#conodont

[alex-fictus]

The Ordovician!

485 to 443 million years ago.

Isotelus - Asaphus - Flexicalymene

Selenopeltis - Dalmanites - Cheirurus

Rugose Coral - Crinoid - Conulariid

Lunataspis - Offacolus - Aegirocassis

Orthoceras - Conodont

Astraspis - Sacabambaspis

Stickers || Phone Wallpapers Masterlist

[jawless-lads]

[demi-shoggoth]

I teach high school Bio, and I had my students do an assignment about the mass extinctions. One of my students then referred to conodonts as "funny little guys"

Which is fair

Image © @alphynix

[leaping-laelaps-art]

I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy with some big commissions but here's a low-quality little guy I made as a secondary element of one of said commissions (generalized conodont):

References and notes:

Following the "standard" for conodont reconstructions, morphology is based on the 3 species with known soft tissues (Clydagnathus windsorensis, Panderodus unicostatus, and the giant Promissum pulchrum) (Aldridge et al. 1986, Gabbott et al. 1995, Murdock & Smith 2021), with details filled in from living hagfish and lampreys based on the assumed vertebrate (and possibly even cyclostome) affinity of conodonts (Miyashita et al. 2019). The count of 7 pairs of gill openings (as in lampreys) is simply because i couldn't be bothered to sculpt more.

Note that the mouth is not depicted as a the usual gaping hole filled with spiny elements but rather as folded tissues nicely hiding any trace of offensive toothiness, much like modern hagfish, which, despite their impressive set of "teeth", have a very kissable (closed) mouth. I understand the didactic value of showing the element apparatus in conodont reconstructions but have always felt a little weird about depicting animals actually swimming around looking like that... but who knows?

Another departure from the usual way of reconstructing conodonts is the inclusion of a single nostril. This is based on the single nostril of extant hagfish and lamprey (to which (eu-)conodonts may be most closely related to) (Miyashita et al. 2019), and also supported by the fact that a single nostril may be part of the ancestral state of vertebrates (Oisi et al. 2013) (assuming conodonts are actually vertebrates, of course).

Anyway, that was a lot of reading and shoddy speculation for a background model. Certainly don't trust any of it, I don't know shit about conodonts.

References:

Aldridge, R. J., Briggs, D. E. G., Clarkson, E. N. K., & Smith, M. P. (1986). The affinities of conodonts—New evidence from the Carboniferous of Edinburgh, Scotland. Lethaia, 19(4), 279–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3931.1986.tb00741.x

Gabbott, S. E., Aldridge, R. J., & Theron, J. N. (1995). A giant conodont with preserved muscle tissue from the Upper Ordovician of South Africa. Nature, 374(6525), 800–803. https://doi.org/10.1038/374800a0

Miyashita, T., Coates, M. I., Farrar, R., Larson, P., Manning, P. L., Wogelius, R. A., Edwards, N. P., Anné, J., Bergmann, U., Palmer, A. R., & Currie, P. J. (2019). Hagfish from the Cretaceous Tethys Sea and a reconciliation of the morphological–molecular conflict in early vertebrate phylogeny. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(6), 2146–2151. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1814794116

Murdock, D. J. E., & Smith, M. P. (2021). Panderodus from the Waukesha Lagerstätte of Wisconsin, USA: A primitive macrophagous vertebrate predator. Papers in Palaeontology, 7(4), 1977–1993. https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1389

Oisi, Y., Ota, K. G., Kuraku, S., Fujimoto, S., & Kuratani, S. (2013). Craniofacial development of hagfishes and the evolution of vertebrates. Nature, 493(7431), 175–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11794

[yee-qi]

i'm really perspectivesing rn You can see more art in this series in the #perspectives tag!

"Underdog's Venom" Panderodus/Michelinoceras Silurian, 433 million years ago, Brandon Bridge Formation (United States, Wisconsin) Panderodus was a conodont, best known for their freaky-ass teeth that they left on the ground after the rest of their largely skeleton-less bodies decomposed. A recent body fossil of Panderodus here indicates that unlike most conodonts, this guy was wider and flatter and likely used its big old chompers to hunt large prey. Plus, the creature was quite possibly venomous. Michelinoceras is a fun orthocerid that somehow lasted up to the Triassic, making it one super long-lived genus. This individual has gone up against the venomous conodont, ignored the warnings, and is clearly experiencing...something. That can't be comfortable! Cephalopods tend to have blue blood.

[ppaleoartistgallery]

Parachirognathus Commission

commission for @notsonanosaurus

it depicts two Parachirognathus swimming by a Dicynodon skull subfossil in a Triassic reef for her poster that she and her professor will be presenting in a couple of months.

[taphonomenon]

Trying out some fish, here's a doodle of Panderodus, a tiny Conodont jawless fish from the Silurian. This one's about six to seven times life size.

[ormspryde]

The conodont promissum. I don't know how thrilled I am with this one, but it's done now.

