#huge ocean creatures
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A sperm whale dives into the deep sea to hunt giant squids
#sperm whale#whale#giant squid#squid#deep ocean#dive#ocean#diver#diving#art#commissions open#atelo#atelo lucid#digital art#digital illustration#illustration#artists on tumblr#water#sea#sea life#digital painting#fins#amist giants#huge ocean creatures#ocean life
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when people are like 'i love the ocean' when they mean 'i love going to the beach when its calm' drives me up the wall a little especially when they act horrified whenever they see aspects of the ocean that are NOT the beach. The ocean is massive, beaches are just the barest fringe on the outskirts of the sea, and even those can be and are dangerous as hell because people go there without taking precaution like its a theme park. The ocean is a force of nature if there ever was one. Its immensely pretty and dangerous and essential to thousands of crucial planetary mechanisms we're only now beginning to understand. Its just... such an interesting landscape by every measure, pirates during the golden age had it right painting it as the ultimate expression of freedom, it has captivated thousands of people for years for a reason. And yet all some people can find about it to love is the most tamed, commercialized, artificial (as are a lot of beaches nowadays) ledge from which to ignore the vast depths of life underneath them
#i keep trying to talk to people who say 'i love the ocean' about the sea and they just go 'idk i just like the beach lol' THEN SAY THAT#JUST SAY YOU LIKE THE BEACH. THE BEACH IS NOT THE FUCKING OCEAN#nothing wrong with just liking the beach!!! thats not the point of this whatever i dont care if you just like the beach#just dont lead me on bc i am an ocean freak i love creatures i love ecosystems i love the science i love the mysticality of it#and its such a huge letdown to lead a conversation EVEN JUST RLY TAME like 'i like snorkeling and seeing fish and i think theyre neat'#only to be met with 'well i just dont care haha i just go to the beach to tan and maybe swim' HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!#thunderclap#DOES THIS MAKE SENSE I FEEL INSANE
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Play Report: Ocean Tides
I've played two sessions of this delightful firebrands hack now and I'm absolutely obsessed, I think every game should have a truth or dare minigame. And the whole vibe is just *chef's kiss*. Since I can't stop thinking about our blorbos, I have decided to write up a play report.
Setup:
The sea is deep, ancient, and unpredictable. The climate is tropical. Humans live on an archipelago with only a few large "mainland" islands, but countless small ones spread in between. Magic is mostly limited to that which allows mermaids and humans to pass between land and sea, but some dabble in stronger, more dangerous forces. And who knows what power may be found in the depths?
Pirates are lawless brigands who seek notoriety and fortune. The pirate code is: them that find the treasure, get the treasure; don't wake a sailor sleeping on land; and, perhaps most importantly, the rules are more of guidelines.
Naval Officers serve the Empire Republic of Many Isles, and fly flags in shades of red (it has more positive associations after all). Deeply religious. Their own code demands that the first cut go to the shore, the second to the ship, and the third to the Sea Mistress.
Merfolk are nudibranch people, with bright colors and varied forms. Most villages are in shallow waters such as atolls. When merfolk walk on land, they are usually obvious, sporting legs but retaining their colors and some of their form in fins, tentacles, or even a reduced tail.
Our cast:
B'har (it/its) a mercurial and ethereal mermaid with very pale orange and white striped markings, tentacles on its face, frills around its neck, and a long tail with many scars. New to humans and rather fascinated by them.
John Finch (he/him) the pirate. Legally distinct from Jack Sparrow, probably, maybe. Captain of the Silver Oyster, he always expects his reputation will have preceded him (it usually hasn't).
Captain Monk Ghanan Sreal (they/them) the "humble" and naive naval officer. Captains a great ship cathedral. Received orders to find a religious relic (the spear of the mother) but has abandoned the mission. Instead seeks the teeth of the abyss-walker, the devilish figure of their religion supposedly vanquished many years ago.
Session one under the cut!
As suggested, we started with Monologues. They definitely helped us find our starting point, but I have chosen to integrate the relevant info with character bios or other story beats as needed. In play, we each chose one mini game, and slowly built up some promising plot threads.
