its large jaws fragments strikes imagination - skull looks like Jack O Lantern in flesh

These folks are striped with bright heads because they're huge and conspicuous. The feather coat from sparse bristles has been transformed into a mane along the spine because it looks much more authentic and even realistic. The rest of shagginess - on jaw and paws - is the transition form between the scales and (proto)feather. Many have a lower beak down the chin - this depicted not only in reconstructions, but I also noticed it in fossils of P. hellenikorhinus. It plays role of a lips and even beard (just like upper), and having a light color adds volume and old age at the same time.

For experiment i drew em in frontal. There is no picture/diagram on Internet where fossils can be viewed from other angles except profile. Anyway, I gave everyone binocular vision, because that’s basic thing for (small) Neoceratopsia. I use some 3D references and Protoceratops anatomy.

I drew these Udanoceratops earlier, and here they have slight frills that aren't wider than jugal/zygomatic/cheek horns.

[barghest-land]

Hello! I have an advice question if you have the time and inclination. I would like to draw better extinct animals and I am wondering if you have any advice for putting meat on old bones. I know I need to do anatomical studies, and I'm familiar with all yesterdays/not shrinkwrapping. However, when faced with a fossil, I don't know where to start. I've tried looking up papers where they model the muscles, but those are usually 1 leg, or a jaw, so not particularly helpful for illustration. What's your thought process? Your illustrations look so real. I know part of that is your lovely handling of light and shadow, but the animals have real heft to them.

hiii!! ahh i'm probably not the best person to ask tbh, sorry. but i'll try to help as much as i can and explain how i do things:

i still don't feel confident enough in my paleoart. i came to paleoart from "art" part, not from "paleo", so if we talk about science, i know very little. i'm still trying to learn myself and do studies whenever i can, so i can't really explain things in a scientific way. however, there are some things that are helping me to learn: i have a good knowledge of anatomy in general, so if you study extant animals and how their anatomy and muscles work, it helps to draw those who are extinct. it's a really good base, and a lot of references you can work on! and while you're working on those, you can also study light and shadow, that helps to understand the shapes as well. if you want to be more confident in paleo, i think it's easier to start with an extinct animal that is well known, has muscle 3D models, good skeletal drawings, etc. it will help you more than looking on a jaw fragment and not knowing what to do with it (trust me i've been there). also, when it comes to paleo, and especially soft tissue, a lot of it is speculation. for most of the species info about it isn't known at all, so you can do something fun with it! having fun with speculation might be scary (i know it well i'm still scared lol), because you don't know what you can draw, will it be wrong or not, but the answer is - we don't know how most animals looked like, so the fear of making a mistake goes away with practicing and allowing yourself to speculate here and there. for example: if you know how to draw a well studied pterosaur, and later want to draw their relative that is known by only the fragment, you'll be more confident to do so, because you'll know their base features already. so when there's some animal known from a tiny piece of a bone and not much is known, i think the safest way is to look at their closest relatives that are more studied. that definitely doesn't hurt, especially with new described species that don't even have any reconstructions yet. long story short (from the artistic point of view since i don't have another): study living animals, gain confidence drawing well studied extinct ones (you'll have more references there and it's less confusing for a start!), and most importantly have fun! <3 ah and also, there are places where you can get a feedback on your drawings from paleo people. i ask for it often, especially when i'm drawing something far from my comfort zone. i'm learning a lot from my mistakes and it feels good tbh:)

[new-dinosaurs]

Pterodroma zinorum Rando et al., 2024 (new species)

(Skull of Pterodroma zinorum, from Rando et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: zinorum = for Paul Alexander Zino and Francis Zino [Portuguese ornithologists]

Suggested common name: Azorean little gadfly petrel

Age: Holocene (Meghalayan)

Where found: The Azores archipelago (at least on Graciosa, São Jorge, Pico, Terceira, and São Miguel)

How much is known: At least three partial skeletons including nearly complete skulls and multiple limb bones. Hundreds of isolated bones (mainly limb bones and some skull fragments) are also known, though it is unclear how many individuals are represented by these.

