Paleo volunteer at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Field/lab experience, research, and scicomm. NAGT Digman Award Recipient
Pennsylvania
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“If we evolved from monkeys/chimps, then why are there still monkeys/chimps?” Assuming this question is asked with sincerity, it’s a fair question. So let’s break it down a little!
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Building on that we’re not the first or only humans to have existed. You know what happened to them? They went extinct. Our species has evolved to fit the world it’s in same as any other living thing on earth, including our remaining relatives.
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A new juvenile Albertosaurus specimen was just described, featuring feeding traces from dromaeosaurs. At 8 years old it’s the youngest of its kind to preserve skull material like this. Pretty cool stuff, linked below…
ALT New juvenile specimen skull material
ALT Feeding traces methodology
ALT Albertosaurus cast at the Badlands Dinosaur Museum
ALT Dromaeosaurus casts at the Cincinnati museum
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Giant azhdarchid pterosaurs had a global distribution by the end of the Cretaceous. In Mongolia, fossils of an unnamed species point to a giant with a wingspan likely around 10 meters across, 3 times the size of a wandering albatross.
Art by @JoschuaKnuppe
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Thursday I’m leading a little class at a local library teaching folks about the single worst day in the history of life on earth. Time to get dark!
Art by prehistorybyliam
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Kelmayisaurus was a large carcharodontosaur from Asia. At over 10 meters, it was one of the biggest carnivores from the continent. There was once a suggestion of a second, 21 meter species but these turned out to be sauropod fossils.
Art by Mophandel on Reddit
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Some context for the artist credit…
Hi, it’s Mophandel, and I am not the artist! The artist is †ヤマタノオロチ† (@oroti0). In retrospect, I really shouldn’t have put the credits to the art in the comments of the post 😭
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The Sereno Edmontosaurus mummy last year made some big waves but I’ve noticed the rebuttal that was published almost immediately after has still been looked over. As part of a larger study, the “sail crest” was questioned, as decomposition could influence the appearance.-
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I’ll also add folks seem to have misinterpreted Sereno’s paper as suggesting a fleshy crest in both Edmontosaurus species. That was not described and was speculative in the art. In fact, Sharpe’s paper found the assignment of the comb in E. regalis to be unlikely as well.
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As with everything the most recent isn’t always going to be the most right but I think Sharpe and his team raised good points that seem to have been missed by most.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wi…
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Sotheby’s is putting up another potentially important fossil. Nicknamed Jodi, reportedly a Nanotyrannus. Estimated to go for at least $6-9 million. It’s currently not clear how much is real, I’ve only seen news articles and not the official listing.
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Some additional context: this specimen was previously named Chomper and labeled as a young T.rex so it may seem familiar for that reason. It’s since been updated. At the time it was labeled as 55% complete, but to what metric I don’t know
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The official listing…
sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/…
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