The Great Hunt:
Captain Monk Sreal heard rumors of a huge beast that damaged Sunspot Atoll, a mermaid village. They met B'har and learned of the creature's path, then tracked it into the deep, craggy canyons offshore. After a bit of cat and mouse, there was a fierce battle. Both Ghanan and the beast survived, but the scale of the beast and costs of hunting it were greater than Ghanan expected. In the following weeks, they increased frequency of deep sea excursions with the aid of a volatile potion that allows humans to stand the pressure. The mounting toll on their health is of little concern to Ghanan on their quest for the abyss-walker's teeth. Or the abyss-walker itself, as it now seems.
Truth or Dare:
Some time post-hunt, our three characters meet on a beach. They share some drinks around a fire and eventually begin the human game, truth or dare. Memories are a bit...hazy of this night. Surely there were some minor truths divulged? Perhaps some harmless dares? B'har thinks it showed off its tail scars at some point, but mostly remembers the end of the night. John wasted a dare on getting B'har to skinny dip; no matter, shedding the magic legs and plunging into the sea was a relief, and The Officer soon joined. The Officer, with their moon-touched skin webbed nearly all over with dark, intricate tattoos of great sea beasts. The Officer, floating comfortably in the water even without fins. Quickly, B'har turned and challenged John Finch-taste the lips of the one here you most desire, be they willing. John disrobed and plunged into the water himself, splashing over to the pair. And kissed B'har! Fascinating.
A Dance:
After a little time, Sunspot Atoll finished clean up efforts and held a party to celebrate. B'har invited both John and Ghanan. All attended dressed their best. Well, "dressed" in the case of B'har, merfolk aren't wild about clothing as such, but various pieces of jewelry adorned its body, including many shell chains and fine coral beads, and even one pendant clearly fashioned from an old human artifact. Ghanan wore an elaborate outfit covered in bells. John Finch was less fancy, but sported an excellent hat. He soon wandered off to the drinks and largely spent the night telling strangers his tales of adventure. Meanwhile, B'har and Ghanan danced together in the midst of a whirl of colorful merfolk. B'har gently corrected for Ghanan's missteps in the unfamiliar dances and (mostly) prevented excessive bell jingling at odd moments. The two flirted throughout, but stopped short of making any overt moves. At some point in the night, Ghanan gifted B'har with a bracelet.
That's where we called session one for time. And it's where I'm going to call this post for now! Stay tuned if you want to hear about our second session, hopefully coming soon to a reblog near you.
#indie ttrpg#ocean tides#ttrpg play report#I do want to write up session 2 while it's somewhat fresh! but it's long enough now and late enough and i'm getting sleepy#but spoiler: we get much messier immediately in session 2#accepting bets now on which human b'har sleeps with first ;)#if it's not obvious b'har is my character and i love playing it#can't wait to be a weird flirty sea creature again sometime#huge shoutout to my friend who looked at naval officer and went ''what this REALLY needs is some heresy''#and again huge praise for Ocean Tides itself#I cannot stress enough just how FUN it is to play out a game of truth or dare in character in a game
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If you like the ocean.
Recommend looking at frutiger aero (it's kinda spacy and mainly aquatic, and weird. But it goes hard. /pos) unless you've heard of it idk kskdk
so i looked it up,, and its an aesthetic? 👁️👁️ wha. highkey confused but yeah, it does go kinda hard. not rlly our thing but cool nonetheless :] its just a bit too… light for us or something. i dunno man im bad at words 😦
#asky#ngl when we say we’re into ocean stuff we mean deep sea creatures and speculative biology and squids. i dunno how to explain it.#its like a sub nautica type beat? i guess#i dunno man weve never played it#the vibes are huge tho#oh wait holy shit its on tje switch#👁️👁️ currently buying it#going. crazy in the tags#im gonna watch tf armada and play subnautica tonight
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Sleepy Bay - a sleepy day in the clear waters of this ocean day, leaving the occupants to slumber
My original art made in Procreate, image description in alt text
#fantasy art#water art#clear waters#canoe#canoe art#beasts below#dragon art#water dragon#huge dragon#huge beast#kaiju art#fantasy creature#creature art#huge creature#subtle creature#subtle dragon#sleeping dragon#sleeping colossus#nature art#ocean art#bay art#algea art#queue should see this#nature#transcendragon art#original art#procreate art#artists on tumblr#digital art
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rauka and slova are the same age, so rauka would've been born during the flooding that followed slova's birth and honestly there's something to be said about both their lives starting and ending in water