[ID: A pixel art depiction of the conodont promissum, an extinct type of conodont that lived during the upper Ordovician. The animal ismaking an s shape with its body, and is depicted in pink and purple against a darker purple background. /ID]

[craftingcreatures]

As thrilled as I am that they've included a conodont at all, I have to ask. WHY. did they give the jawless fish jaws. You know. The thing jawless fish famously do not have

Clydagnathus - Veiled Sea

Endless Ocean Luminous, Nintendo Switch

how are these things real. where does your brain go

[theofficialpeanutgallery]

GUYS

GUYS

I GOT AN EMAIL FROM TRUMP.

I think it’s like, a mass-sent email for all his “supporters” (yes, I’ve been Diagnosed with Trump Supporter by Trump himself, which is hilarious for a number of reasons), begging poor people to pay for his next campaign, so he can ‘Save America from Joe Biden and the Left.’ That’s President Biden to you, sucker.

Don’t know how to break it to you, buddy, but I kinda am the Left.

Like, my brother’s a full-on raging socialist, we as a family listen to Rise Against and oppose fascism as a general rule.

Wonder how he got my email, google.

Anyway, there’s an option for “donating another amount”. Wonder if I can get away with -12 dollars...

Or I could just reply with as many of his most hated photos as I can cram into email form.

[alex-fictus]

Cambrian Critters!

Anomalocaris - Opabinia - Wiwaxia

Canadaspis - Haikoucaris - Hurdia

Myllokunmingia - Conodont - Haikouichthys

Pikaia gracilens - Hallucigenia - Eldonia

Elrathia kingii - Marella - Paradoxides

Pomatrum - Helicoplacus - Vetuicola

Stickers || Phone Wallpapers Masterlist

Planned or in the works: Cambropachycope, Amplectobelua, Stanleycaris, Balhuticaris, Kylinxia, Chancellorid, Omnidens

[jawless-lads]

[raylaismad]

HOLYYY SHITTTTTTTT

My genuine reaction^

achievement unlocked✅

[dick-in-son-ia]

I love learning geology, i know about pettable critters you wouldn't even DREAM of

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Monday Musings: In Conclusion

This month has been dedicated to the Cambrian Period. Something most people are not aware of is that Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods are broken down into epochs and stages...just like the Cenozoic.

Just for fun I wanted to use this column of the Cambrian Period to show where all the major deposits and animals we've talked about (and a few we haven't) occurred.

Like our favorite trilobites!

Trilobites appeared in the fossil record at about 521 Ma, right at the end of Stage 2 of the Terreneuvian Epoch. Not long after that, the Chengjiang and Sirius Passet lagerstatten were deposited. This was towards the end of Stage 3 of Series 2. This is when the animal Haikouella lived.

Next is Emu Bay Shale. We haven't talked about that one yet. As you can imagine, Emu Bay is in Australia on Kangaroo Island.

It is one of two sites containing Redlichiidan trilobites.

The Burgess Shale was deposited at the beginning of the Drumian Age during the Mialingian Epoch. This is when Hallucigenia and Marella lived.

This is followed by the Wheeler Shale, Marjum and Weeks Formation sequence in the Guzhangian Age.

The final lagerstatten is the Orsten Fauna of Sweden. The fossils are just a little bit younger than the Utah ones and much smaller. This site preserved larval stages and the first fossil tardigrades.

By the end of the Cambrian there was a major faunal turnover into the Ordovician Period. Many brachiopods and conodonts died but the group that was hit the hardest was the trilobites. Those that lived on the outer edges of the shelfs and slope environments were hardly affected but those that lived in the shallow seas on the shelf were wiped out.

The Cambrian Period was important and I hope you enjoyed learning about it this month. Next month we will switch from geochronology to paleontology with comparative anatomy! There will be a video on the basics posted to youtube on October 19th but if you want to see it sooner then join my new Patreon! The video will be posted two weeks earlier.

There will also be interviews with my fellow paleontologists as well as lesson videos and access to the Minerals Rocks and Fossil Talks discord server. Thanks for all the support and fossilize you later!

[iamthekaijuking]

Ultraman made me want to revive my Ultrawoman Nova setting so I did and made a whole doc about it (which I might show off if people want to see that). Knowing me it turned into a 70,000 word worldbuilding document with a ton of kaiju and ultra biology, and it’s basically what I did for kaijune this year. I’m still actively adding to it btw!

So I decided to draw some ultra kaiju and how they’d look in my silly fanfic.

Bemular as a space faring abelisaur

Gomess as a badger-like dinocephalian

Goldon as a squat burrowing dicraeosaurid

And Banila and Aboras as a terrestrial mesoskeletal high browsing conodont and terrestrial predatory dunkle relative!

I tried drawing Nova herself but I wasn’t satisfied with it even though it was accurate to my version of ultra anatomy. I guess I’m just not good at designing ultras.