Notes: Pterodroma is the genus of gadfly petrels, a group of small- to medium-sized seabirds known for their fast, erratic flight. They are found across the world's oceans, but are most diverse in the Atlantic Basin. Their diet consists mainly of soft-bodied prey such as squid that they capture near the ocean's surface, and they only visit land to breed on islands.

Currently, three species of Pterodroma breed in two of the Macaronesian archipelagos in the North Atlantic, but a new study on their fossil record shows that the genus was once more widespread across Macaronesia in historical times and included at least one now-extinct species, the newly-named P. zinorum.

P. zinorum was slightly smaller than the average city pigeon and smaller than most other Atlantic Pterodroma species, being around the same size as Zino's petrel (P. madeira), which breeds on the island of Madeira in Macaronesia today. Compared to P. madeira, P. zinorum had slightly shorter wings and feet, as well as a taller and more curved tip of the beak. Radiocarbon dating of its bones indicate that P. zinorum survived to at least sometime within the 12th–17th Centuries. The exact cause of its extinction is unknown, but was likely human-driven given the recent timing and the fact that petrels are often vulnerable to disturbance of their nesting sites by humans and introduced predators.

Reference: Rando, J.C., H. Pieper, F. Pereira, E. Torres-Roig, and J.A. Alcover. 2024. Petrel extinction in Macaronesia (North-East Atlantic Ocean): the case of the genus Pterodroma (Aves: Procellariiformes: Procellariidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 202: zlae123. doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae123

[a-book-of-creatures]

The Deinotherium from Paris Avant les Hommes. Why does it look like a giant mole? Well, turns out this is reasoned out within the text, and since at least one person wanted to know it here it is (any translation errors are mine). @glarnboudin hope this answers all your questions!

...

"Since we are on the chapter of singular animals, I shall let you see another one from the quaternary epoch, whose history is no less strange. It shall serve as an introduction to antediluvian mammals, although it belongs, I believe, to the molasse which, according to Beudant, succeeded the Parisian chalk wherever it is missing. Look, there it is showing up; but it disappeared behind that hillock. Let's see, let us sit beneath this tree and it might come back. In the meantime, let us chat".

"Parbleu, I recognized it perfectly: it is the dinotherium giganteum. I had seen in the Rue Vivienne, its bones shown to the public for a bit of money, for scientists have to be industrious, one way or another, to avoid dying of hunger. Whatever the case, they showed me an enormous fossil head, 1.30 meters long and 1 meter wide, that is to say bigger than the biggest Indian elephants. It had two tusks located, against all analogy of what we know of animals alive or fossil, not in the upper jaw, but in the lower; not in the place of the canines, but in the place of the incisors; not pointing skyward, but lowered towards the ground; not sticking out of the mouth, but emerging from two holes that had to have been in the lower lip. Truly, I said to myself, this is enough to embarrass a wiser man than I, and, after many contradictory thoughts for half an hour, I finally took a side. Well, I said to myself, the die is cast: despite all my misgivings, one must have to make of this dinotherium giganteum a walrus or a seal, like Mr. Buckland said; or an elephant, as presumed Mr. de Blainville; a tapir or a pangolin, as G. Cuvier wrote; or a whale, as some German paleontologists think, and yet these animals have no analogy among them. Let's see, let's decide, I said to myself: this shall be…"

"A mole", said the genie in a small, acerbic, and mocking voice, and accompanied these words with a long peal of laughter that disconcerted me.

"A mole! But good sir, a mole hasn't the least connection, the least resemblance with a tapir, a whale, an elephant; and what would the authors I just cited say of this?"

"Your authors can say what they want; but I shall insist that the carcass that you had seen was that of a mole".

"That's impossible! See, here are the engravings they gave me at the door, judge for yourself".