#water is such a huge part of their story i didn't even pick up on it until now#like slova named for the ocean. rauka born in a flood. both their lives dictated by the coming and going of the rains.#slova treated as a god for his connection to water. rauka terrified of it bc of his dreams. they both need it to live.#the both hate the control it has over them. slova is almost killed in the HOPE that it would bring water to the village.#they flee to the ocean. they die on the beach in the rain. they're immortalised forever in the most feared of creatures: sea monsters.#raaahh#side quest: to feed an ocean
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If there's one fish I'd wanna keep in a tank it's some kind of eel. I want these beasts in my home
#i especially wish i could have a gulper eel#my fucking god i love gulper eels#they're my favorite ocean creature of all time. look at those bitches go#but alas. they live thousands of feet below the ocean surface and if i tried bringing one to the surface it would explode and die#depressurization and all that#im also a huge fan of snakes so clearly i like me some long boys
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that might just be my favourite combat of the series omg
#THE DOGFISH MAXI RICK PERRY AND THE TEAM#as someone who is fucking enamoured with ocean horror and huge ass sea creatures this was so fucking cool#THE BOY OF DESTINY THE BRAVEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WORLD GERARD’S VICTORY OVER THAT ONE GUY THAT SUCKED THE ARCHER AND THE CAT#neverafter spoilers#dimension 20#d20#neverafter#terror on toy island
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i want to swim in the ocean more cause i know there are cool fish n creatures in there! i may not see them and they might not be able to reach me but sometimes we can swim in the same water and that's something beautiful, isn't it?
People who see pics of like those fucked up deep sea fish and creatures and go "omg I'm never going swimming in the ocean again 😰😰😰" calm down. They're 5000 feet below where you are and also i went down there and none of them even knew you. Leave them alone bitch
#i don't actually swim in the ocean cause i have a huge fear of drowning#and also i dislike sand#and i never go to the beach#but i fucking love sea creatures from the abyss ok?
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Tentacle Trouble PART 1
Pairing: Tentacle monster x human f!reader
Summary: you decide to explore a cave that is surrounded by stories of a tentacle beast. You find exactly that, get pounded in all holes and bred.
Warnings: minors don't interact, 18+!!!!, dub-con, dark monster smut, explicit tentacle smut, p in three holes, HEA. Don’t like, don’t read.
Find the series here.
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The dimly lit cave echoed with the roar of the ocean.
You ventured deeper, drawn by the stories of the creature that dwelled within its depths.
You were determined to uncover the truth.
You didn’t expect to find a monster. These were baby tales.
But your were wrong. So very wrong.
The presence lurked and watched you and before you could escape, thick, slick tentacles trapped you. Your clothes were ripped and tossed away, slimy tentacles roaming your body, their weight keeping you a captive. You found yourself being lifted, suspended in the air while wriggling appendages wrapped around your wrists and ankles, keeping your limbs wide apart.
The creature emerged from the shadows, its body a huge round mass of tentacles, each one glistening with a strange slickness. A huge head, and at its core were three glowing eyes, deep blue, like the ocean sea. They seemed to reach into your soul.
“Holy shit!” You gasped, unable to believe your eyes. “I’m so fucking dead.”
A husky voice filled your mind, you realized it came from the monster. “No one shall hurt you, little human. You are here now, your life is mine, your little holes are mine,” it drawled. “I will mate and love you endlessly.”
“Fuck you, you perverted—”
“What a filthy mouth.” A sharp slap against your ass made you gasp in surprise. “Quiet, noisy human.”
You shrieked and moaned as he repeatedly slapped your ass, pausing a little to caress your sore bum before delivering more smacks. No matter how much you wiggled and screamed, you couldn’t be set free. The slimes moved on to slap you pussy, finding it delightfully slick and plump.
You thrashed at each blow, the slaps were light but awakened a strange pleasure inside you.
You hated your treacherous body.
The monster didn’t seem pleased with your thrashing so he pushed one thick tentacle into your parted mouth. It plunged down your throat, stretching your lips and causing you to gag. Moist suckling noises resounded as it fucked your throat, thrusting back and forth until you no longer fought the creature back.
Gluck… gluck… gluck… gluck.
The cave echoed with your lewd slurping sounds as you were forced to swallow the sweet nectarine liquid dripping from his tentacle. Each drop aroused you, invading your system and intoxicating it with desire. In seconds, you were soft and pliant, more than eager to let him have his way with you.
