sail the beautiful sundance sea

Is not Cuvier the greatest poet of our century? Our immortal naturalist has reconstructed worlds from blanched bones. He picks up a piece of gypsum and says to us 'See!' Suddenly stone turns into animals, the dead come to life, and another world unrolls before our eyes.

[cretaceous-wanderings]

blue the "velociraptor" WISHES she had what raptor red has

[ishouldreallygetofftheinternet]

[new-dinosaurs]

Parapsittacopes bergdahli Mayr, 2021 (new genus and species)

(Skull of Parapsittacopes bergdahli, from Mayr, 2021)

Meaning of name: Parapsittacopes = near Psittacopes [another Eocene bird that was likely a close relative]; bergdahli = for Paul Bergdahl [the collector of the original fossil]

Age: Eocene (Ypresian), 54.6‒55 million years ago

Where found: London Clay Formation, Essex, UK

How much is known: Partial skeleton of one individual, including a skull and parts of all four limbs.

Notes: Parapsittacopes was likely a psittacopedid, a group of small (wren- to sparrow-sized) Eocene birds that were originally thought to have been closely related to parrots. Like parrots, they had two toes pointing forward and two backward on each foot. However, more recent studies suggest that psittacopedids might have been more closely related to passeriform birds (songbirds and their kin), which instead have the typical condition of modern birds in which three toes face forward and one points back.

Most previously known psittacopedid fossils were preserved as flattened remains, so the three-dimensionally preserved bones of Parapsittacopes reveal several previously unknown psittacopedid features. Some of these features provide further support for placing them as close relatives of passeriforms.

Psittacopedids exhibited a wide variety of beak shapes, and included probable seed-eating and nectar-eating species. The beak of Parapsittacopes was short and slightly widened, a common feature of birds that hunt insects in flight. Parapsittacopes may have caught insects by flying at them from a perch. It may have also fed on fruits.

Reference: Mayr, G. 2021. A remarkably complete skeleton from the London Clay provides insights into the morphology and diversity of early Eocene zygodactyl near-passerine birds. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/14772019.2020.1862930

[historical-nonfiction]

Occasionally, fossils become opal instead of stone. They are called… opalized fossils.

[paradoxspaceheater]

fuck it *opalizes*

[hummingyogurt]

Weewarrasaurus is not a lame name, the dinosaur has been named after the Wee Warra fossil locality where it has been found

I don’t know what wee means but if I’m not mistaken “Warra warra” means “Go away”

It doesn’t always have to be Greek or Latin, native words are far more interesting than nonsense like “Dynamoterror” or “Thanatotheristes” that sound like middle school OCs

[cretaceous-wanderings]

pete and neal larson are the elon musks of paleontology

[cretaceous-wanderings]

ornithomimus is just effigia for people whose postosuchus was tyrannosaurus

[dykegrindr]

thinking about the inherent tenderness and intimacy of the symbiotic relationship between the rhino and the oxpecker. mutuals do this:

[cretaceous-wanderings]

oxpeckers peck at exposed wounds to feed on the blood of the animal they're perched on. they do also remove parasites but it's not a completely commensalistic relationship

[cretaceous-wanderings]

Could you elaborate on the bigfoot thing? I’m not trying to be mean I genuinely want to know

the “bigfoot” myth started off as a myth of a “”lost tribe”” of hairy ape-like native americans in the pacific northwest region—a colonialist folktale that hinges on natives being “primitive” or more like [nonhuman] apes as well as a “lost world” colonialist view that’s all too prevalent in cryptozoological communities. 

over time the myth mutated into a more ape than human perception of the creature, largely due to the famous patterson-gimlin footage that played a big part in codifying the look of the creature (though the appearance of the creature in this footage takes clear inspiration from earlier descriptions from about a decade earlier). one notable detail about the patterson-gimlin footage that it shares in common with the 1950s accounts is the creature having massive breasts. this imo clearly comes from the place of an overly horny man wanting to give bigfoot massive bazongalongas but its more suspect when you take into account that at the original time of these reports being come up with, the popular conception of the creature was more along the lines of “”lost tribe”” than “ape-man”.

folk legends like bigfoot do not exist in a vacuum and have not existed forever. the modern conception of bigfoot evolved in less than a century and was firmly rooted in anti-indigenous and white settler colonialist sentiments.

[cretaceous-wanderings]

sorry guys but you literally cant divorce the bigfoot myth from its colonialist/anti-indigenous origins :T

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Across the world, protesters and activists are working hard to convince our governments that dramatic change is needed, now, to ensure that our black siblings and neighbors are not only able to survive, but thrive, instead of suffer under systematic antiblack racism and white supremacy. 

We here on Palaeoblr are committed to doing our part for that struggle - but we can’t do it alone. As such, this weekend we will be hosting a Stream on Twitch: 

The Dino Nerds For Black Lives Stream 

During this stream we will be raising funds for The National BailOut Fund and The Bail Project - which both help individuals arrested by police to make exorbitantly high bail amounts, which greatly affects black people even when there aren’t extensive protests occurring. We also will be directing funds to local Black Lives Matter chapters as well as Ranowo Campaigns. More info about how donations will work will come in a later announcement, but all proceeds will go to these charities. 

In return, we plan on rallying eagerness for donations by having a variety of guests across the paleontology community - individuals from Darren Naish to Thomas Holtz to Pete Makovicky and more - to talk about their work and answer questions given by those who donated. We also will have artists working on their work, joking and riffing by our silliest science communicators, and of course, dinosaur-related gaming. 

We hope to see you all there from 6PM (Pacific Time) on June 19th until Midnight on June 22nd (Pacific Time). The twitch channel for the project is https://www.twitch.tv/dinonerdsforblacklives. 

Please, reblog, share, repost, tweet, and spread the word. And if you would like to contribute to the project, email us at [email protected]. 

Thanks,

The A-Dinosaur-A-Day Team

[verybadpaleontologyjokes]

Hell yeah! Sorry I am not able to help with organizing it right now, but I’ll tune in when I can!

[earthstory]

Not only is this a good read, I’m told that’s a really well done logo.  https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/gd/2020/06/10/black-in-geosciences/

[cretaceous-wanderings]

fuck bob bakker but raptor red did kinda smack :/

[skyradiant]

[cretaceous-wanderings]

hey your the gross, stupid, cunt asshole from that one post. fuck you, your the reason people get bullied about so many random things on the internet. i hope you die.

awwwe 💓no uuuuuuuu

[cretaceous-wanderings]

[cretaceous-wanderings]

*plots my gender on a principle component analysis*

[cretaceous-wanderings]

wednesday what's the dinosaur mood