The devil put his walking stick between his legs, put his glasses on his nose, took my images with his thumb and the other fingers of his left hand; then, running the index finger of his right hand on the figure representing the animal's head, he said:

"And first of all, my dear scholar, you will see that this head is 1 meter 60 centimeters at its greatest length, and 92 centimeters wide; so therefore it could not be less than 1.32 m long and 1 meter wide when it was covered with muscle and skin. But the average size of the head of a mammalian quadruped is at least a quarter of the length of its body. The dinotherium therefore was at least 5 to 6 meters long, which equals the size of the largest elephants. I am being conservative in choosing those dimensions; and I suppose that this carcass found on the banks of the Rhine by Professor Klipstein is not the biggest dinotherium the species provided, which is more than probable, since we have a few other fragments that are proportionally larger, and which suggest that the animal keeping us busy must have been longer than 6 meters".

"And you conclude from there that it should have been a mole?"

"One moment! Notice the enormous cavity destined to receive the bones of the nose".

"Yes, of the trunk".

"Who said anything about a trunk? Where do you see a trunk?"

"Scientists..."

"Why do you want to see a trunk instead of a nose? Take the skeleton of a pig or that of a mole, you will find at the same place enormous muscle impressions. Would you then conclude that the pig or the mole has a trunk? So the dinotherium has a nose, but a long nose, mobile, thick, powerful, good for searching in the earth; in short, a mole's nose. Do you deny that? Is it more unrealistic that an animal has a nose like any other animal's, than to have an anomaly instead?"

"It is true that by coldly calculating probability, one must believe more easily in analogies than anomalies, this seems more logical; but a mole!"

"Notice, my dear, that the orbits or holes of the eyes are extremely small in comparison to those of all known animals, and that they do not close in the posterior part; and, in fact, why would the dinotherium have eyes proportionally larger than those of a mole since, having to live in the darkness of a subterranean home, these organs would have been no more use to it than to the mole. As animals who are forced to push soil in front of them and by digging with their head, the frontal bones are short, but strong and very thick; the face of the occiput, of great dimension, forms with them a 130-140 degree angle, which you only see in whales. The prodigious muscles that move this colossal head gave it crushing strength. The chrysochlore, or Cape golden mole (talpa asiatica, L.) alone can offer you some analogy with the dinotherium in this aspect. You conceive that an animal forced to fray itself an underground passage, three or four meters in diameter, will need that prodigious strength in the neck muscles, strength that can conly compare, as I said, with that of a whale. And despite that it must have often encountered obstacles, stones, tree roots, despite living in the soft and deep soils, and the earth that the rivers, such as the Rhine, and the great flows of water carry and accumulate with the centuries in the basins that they run through and inundate every year. It would have been stopped dead in its tracks if nature had not given it a pickaxe to tear out those obstacles. This pickaxe, there it is: these are the tusks emerging from the lower jaw and directed earthward. They resemble, my word, those forked hoes that vineyard-keepers use in rocky or freshly cleared earth. There, look, they must have had terrifying strength, if we can judge by the deep depressions carved in the temporal bones to lodge the muscles that moved and directed the lower jaw. Besides, these tusks or teeth offered, relative to their shape, and especially in the place that they occupy, an example of a structure unique in all creation”.

“As for its other teeth”, added the demon, pointing his finger at the figure depicting them, “you will see that they are five in number. The first is cutting at its anterior part, the third has three hills, and the other two; from that one must conclude that the animal lived on roots, rhizomes, and tubers that lived underground. But, I ask you, what good would a trunk be for it? It would have certainly been a hindrance, and that is all”.

“I concede that this head is very good for digging in the ground, but that does not prove that the animal lived underground”.

“Let us examine the other fragments”, said the genie. “The scapula is long, narrow, and looks entirely like that of a mole. Observation has proven that all animals who have it in this shape use their forelegs in constant, painstaking motions, requiring great muscular strength. Thus this form of scapula, rare in mammals, is very common in birds, because the latter need great wing strength to remain aloft.