“That’s more like it,” you heard his voice in your mind. “Beautiful human. My little mate.”
“What—hmm,” you gulped down more liquid, “is it?”
The monster’s voice rumbled through you. “That, my little one, is my elixir. It shall make you immortal and prepare your body for me. It is an elixir that only I, the master of these depths, can produce.”
You struggled to speak, a shiver running down your spine. Immortal elixir? It terrified and intrigued you. You looked into the creature’s eyes, asking for answers.
“Only my mate is deserving of my elixir. Now hush, do not fear.”
More tentacles came out of his body, of various shapes and lengths. They travelled over your flesh, leaving trails of slickness wherever they touched. It made your shiver. One tentacle slithered up your inner thigh, brushing around your pussy before slipping inside your depths. Shivers of pleasure ran through you as it fucked you while another slithery appendage rubbed your clit round and round.
Two more tentacles snaked over your ass, pulling your cheeks apart to expose your pouting rosebud. You squirmed and cried out around the tentacle fucking your mouth when the pulsating appendages slipped past the tight entrance of your asshole. The fit was tight but the tentacles were incredibly slick. Slowly, oh so slowly, they filled you up, inch by inch, until they were buried deep in your guts.
“Mnn…mnhaa!" You breathed through your nose at the way you felt, all holes filled.
When the tentacles started to thrust, your eyes rolled to the back of your head. The tentacles were all over and yet, you felt no pain, just blinding pleasure. You willingly surrendered to the feral ravishmest. The cave filled with the symphony of your high-pitched cries and the furious plap-plap of tentacles filling your body.
The creature’s rhythm grew faster, the tentacles working in perfect harmony.
By now, you had two tentacles buried in your cunt and three more crawling up your ass. The one fucking your throat hadn’t receded and kept feeding you its delectable elixir.
The insistent fucking brought you to a shattering climax. Your body tensed and you cried out around the thrusting appendage in your lips as waves and waves of pleasure crashed over you.
The creature didn’t stop its pounding.
Your voice continued to echo through the cavern. The slimes in your ass pistoned fast and hard but the ones in your pussy stopped and pressed against the entrance to your womb. You tensed, the pressure causing you to wince. You felt a soft pop, followed by the heavy weight of eggs. One by one you felt them as they were deposited deep inside you.
“Ugh .. ungh—" you whimpered and came hard, the walls of your cunt contracting around the ovipositor. Your whole body spasmed as the creature bred you and made you its mate.
It felt like hours later when the slimes exited your holes. The intensity subsided, but your belly was bulging with his brood. The creature gently lowered you to the ground, its tentacles wrapping protectively around you. You lay there, spent and satisfied, your mind reeling from the unbelievable experience.
The creature’s glowing eyes regarded you with a strange, almost tender curiosity. “You did well, my mate. Took six of my eggs on the first try. I am proud of you. Sleep now, little one. I will take care of you. Forever.”
And you did, your eyes shutting as you let go in his embrace. You had found what you needed, a new world of pleasure and otherworldly love.
#tentacles x you#tentacles x female reader#tentacles x human#tentacles x reader#tentacles smut#monster fucker#monster lover#monster x female#monster x reader#monster x you#monster x human#monster smut#monster x female reader#monster boyfriend#monster romance#monster fuqqer#monster fudger
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ok, i know it’s not may any more, but could we please have more mer au. ghost preferably, i just want to shake him around in a bag like that one little girl from finding nemo.
hands you a carnival prize plastic bag with a goldfish-sized mer Ghost inside. feed him twice a day. plastic shipwreck not included. he might look lonely but don't let him convince you to put your fingers in the bowl :)
take the first half of this thing too:
36 / 1k / shark mer Ghost tolerating remora mer reader
...
Ghost doesn’t look back at you as you swim meekly after him. You have to whip your smaller tail twice as fast just to keep up, and you're getting winded already. He makes it look so easy to glide through the water.
"What now?" he mutters.
"Nothing. I didn't say anything."
“You’re thinking it.”
"I was just--" A huge yawn overtakes your reply. You sink in the water for a moment, scrunching your eyes closed, before huffing and darting after him again. "--Just going this way, too."
He knows you've been following behind him since dusk. You should’ve given up some time ago, but you never learn. He slows imperceptibly, just long enough for your catatonic ass to catch up, and then veers to the side so that you--rubbing your eyes with sleep--bump into him. You rest your hand against his tail instinctively and stick to him with the suction pads on your palm.
