#society of vertebrate paleontology

[timewasjustadream]

I donated my dino blanket (interlocking crochet) to the benefits auction at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. I didn't expect my blanket to be reserved for the live auction portion (most of the auction is the silent kind). I'm ecstatic about how it did and the crowd's reaction to it. $375 for SVP programs and scholarships!

Certainly $375 is less than I would have asked for if I was selling it, but I'm happy a paleontologist is taking it home and the money is going to a good cause. 😊

Below is a close-up of the blanket hung on my wall for beauty pictures. Don't worry, it was hanging for only a couple minutes.

It took me ~40 hours over 5 months in 2022 to crochet. 18 skeins of yarn. ~6660 yards of yarn. ~8 lbs in weight. ~92 inches x ~62 inches.

This is the pattern I used: Tenacious T-Rex

It really isn't a T. rex. It has too many fingers. I don't know what type of theropod it is. Some other options I considered were Acrocanthosaurus or Giganotosaurus but both of them have 3 fingers.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

So the Preliminary SVP Schedule got released

For those unfamiliar, SVP = Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

usually when paleontologists say "SVP" they mean specifically the conference that SVP hosts each year, one of the biggest events for the "spends their lives studying old bones" people each year

each day has six sessions - three in the morning, three in the afternoon - and they're packed with talks. like, if you want to see talks in two different concurrent sessions, you gotta run around like a maniac

anyways

Wednesday Morning has Sauropods & Ornithischians, Early Mammals & Carnivorans, and then Fishes & Amphibians as three different sessions (all of these are groups of three going forward)

Wednesday afternoon has Dinosaur Soft Tissues, Ungulates, and Marine Reptiles

Thursday Morning has Romer Prize (fancy student talks), Birds, and Preparators' Session

Thursday afternoon has Theropod Flight Origins, Mammal Paleoecology, and Sauropsids

Friday morning has Euarchontoglires & Xenarthra, Archosaurs, and Methods & Paleohistology

Friday afternoon has Actinopterygians, Crocodylomorphs & Turtles, and Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology

Saturday morning has Theropods I, Afrotheria & Mammal Macroevolution, and Synapsids

and Saturday afternoon has Theropods II, Marine Mammals & Bats, and Squamates

The fact that Theropods get four separate focused sessions while Ornithischians and Sauropods are smushed into one is... well, I'm laughing my head off at Theropod bias right now

would you like theropods? Or more theropods? How about some THEROPODS

[hasellia]

I already put this in the replies but in case of... something. OP said this happened with Australian fossil and this lines up with when the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology was in Brisbane.

Don't know if this or anything like that happened there. But I know it was a big opportunity for Australian geologist to showcase their work. Some where groundbreaking (literally), others... Okay I'm not THAT deep in the Australian geology lore but I can tell our geologist have a certain... vibe... to them. Like that one animal named after someone saying "wakie wakie" and Kollikodon almost being HotCrossBunodon.

shout out to geologists.

fucking crazy discourse.

I once sat in at a geology talk where these guys found fossils that disproved something about when plants and stuff started to come in the fossil record and they found evidence it was like 20 something million years more than previously thought.

and basically everyone but me like 2 others were like scoffing and like mad? at these people for some reason.

it was super interesting as fuck, I wish I knew more about geology at the time. but fossils it was so cool.

crazy shit.

geologists love you so fucking much I am making out with you.

[alphynix]

First discovered in the 1850s, Compsognathus longipes was the first theropod dinosaur known from a fairly complete skeleton, and also the smallest known non-avian dinosaur for over 130 years.

(A second specimen was also, briefly, the "first" aquatic non-avian dinosaur, but that's another story.)

Living in what is now Europe during the late Jurassic, about 150 million years ago, it was a lightly built animal with long legs and a long tail, growing to around 1.2m long (~4'). Its hands seem to have had only two functional fingers, with the third being vestigial and possibly not even having a claw.

Skin impressions from about a third of the way along its tail show small bumpy scales – but since other compsognathids like Sinosauropteryx are known to have been covered in fur-like feathers, this likely means that just that particular region of Compsognathus' body wasn't fluffy.

Some of Compsognathus' diet is known for certain, since preserved gut contents show it fed on smaller vertebrates like lizards and rhynchocephalians. The remains of a lizard in the stomach of one specimen were even identified as belonging to a previously-unknown species, Schoenesmahl dyspepsia, with the dismembered nature of the skeleton suggesting Compsognathus tore its prey into bite-sized chunks in a similar manner to modern predatory birds.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Conrad, Jack L. "A new lizard (Squamata) was the last meal of Compsognathus (Theropoda: Dinosauria) and is a holotype in a holotype." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 183.3 (2018): 584-634. https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx055

Gishlick, Alan D., and Jacques A. Gauthier. "On the manual morphology of Compsognathus longipes and its bearing on the diagnosis of Compsognathidae." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 149.4 (2007): 569-581. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2007.00269.x

Peyer, Karin. "A reconsideration of Compsognathus from the Upper Tithonian of Canjuers, southeastern France." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26.4 (2006): 879-896. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4524640

Wikipedia contributors. “Compsognathus.” Wikipedia, 17 Jun. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compsognathus

[fossilprep]

Badlands Dinosaur Museum posters from the 84th annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

[emmalerae]

This is the finished Spinosaurus piece in all its glory! I did this piece to have something special for The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference.

