#paleoblogging

[astriiformes]

a passing thought— since starting work at a natural history museum, i've become much more familiar with azhdarchids, so i think i understand and appreciate your ao3 handle much more now. but, it's starting to reverse, in that now i see your name and think "my good friend quetzalcoatlus :)"

What's funny is I'm not even particularly enthusiastic about quetzalcoatlus or the other azhdarchids, beyond really liking the pterosaurs as a clade. That, and the Cretaceous is my favorite period of the Mesozoic. But at the time I was scrambling for a username, and I thought the mythological origins of their family name (azhdars are dragon-like monsters from Persian mythology) lent itself well to vibes of the storytelling website, plus, I am, if nothing else, at heart a monster guy.

Anyway, back when I worked at the science museum, they had a contest running where all the staff were supposed to take pictures with our Quetzalcoatlus models, so have a silly photo:

[geddyqueer]

i got a tiktaalik stuffie from the paleontological research institution as part of their funding drive!

[astriiformes]

Nate have you seen "Started Out as a Fish. How Did It End Up Like This" on the new york times website? peak scicomm right there!

Thank you for alerting me to the existence of this article, I am delighted by so many of the turns of phrase in here:

"It's great, just vibes"

I am also, of course, extremely jealous of the cleverness of that title, if somewhat delighted that it reminds me of the term paper I wrote for my vertebrate paleo course last semester: It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine): Resilience and Evolutionary Adaptation in Survivors of the Permian-Triassic Extinction

[astriiformes]

Would also be remiss not to share this from vertebrate paleontology today

[astriiformes]

HEY THIS IS SURE A TAKE

[astriiformes]

Something something the irony of me having chosen to write about the survivors of the end-Permian mass extinction (aka, the very tiny handful of things on Earth that proved impossibly good at not dying during a time period that is colloquially known to scientists as “the Great Dying”) for the paleontology term paper I am now editing as I enter night two of the “this is not your grave, get out of the hole” end-of-the-semester stretch

[astriiformes]

Was starting to get worried I wouldn’t be able to come up with one of my signature essay titles for this paper,

[astriiformes]

Paleo Professor 1, who studies dinosaurs: Psittacosaurus is actually also the only dinosaur where we've found a preserved cloaca. There were actually two teams that got into a little bit of a fight a while ago on social media over who was going to get to describe the butthole.

Paleo Professor 2, who studies mammals: There's a reason mammal paleontologists like to make fun of dinosaur paleontologists.

Paleo Professor 1: Jealousy? Envy?