Satisfied having you in tow, he speeds back up. "You’re not a very good liar, sweetheart."
You mumble under your breath and hand-climb up his back until you're nestled between his shoulder blades instead.
Lazy little thing. Pain in his ass.
Despite grumbling, he does nothing to dislodge you from your spot. You seem to be having a difficult day, and he’s primed to make it worse. You’re the perfect target. When he has the energy--like now, at night--bullying you is his small pleasure of choice.
Then again, he can feel the way you’re pressing up against him, small and clingy and cute as hell. It takes all his willpower not to roll over and stow you against his chest instead.
You remain blissfully unaware of his inner turmoil. You’re more concerned about the emptiness in your stomach.
"You're going hunting, right?" you mumble against his shoulder.
“Trying to,” he says.
You’ve been tagging along on hunts for days, but you haven’t managed to snag any good scraps in a long while. But maybe tonight, when it’s just you and Ghost. "Mkay."
He keeps waiting for you to get in the way and then pout when he inevitably brushes you off. Instead, you’re silent. It’s bugging him.
Then, scanning the coral, he catches sight of a perfectly tasty-looking snapper. He puts your attitude out of his mind and instead tenses up to begin his hunt. You’re with him, so why worry. Watch and learn.
You peer past his shoulder curiously to see him work. His back muscles tense and shift as his eyes track every one of the fish’s movements. Then he bolts forward faster than the fish can dart away. It whips around in reflexive panic right as he snatches it in one fluid movement.
You watch over his shoulder as he kills it with a practical snap of the spine and begins to disassemble the creature piece by piece, eating the flesh and letting the bones and fins fall to the ocean floor below.
His focus is intense: attention trained on the task, his fingers work as precisely to strip flesh from bone as his jaw works on shredding the pieces of snapper he tears off into his mouth. The muscles in his shoulders ripple beneath your coiled-up body. As always, he moves with efficiency and a certain brutal grace, never wasting a single movement. It's the lethal behavior of a predator, yes, but falling into the repetitive, methodical habit seems to satisfy him.
You unfasten yourself from his back while he's absorbed in his task. The bones and bits of uneaten flesh sinking to seafloor have your interest. You swim after them.
“Don’t go far,” he warns after you. He’s not worried. There’s nowhere you could venture out here that he couldn’t find you within minutes.
You collect the scraps and eat what you can--mostly skin and fins, and they leave you feeling almost as hungry, but you're used to it. Ghost needs the food more than you do, anyway. You glide lazily over the sea floor to comb the sand with your fingers in hopes of finding another snack. Maybe a snail. A crab if you're lucky.
The search leads you to the edge of a long sandbar. It’s about a thousand minnow-lengths at its widest, and there are various shells and bits of debris scattered across the surface. You start to prowl the sandy floor for food, fingers stirring up soft sand into the water.
Ghost’s voice calls out somewhere behind you, but your exhausted brain isn't as reactive as it should be. If you could just find one or two more bites to eat, you think. You tug what looks like a crab carapace out of the sand, but it's just a strawberry-colored plastic bottle. You keep searching. Keep finding nothing of value. You come across a pile of barnacles, shards of coral, small rocks, a stray fishing lure you gnaw on just to be sure...
But no, nothing worth eating.
Your stomach rumbles again. You’re too tired and unfocused. Your movements are slow and clumsy, your senses dulled. You barely hear a sound until a hand comes down on your tail from behind and grabs you.
You jerk and dart away in surprise.
Your movement wrenches a sound from Ghost--a gruff huff of annoyance as he lunges after you. You're fast, but not fast enough. He catches your tail again immediately, dragging you back into his control.
"Idiot," he scolds. "I told you not to go far. If I had been a predator, you'd be dead meat right now."
You relax into his grip instantly. "Oh. Yeah."
He looks at you in that unamused way that says of course I was right. He looks you over with a critical eye. Your eyes are half-open and your muscles are slack. You must be exhausted.
He turns and heads for home with you still in hand. "Right, then."
You see what's happening and wriggle in his grip, hunger gnawing at you again. "Wait, aren't you hunting?"
"No." He's quick and harsh with his response. He doesn't appreciate unnecessary questions. "You're going home. Hunting can wait."