The Allosaurus/Diplodocus piece was the intended artwork for the conference, but art is fickle.

13" x 38" prints are now available for purchase on my website.

www.emmalerae.com

[chimpleague]

,,

Biologists have long known that birds, which descend from one branch of extinct dinosaurs, have an unusual, sophisticated respiratory system that enables powered flight. But paleontologists have long debated whether those superlungs arose only in birds or earlier in dinosaurs.

Unlike humans and other mammals, whose lungs expand and deflate, bird lungs are rigid. Special air sacs alongside the lungs do the heavy lifting instead, pumping air through the lungs, where the oxygen diffuses into the bloodstream. The lungs are attached to the vertebrae and ribs, which form the "ceiling" of the rib cage—all of which helps keep the lungs stationary. A connector called the costovertebral joint, where the ribs and vertebrae meet, provides further support. That setup allows for a continuous stream of oxygen and requires less energy than inflating and deflating the lungs. It also allows paleontologists studying fossils to learn a lot about the lungs by examining the bones around them.

Many dinosaurs, including therapods like Velociraptor and Spinosaurus, a large carnivorous dinosaur, had similar lung architecture to birds, as reported in Royal Society Open Science.

All of this suggests dinos had the same kind of efficient respiratory organs as birds. These superlungs may help explain why dinosaurs were able to dominate and spread despite the rarified air of the Mesozoic, paleobiologist Robert Brocklehurst of The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom says. Back then, the air was only 10% to 15% oxygen, compared with 20% today.

But Jingmai O'Connor, a paleontologist with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, adds that just because a fossil has the bone structure for birdlike lungs doesn't necessarily mean it actually had such lungs.

,,

⠀

Paraphrased from this 2018 article from science.org.

y'all ever think about how insane the sauropods were

[new-dinosaurs]

A new proto-tropicbird, Prophaethon waltonensis, has been described in Historical Biology. As I am currently busy attending the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference, I will write an entry for P. waltonensis next week (along with any other dinosaurs that might potentially be named this week).

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

FOSSIL FRIDAY: CERATOSAURUS

Ceratosaurus, the "horned lizard" is probably one of the coolest dinosaurs discovered. It was described by Othniel Charles Marsh based on a nearly complete specimen from Garden Park, Colorado.

It is one of four large theropods in the Morrison Formation of the U.S. and the Lourina Formation of Portugal. There is currently only one accepted species: Ceratosaurus nasicornis.

Allosaurus, Torvosaurus and Ceratosaurus at the BYU Museum of Paleontology.

Ceratosaurus is a medium-sized theropod. The type specimen is about 17 ft (5.3 m) long but other specimens indicate it could get more than 20 ft long. It is characterized by deep jaws that supported proportionally long, blade-like teeth, a prominent, ridge-like nasal crest, and a pair of crests over the eyes making it appear very dragon-like.

It had fairly short arms especially compared to its contemporary rivals. Each hand had four fingers with the three larger ones sporting a claw.

It also had a row of osteoderms that ran down it's neck, back and tail.

It is thought that Ceratosaurus was a solitary hunter. None have ever been found in close proximity to another. In a paper written by Donald M. Henderson in 1998, he stated that Ceratosaurus' taller skull indicated a resistance to bending. Its long, broad teeth would present increased frictional resistance to penetration due to increased surface area.

It had powerful adductor muscles that would increase the overall stresses on the entire skull. Having a deeper skull would relieve that by increasing the flexural rigidity and thus the strength. Think pit bull or hyena.

Ceratosaurus is only represented by a handful of specimens, far more common than Torvosaurus but still much less common than Allosaurus. There are two ideas floating around about why this is. One, there simply weren't as many of them. Two, it preferred a habitat that just didn't preserve fossils as well. Whatever the case may be, I hope that we can help answer some of these questions with the potential specimen we found at the Evil Tree Bonebed.

Possible Ceratosaur ischium (and it's a whopper for size).

Want to help recover the Ceratosaurus? Then come join us this summer at Colorado Northwestern Community College! Check out the link for more info. Hope to see you there!