Now on to the second phalange of the front foot. You will notice that the articular facet of this bone is completely different from that of other animals. As an indispensable result of this very superficial articulation, the dinotherion could not walk on the tips of its fingers, and it would have to drag itself on the exterior edges of the hand, like the mole. This last animal is still is still the only one that presents in this phalange an analogy of form with our fossil monster”.

But here is an even more conclusive fragment; it is the first phalange, or inguinal phalange of this same front foot. Look how it is deeply notched in its anterior part. This incision exists in mammals only in three kinds of animals, all three of which dig in the ground and live in burrows; it gives their claws the prodigious strength that they need. The pangolin, the chrysochloris or Cape mole, and the common mole are the only living animals that have the same conformation, and, remarkably in the mole, the character is less pronounced than in the dinotherion.

And so, my dear, what must we conclude of all this? It is that, as naturalists have sworn, the dinotherion has no analogy with any animals other than those I have cited and, having the head of a mole, the scapula of a mole, and the hands of a mole, must, it seems to me, resemble a mole more than a whale. It is true that the great anatomist Cuvier made of it a giant pangolin, but he hadn’t seen the head”.

“I admit, lord demon, that most analogies are in favor of your opinion, and yet, here are teeth that…”

“That look nothing like a mole’s, I agree, because the jaws of the dinotherion lack incisors and canines, but they are no less suited for grinding roots and even mollusks and insects that it could find in its excavations. Besides, my dear, this anomaly, if it is one, has many examples in living animals. For example, if you ever go to New Holland, you will find a large family of marsupial mammals whose species have so many analogies that it is difficult to separate one from the group it forms, and who differ as much as possible by their dental system. Among these heterogeneously-toothed species, the opossum (the only genus not from Australia) represents insectivorous carnivores, like tenrecs and moles; the rat-kangaroo has teeth adapted for a frugivorous diet, like the hedgehog; the giant kangaroo lives on vegetation, lacks the upper canines that characterize the preceding and only has canines that are transverse to its jaws, which bring it closer to our herbivorous pachyderms; finally, the wombat is, like the hare, a veritable rodent by the teeth and by the intestines. And yet no naturalist has tried to separate these marsupials to put them in the great divisions where their teeth would have rigorously classified them. I intend therefore to make of the dinotherion, if it is not a mole, at least a related genus that I would place with the desmans, the moles, the chrysochlores and the tenrecs, all subterranean animals like it. And besides, if you aren’t content, you can place it elsewhere, but in this case you would have to, according to your principles, create not a genus, a family, or even an order, but a separate class that it would occupy by itself, and this necessity would be the bloodiest critique that you could make of the so-called natural method of your scientists”.

Despite the high opinion I had of my irascible demon’s merit, he had so filled my head with pangolins, seals, tapirs, whales, and elephants, that I could not in any way accept his mole, and a small smile of vanity and disapprobation came over my lips. He noticed, and cried out!

“Ah! Ah! Mister Incredulous! Have I not employed to convince you the same analogic arguments that your sagest paleontology professors use every day; but it will take more than reason to convince you, from what I see. Well then, morbleu! I will convince you with your own eyes or I shall lose my devilry”. He pounced upon me and seized me by the arm, which took away my desire to laugh; he threw me behind him astride his crutch, like a witch heading to the Sabbath on a broomstick, and together we flew into the air, we took off like a crossbow bolt. The speed of our voyage dizzied me so, that I cannot positively say how much time we took to make our way, nor where we passed to find ourselves on the borders of the Rhine, but what is certain is that we were traveling faster than on a train or on a steamboat.

When I came to, I was laid out on a bed of moss shaded by a tree at least thirty to thirty-five meters tall. I asked the genie which country we were in.