…
[part 1] / part 2
more mer au / more Ghost / masterlist tag
#mine#story#mermay#mermay 2024#x reader#cod x reader#call of duty x reader#mermaid reader#monster romance#monster x reader#ask#simon riley#simon riley x reader#ghost x reader#simon ghost riley x reader#simon ghost riley#lovely-giggles#merman#merman!ghost#tf 141 x reader
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It is implied to be—I just prefer to see them as separate entities! I think it preserves more of the mystery of the great unknown if you don't know what it is. I also have a separate design for the bombinating beast in mind, so it gives me an excuse to make two different designs :]
I'm going to try to make my own designs for all the creatures in asoue/atwq. Here's my interpretation of The Great Unknown :)
design notes ↓
#i'm a huge fan of sea creatures#and i love the strangeness of the ocean overall#so the great unknown has always been very very cool to me#i generally prefer to not know what it is at all but if i have to pick a design this is how i see it#my art#not an eel
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earth fact time. this is NOT A DRILL! two great white sharks have become best friends!! their names are simon and jekyll and they've travelled together for over 4,000 miles. this is a huge discovery, because great white sharks are usually solitary creatures!
an important note is that these sharks aren't swimming side by side, and are usually a couple kilometres off from each other - but their trackers kept pinging in the same part of the ocean at the same time. scientists think they might be brothers, or following a previously unknown migratory path.
business insider | cbc
(edited 08/10/23 to fix spelling of jekyll's name)
#aquatic#earthposting#facts!#biology#marine biology#marine life#zoology#sea life#sea animals#marine animals#fish#fishblr#sharks#great white shark#earth fact no. 16#simon and jekyll
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Gigantic Skull of Prehistoric Sea Monster Found on England’s ‘Jurassic Coast’
The remarkably well-preserved skull of a gigantic pliosaur, a prehistoric sea monster, has been discovered on a beach in the county of Dorset in southern England, and it could reveal secrets about these awe-inspiring creatures.
Pliosaurs dominated the oceans at a time when dinosaurs roamed the land. The unearthed fossil is about 150 million years old, almost 3 million years younger than any other pliosaur find. Researchers are analyzing the specimen to determine whether it could even be a species new to science.
Originally spotted in spring 2022, the fossil, along with its complicated excavation and ongoing scientific investigation, are now detailed in the upcoming BBC documentary “Attenborough and the Jurassic Sea Monster,” presented by legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough, that will air February 14 on PBS.
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Such was the enormous size of the carnivorous marine reptile that the skull, excavated from a cliff along Dorset’s “Jurassic Coast,” is almost 2 meters (6.6 feet) long. In its fossilized form, the specimen weighs over half a metric ton. Pliosaurs species could grow to 15 meters (50 feet) in length, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The fossil was buried deep in the cliff, about 11 meters (36 feet) above the ground and 15 meters (49 feet) down the cliff, local paleontologist Steve Etches, who helped uncover it, said in a video call.
Extracting it proved a perilous task, one fraught with danger as a crew raced against the clock during a window of good weather before summer storms closed in and the cliff eroded, possibly taking the rare and significant fossil with it.
Etches first learned of the fossil’s existence when his friend Philip Jacobs called him after coming across the pliosaur’s snout on the beach. Right from the start, they were “quite excited, because its jaws closed together which indicates (the fossil) is complete,” Etches said.
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After using drones to map the cliff and identify the rest of the pliosaur’s precise position, Etches and his team embarked on a three-week operation, chiseling into the cliff while suspended in midair.
“It’s a miracle we got it out,” he said, “because we had one last day to get this thing out, which we did at 9:30 p.m.”
Etches took on the task of painstakingly restoring the skull. There was a time he found “very disillusioning” as the mud, and bone, had cracked, but “over the following days and weeks, it was a case of …, like a jigsaw, putting it all back. It took a long time but every bit of bone we got back in.”
It’s a “freak of nature” that this fossil remains in such good condition, Etches added. “It died in the right environment, there was a lot of sedimentation … so when it died and went down to the seafloor, it got buried quite quickly.”
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Fearsome top predator of the seas
The nearly intact fossil illuminates the characteristics that made the pliosaur a truly fearsome predator, hunting prey such as the dolphinlike ichthyosaur. The apex predator with huge razor-sharp teeth used a variety of senses, including sensory pits still visible on its skull that may have allowed it to detect changes in water pressure, according to the documentary.
