#Paleo

[thecoffeeisblack]

Hello🦕

[fullcravings]

Almond Butter Blueberry Paleo Waffles

[yourlocalxenomorph3]

Well, Tyrannosaurus rex is correct, at least... those abbreviations are abominable, though.

For the purposes of this poll, disregard capitalization– for example, if you would usually type "t. rex," pick the first option.

Render by Max Bellomio.

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We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

[the-briny-bulletin]

[theantiazdarcho]

The Takin is such a whimsical herbivore, like God commissioned Dr. Seuss for this one.

[razehider]

i mentioned kalligrammatids in the comments and they deserve all the love in the world but i'm actually gonna take this opportunity to talk about this thing i've been obsessed with for the past couple of months

this is Retiptera brennae. Retiptera brennae is a 98 million year old thrips. not a relative of thrips, an actual member of Thysanoptera. a male and a female were found (above is the male) and aside from the fact that they're beautifully preserved, since it's always special that a long extinct animal looks like something you could've found outside five minutes ago, what i love about these things is that they couldn't look any more different from modern thrips (which are already absurd in multiple ways if you're at all familiar with them)

here is the female. look at that wing venation! modern thrips are known for having a unique flight mechanism, i wonder if these flew in the same way or if these wings wouldn't have worked for that. if anyone reading this isn't familiar with thrips, i can't stress enough how they look like a polar opposite of one

the paper (and source of the photos) is here for anyone who wants to check it out. this is a bug lover's equivalent of the Homotherium cub

What's your favorite extinct prehistoric bug?

Honestly I know next to nothing about prehistoric bugs, so I couldn't choose a favorite!

Perhaps in the comments some people can share THEIR favorite prehistoric bugs so I can learn about them :)

[adigitalsky]

merry christmas to this specific microraptor who’s eating some unexpected snowflakes. he doesn’t know what december is

inprnt shop

[bunjywunjy]

Hi! Love your blog! Wondering if you have any cool facts about quetzalcóatlus? I love prehistoric babies!

if you're a 90's kid like I was, probably your first exposure to the idea of the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus was through the Dinotopia books! though the author/artist, James Gurney, did nickname them "Skybaxes" for the ease of young readers.

this gave us a beautiful picture of an amazing animal that we would later discover was, EXTREMELY misleading.

see, the first book was released in 1992, back when we only had a few wing bones to describe Quetzalcoatlus! they hinted at the existence of a giant pterosaur with the wingspan of a small plane, but they didn't offer much detail:

this is what James Gurney was working off of when he created the Skybax, and you can totally see where he came from! he basically took the body plan of known pterosaurs like Pteranodon and scaled it UP to match the size of the new fossils.

but over the next several years, new fossils of Quetzalcoatlus were being discovered, described, and cataloged, enough that Gurney created a new Quetzalcoatlus for his second Dinotopia book that was outright stated to be Quetzalcoatlus Northropi, which is the name of the actual animal these bones belong to!

so sized up even bigger, same body plan.

and then in the early 2000's, some very interesting discoveries started to be made about Quetzalcoatlus and its relatives! turns out that they were a bunch of giraffe-sized storkmonster predators that could probably 1v1 a T Rex.

shown here life size!

so needless to say, this was a bit of a shock.

but MAN. just goes to show, if you can imagine an animal, nature already made something 1000% crazier and more badass. and it probably wants to eat you.

[yulecatt]

tribute to anomalocaris

[mecharexisbones]

Here’s that horse again

*in the tone of a estranged grandmother*

You love horse

Horse was always your favourite what happened?

[thecoffeeisblack]

Coffee Raptor says hello☕️

[ravewing]

what if the cambrian period was in hazbin hotel

[samkuchingdraws]

Double-Crested Hunter

[soulsplosion]

thinkin about dinosaurs today

[paleo-cafnir]

Animated short film teaser #2