“We are”, he told me, “in this country that will be named, in a few thousand years, the Rhenish province of the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. This great lake that you see there in the East will dry out, and on of the most beautiful rivers of Europe, the Rhine, will cross its ancient bed in its entire length. The place where we are now will be the burg of Eppelsheim and further the city of Alzéi. If you remember the first voyages we made during the other periods, you will notice how much the vegetation has changed, and you will recognize the tree under which we are as a walnut tree quite similar to the common walnut tree, but with more angular nuts that end in a sharp point”.

Suddenly a low but horrible roar made me shiver to the very bone. I looked around in fear, but saw nothing. This horrible cry resonated in my ears a second time and I felt the earth shake under my feet. The idea of underground noises that you hear before an earthquake or rather before mountain upheaval, following Élie de Beaumont, or the sinking of a province according to Beudant, brought terror to my heart, and I thought for a moment that I would be lifted up at the top of a new chain of Alps raising from the depths of the Earth, or sinking into the central fire of the globe in a collapse. I got up quickly and started to run as fast as I was able. But I hadn’t made two hundred paces before my demon grabbed me by my arm, sat me down on a fragment of rock, and, with his finger, indicated the place under the tree where I had been where the most extraordinary scene unfolded.

The earth shook convulsively, and its movement was communicated by the shaking foliage of the walnut tree, which shook and balanced in the air as if a whirlwind had gone into its thousand branches. The tree bent over and straightened several times, then finally, it fell over with a crash, and the earth rose in a great cone seven meters high, opening up at the top of this singular molehill.

“Parbleu”, I told the genie, “I could swear you’re showing me the formation of the new Pyrenees in miniature”.

“In miniature!” he answered, “by my word, that’s quite the miniature! There, there it comes out of its hole”.

Indeed, I saw, coming out of the hole that had opened at the top of the cone like a volcanic crater, a monstrous head three times bigger than a barrel, then an even thicker neck; then a massive body, about three meters in diameter, that is to say as big as the biggest elephant; and finally, a strange animal, five to six meters long, with a terrifying appearance, and dragging itself clumsily on four very short, very thick legs. Its whole body was covered in long, silky hairs, green and shifting in hue from copper to bronze, offering, like the Cape chrysochlore, beautiful metallic reflections. Its very large nose, about sixty centimeters long, ended in a sort of mobile snout, bristling all over with sharp and keratinous tubercles, suitable for opening up the inside of the earth. Under this nose was an enormous lower jaw, prolonged anteriorly in a long chin pointing downwards. At the end of this chin, two tusks almost touching at the base, more than two feet long, emerged through the skin of the lip and directed their points perpendicularly earthwards, yet with a light curvature towards the forelegs. I saw that this monster was using them to help it crawl, by stretching its head out, sinking them into the soil, and pulling its body forward. Its eyes were so small that you would not have seen them through the long hairs surrounding them, if they did not gleam with a dark and red fire like two sparks. Its ears were very small and the concha was barely apparent. Its hindlegs were rather short and armed with very strong claws, but its forelegs ended in two enormous hands absolutely similar to those of a mole, and they were used to push the earth to the right or left as it used its nose to dig an underground tunnel.

The formidable animal descended from atop the monticule it had created; with a lot of agility, it crawled a few meters, then made a cry so sharp, so noisy, so extraordinary that I cannot compare it to anything that human ears have ever heard. The demon saw me shudder and reassured me, telling me that it was calling another animal of its species, and it would move away from us if it heard a response. It continued to make a sharp cry from time to time, moving to the edge of a great forest covering the flanks of a hill, and where I saw a few monticules similar to its own. Meanwhile, I observed a few of those animals a bit smaller in size, and I pointed them out to the genie.

“You are not mistaken”, he told me, “for the paleontologists know in fact, under the name dinotherium bavaricum, another species of this kind, but a bit smaller. What is most unusual in the history of these two dinotherions is that the scientist, G. Cuvier, took the bones of the great dinotherion to be those of a giant tapir, equal in size to the greatest Indian elephant”.