#thomas holtz

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

@gehe-lihiyot-androgynos-varda I posted the "Spinosaurus Talmud" meme on facebook and famed tyrannosaur paleontologist Dr. Thomas Holtz laugh-reacted, just thought you should know

[albertonykus]

In 2013, I was in my first year of undergrad and took Thomas Holtz's course on the fossil record. I enjoyed it so much that I drew a tribute to it. (The text references the songs that Holtz put on at the beginning of each lecture.) Here it is redrawn with six additional years of experience with digital art and paleo knowledge.

Full view

[diplotomodon]

Remember the Tom Holtz lecture I had mentioned last week? Surprise! It was livestreamed! The slides are a bit difficult to see and it is vertical video, but you can’t blame me for that when I didn’t record it myself.  (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

This is a pretty basic theropod talk but it does feature some unique stuff like the amber mines of Huwkang Valley, 72-hour-old Ornithoscelida, and a plethora of appropriate GIFs as is the Holtz way.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

hiiii thought I’d join in asking about old dino books! looking for something early 2010s ish, it was the most up-to-date book i had as a kid, and was a bit more mature than the whole ‘cool monsters’ but every other book did (though still more or less aimed at young people). fully feathered dinos (raptors with wings and everything) and birds-as-dinos, but it was (at the newest) from before the amphibious spinosaurus discovery. written by an actual paleontologist, lots of big phylogenetic trees. focused only on members of dinosauria, arranged in sections by clade, not chronologically. had a lot of emphasis on the proper “descent with modification” approach to evolution. if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

was it Thomas Holtz's book? Cause that sounds like Holtz

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

*whispers* who is this.... thomas holtz and does he do cool things?

Thomas Holtz is a fairly acclaimed dinosaur paleontologist. He’s on a lot of documentaries and he’s written various books, including some well-known dinosaur encyclopedias geared for all ages. 

His research specializations are Tyrannosaurs, but he is well versed in dinosaurs in general; his most recent project is studying cursoriality in theropods (he gave a talk on it at SVP (Society of Vertebrate Paleontology) and at Paleofest, two major conventions about paleontology that I was fortunate enough to go to this past year) 

He’s also a meme king and has a huge social media presence; he tries to get the research out there for everyone. He’s very friendly and approachable and a silly, silly person. His presentations are fun and hilarious and filled with memes and gifs. 

Basically he’s who I aspire to be when I’m an Adulty-er Adult. My friends call me the “younger, female-ish, Ornithischian loving Holtz” so 

I’ve tried to get him to go on tumblr because it’s right up his alley; alas he has not, probably for good reasons. IE, retaining his sanity. 

At SVP there’s always an afterparty right? Where a giant group of paleontology nerds all get together and start dancing and drinking? 

He lead the “walk the dinosaur” conga lines every time. It was great. 

He’s also very liberal and a good Ally in general for various marginalized groups, as evidenced by his political activism on facebook and twitter, and his interest/support of Palaeoblr and how fucking Queer it is. 

Anyways he’s a Pal. He also advised @albertonykus when Alb was an undergrad. 

Follow him on Twitter. I’d say friend him on Facebook, but he’s threatened to delete all the people he doesn’t really talk to/know multiple times now [especially after Trump got elected and the Dicks came out of the woodwork to yell at Holtz for being progressive], so, maybe not? 

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Holtz is a cool dude. I took his undergrad class at UMD a few years back and all his lecture powerpoints were full of memes and movie quotes. And he gave me bonus points on an exam (in a question contrasting dinosaurian and mammalian apex predator body size) for saying that a T. rex could eat a Smilodon whole and not be full.

Beautiful. That man is A+

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

sorry to bother you but the Montanaspinus joke has gone too far. I can't post links in an ask but there is a journal by Midiaou on deviantart that explains what happened.

Ok but I’d like to state for the record that I was against this joke from the beginning. 

http://a-dinosaur-a-day.com/post/145776165420/is-this-montanaspinus-a-real-thing-0o

And when presented with a similar situation of my own - the Mariaspinus debacle - I have been stating, staunchly, that’s it’s not bloody real, and hoping to god that people would fucking drop it. It was going too far from the beginning. 

I’ve participated in Montanaspinus jokes (like on the livestream) since to not be a killjoy, but this bullshit is exactly why this shit shouldn’t happen. We have enough trouble from people seriously trying to suggest certain untrue things are true - like BANDits and creationists - to have to deal with dumbass game developers causing chaos by venting their frustrations. 

There’s a difference between “oh look, there’s this common misconception that really has no basis in science, I’m going to point it out to everyone for fun” (bird political spectrum) and “these people are annoying us by asking for Spinosaurus, so rather than be mature and ignore the living crap out of them, we’re going to make up an entirely new genus, Montanaspinus.” 

The Saurian game is one I am excited for. I am extensively excited for it. But I have long been disappointed in the behavior and attitude of the developers. They have been rude and immature and unprofessional and this is no exception. People look to them as an authority and they should have shut this down almost immediately. 

So there. I’m disappointed in them too. 

[incidentsandreflections]

Incidents and Reflections Episode 63 - 04/10/2016

We are joined by a very special guest today: Dr. Thomas Holtz, senior lecturer at the University of Maryland Geology Department and paleontologist specializing in theropod dinosaurs, who was gracious enough to explain to us his latest research, answer our questions about recent paleontological matters, and indulge in some fun by helping us perform a live script reading of an upcoming TetZoo Time episode.

Article links

Interview with Dr. Holtz (Dr. Holtz’s website and Twitter, Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages and The Little Giant Book of Dinosaurs on Amazon.com)

The “Nanotyrannus” controversy (Brusatte et al. 2016 on irrelevance of dentary groove morphology on the validity of “Nanotyrannus”) [04:49]

TetZoo Time teaser [26:07]

General Q&A [33:37]

Song links

Walk the Dinosaur - Was (Not Was) [00:00]

Children of the Revolution - T. Rex [60:18]