[dinodorks]

[ Photos by Derek Fikse and Kara Fikse, showing field team members working at the Cañadón Tomás Quarry. ]

"The discovery of a spectacular fossil site in Argentina is helping shed new light on life at the end of the Cretaceous, the time period just before the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. New research recently presented at the Geological Society of America’s GSA Connects 2023 meeting by Matthew Lamanna, a paleontologist and the principal dinosaur researcher at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, describes exciting fossil finds from a site known as the Cañadón Tomás Quarry in southern Argentina’s Patagonia region. “In general, dinosaurs and other continental vertebrates from the Cretaceous tend to be less known from the Southern Hemisphere than they are from the Northern, and that creates an imbalance in our understanding of biodiversity, evolution, and paleobiogeography,” says Lamanna. “We know enough about continental vertebrates in the Late Cretaceous to know that there were some very different kinds of animals thriving in the Southern Hemisphere. One thing that we’d really like to know is, how did non-avian dinosaurs in the southern half of the world fare at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary?” The Cañadón Tomás site was first discovered in early 2020 due to petroleum interest in the region. Oil companies were required to carry out a paleontological impact study before they could begin work, and the study soon uncovered dinosaur fossils."

Read more: "A Glimpse of Extinction: Scientists Uncover Extraordinary Fossils From the End of the Age of the Dinosaurs" from the Geological Society of America.

[paleopinesofficial]

So the week of Halloween this year is also when the society of vertebrate paleontology is meeting - so a lot of people are going to miss the special content! Would it be possible for this year only for it to extend into the first week of November? Would also probably help with USA election anxiety…

You're in luck! the Halloween-themed content will be running from October 21st through November 5th (including those dates)!

[timewasjustadream]

Got the Triceratops tube cowl back. It got first place at two fairs. Like the dino blanket, I'm not going to keep it. I'm planning to donate it to the SVP annual benefits auction. Anyone going to SVP and can tell me how much it brings in?

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

brb googling "how to get netflix to do a prescreen of Life on Our Planet for us at the biggest vert paleo conference of the year which just happens to be occurring a week before it's supposed to release"

[theblogthattimeforgot]

Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't the paleo community been talking about lips on t-rex for the past decade almost ?

Why is it an 'unsettling new discovery' ?

Why is rexy 'falling victim' to it ?

Rexy already has more lips than the indominus rex, indoraptor, scorpious rex, giganotosaur and spinosaur combined.

The walking with dinosaurs t-rex had lips.

Its not a new discovery. Yet all of sudden in the past couple days every new outlet and science magazine has been raving about 'scientists now suggest trex had lips' likes it's a new thing.

Robert reisz proposed the idea at the Canadian society of vertebrate paleontology annual meeting on May 20th , 2016. Heck prehistoric planet showed t-rex with lips last year (2022), its not a new discovery.

[alphynix]

Drepanosaurs were a weird little group of tree-climbing Triassic reptiles with prehensile claw-tipped tails, chameleon-like bodies, humped backs, grasping feet, long necks, and somewhat bird-like skulls that may have been tipped with toothless beaks in some species.

Recently some of them have been recognized as also having adaptations for digging and ripping into insect nests, similar to modern anteaters, with highly specialized forelimb bones and a massively enlarged hoked claw on each hand.

And now we have another one of these digging drepanosaurs: Unguinychus onyx, whose name delightfully translates to "claw claw claw"!

Living in what is now New Mexico, USA during the late Triassic, around 215-208 million years ago, Unguinychus is only known from its enlarged hand claws but was probably similar in size to some of its close relatives, likely around 40cm long (~1'4").

Based on skin impressions from the early drepanosaur Kyrgyzsaurus it also would have been covered in small scales, possibly with a skin crest and a chameleon-like throat sac.

Drepanosaurs' evolutionary relationships are rather unclear, with various studies classifying them as an early branch of diapsid reptiles, as close relatives of the gliding kuehneosaurids, or as protorosaurian archosauromorphs. But recently another idea has been proposed, instead placing them slightly further up the archosauromorph evolutionary tree in the allokotosaur lineage close to trilophosaurids – and notably making them very closely related to fellow Triassic bird-headed weirdo Teraterpeton.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Alifanov, V. R., and E. N. Kurochkin. "Kyrgyzsaurus bukhanchenkoi gen. et sp. nov., a new reptile from the Triassic of southwestern Kyrgyzstan." Paleontological Journal 45 (2011): 639-647. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257843064_Kyrgyzsaurus_bukhanchenkoi_gen_et_sp_nov_a_New_Reptile_from_the_Triassic_of_Southwestern_Kyrgyzstan

Buffa, Valentin, et al. "‘Birds’ of two feathers: Avicranium renestoi and the paraphyly of bird-headed reptiles (Diapsida:‘Avicephala’)." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (2024): zlae050. https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae050

Jenkins, Xavier A., et al. "Using manual ungual morphology to predict substrate use in the Drepanosauromorpha and the description of a new species." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 40.5 (2020): e1810058. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344545876_Using_Manual_Ungual_Morphology_to_Predict_Substrate_Use_in_the_Drepanosauromorpha_and_the_Description_of_a_New_Species

Pugh, Isaac, et al. "A new drepanosauromorph (Diapsida) from East–Central New Mexico and diversity of drepanosaur morphology and ecology at the Upper Triassic Homestead Site at Garita Creek (Triassic: mid-Norian)." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2024): e2363202. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2024.2363202

[hasellia]

Meanwhile, at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.