The pliosaur had a bite twice as powerful as a saltwater crocodile, which has the world’s most powerful jaws today, according to Emily Rayfield, a professor of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who appeared in the documentary. The prehistoric marine predator would have been able to cut into a car, she said.
Andre Rowe, a postdoctoral research associate of paleobiology at the University of Bristol, added that “the animal would have been so massive that I think it would have been able to prey effectively on anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its space.”
By Issy Ronald.
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#Gigantic Skull of Prehistoric Sea Monster Found on England’s ‘Jurassic Coast’#Dorset England#pliosaur#jurassic#fossil#prehistoric#dinosaur#paleobiology#palaeontologists#archaeology#archeolgst#history#history news#ancient history#Sir David Attenborough#nature#naturalist
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Dandelion News - January 15-21
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1. Landmark debt swap to protect Indonesia’s coral reefs
“The government of Indonesia announced this week a deal to redirect more than US$ 35 million it owes to the United States into the conservation of coral reefs in the most biodiverse ocean area on Earth.”
2. [FWS] Provides Over $1.3 Billion to Support Fish and Wildlife Conservation and Outdoor Access
“Through these combined funds, agencies have supported monitoring and management of over 500 species of wild mammals and birds, annual stocking of over 1 billion fish, operations of fish and wildlife disease laboratories around the country, and provided hunter and aquatic education to millions of students.”
3. Philippine Indigenous communities restore a mountain forest to prevent urban flooding
“Indigenous knowledge systems and practices are considered in the project design, and its leaders and members have been involved throughout the process, from agreeing to participate to identifying suitable land and selecting plant species that naturally grow in the area.”
4. Responsible Offshore Wind Development is a Clear Win for Birds, the U.S. Economy, and our Climate
“[T]he total feasible offshore wind capacity along U.S. coasts is more than three times the total electricity generated nationwide in 2023. […] Proven strategies, such as reducing visible lights on turbines and using perching deterrents on turbines, have been effective in addressing bird impacts.”
5. Illinois awards $100M for electric truck charging corridor, Tesla to get $40M
“The project will facilitate the construction of 345 electric truck charging ports and pull-through truck charging stalls across 14 sites throughout Illinois[…. E]lectrifying [the 30,000 daily long-haul] trucks would make a huge impact in the public health and quality of life along the heavily populated roadways.”
6. Reinventing the South Florida seawall to help marine life, buffer rising seas
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“[The new seawall] features raised areas inspired by mangrove roots that are intended to both provide nooks and crannies for fish and crabs and other marine creatures and also better absorb some of the impact from waves and storm surges.”
7. Long Beach Commits to 100% All-Electric Garbage Trucks
“[Diesel garbage trucks] produce around a quarter of all diesel pollution in California and contribute to 1,400 premature deaths every year. Electric options, on the other hand, are quieter than their diesel counterparts and produce zero tailpipe emissions.”
8. ‘This Is a Victory': Biden Affirms ERA Has Been 'Ratified' and Law of the Land
“President Joe Biden on Friday announced his administration's official opinion that the amendment is ratified and its protections against sex-based discrimination are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.”
9. A Little-Known Clean Energy Solution Could Soon Reach ‘Liftoff’
“Ground source heat pumps could heat and cool the equivalent of 7 million homes by 2035—up from just over 1 million today[…. G]eothermal energy is generally considered to be more popular among Republicans than other forms of clean energy, such as wind and solar.”
10. Researchers combine citizens' help and cutting-edge tech to track biodiversity
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“Researchers in the project, which runs from 2022 to 2026, are experimenting with tools like drones, cameras and sensors to collect detailed data on different species, [… and] Observation.org, a global biodiversity platform where people submit pictures of animals and plants, helping to identify and monitor them.”
January 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)
#good news#hopepunk#nature#national debt#coral reef#conservation#funding#fish and wildlife#philippines#indigenous#agroforestry#green infrastructure#offshore wind#wind energy#electric vehicles#illinois#florida#sea wall#habitat#california#equal rights#human rights#us politics#geothermal#biodiversity#citizen science#climate change#invasive species#endangered species#clean energy
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This is true and should say it
[tags by OP]
based purely on anecdotal evidence from the 10 or so people I hang out with the most, I have put together a hypothesis
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