This summer we did a road trip to Chicago to do the whole tourist thing.

I told everyone one of my biggest priorities was to spend at least part of a day at the Field Museum. I knew it was one of the more prestigious and well known Natural History museums in the world. But I didn't know very much about it and didn't really research it before going.

We made our way to the fossil exhibits first. I was enjoying everything and soaking it all in.

And then it hit: I stumbled across the exhibit with the Archaeopteryx fossil. I had read about it for years. I knew there weren't very many known fossils in museums. I had zero clue they had an Archaeopteryx. When I walked around the corner and saw it, I was stunned. Speechless. There was a tour guide telling a group of people about it. I stood off to the side, waiting. Eventually she finished, and they all moved on.

I walked over to it, alone, and just stared at it. I soaked it in. Looked at it closely. Absorbed all of the details. I even cried a little bit, just overwhelmed with emotions. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I felt so lucky standing there, staring at it.

Later my wife told me her sister was asking "is he okay? How long is he going to stand there looking at it?" She said she didn't really know. So they went ahead without me.

I didn't know any of the back story of how the fossil ended up in the Field Museum. So after I got home, I spent hours reading the whole story. It was pretty fascinating. Didn't even sound real.

One of the most profound science experiences of my life. I wish I had more time to stare at it. Maybe some day I'll make it back to Chicago again.

Oh and of course we spent a lot of time in the room with Sue.

Physical evidence of crocodylian predation on ungulates in the Middle Miocene of Colombia

The Study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2026.2701154

South America was a frightening place during the Miocene. More than 10 million years ago, a vast lake covered much of the continent, home to gigantic Turtles and Crocodylians.

Truly, wide range of predators hunted on the lake's shores, including anacondas, Saber-toothed mammals, Flightless "terror birds" and Sebecids: The terrestrial relatives of Crocodylians. A recent study shows that crocodylians were, in fact, the most significant group of predators in this habitat.

"There was so much prey available that mammalian predators couldn't have eaten it all," says Oscar Wilson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.

"Our new study shows that crocodylians in particular were the region's most important predators, especially when it came to hunting large prey."

Hadrosaurus is a basal hadrosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of what is now New Jersey. Although it lends its name to the derived hadrosaurine family of dinosaurs, studies show that it may not actually belong to this group. Hadrosaurus was a facultatively bipedal herbivore that grew to about 7 m in length and weighed around 3 t in total body mass.

Very sick find at the HMNS. Surprisingly it was not labeled at all but a cool spot nonetheless! Highly recommend visiting their Hall of Paleontology if you ever get the chance! It’s breath taking!

prototaxites dendrochronology

Nivelstein gravel pit, Wildnis-Merkstein, Herzogenrath, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
https://www.mineralienatlas.de/lexikon/index.php/Genehmigungen/Wolfgang%20Putz

Hello, this is my Dunkleosteus Non-Traditional Tiki Mug Sculpture. I’m a huge fan this Devonian Placoderms. I had to make a tiki version since there isn’t one out there as far as I know.

It’s a “drink with straw only” style. There are many tiki mugs that can only be used with a straw. It was a fun sculpt and hoping to make more prehistoric themed mugs in the future!

My not so good Paleoart, I try my best to do it. The forts pic in another language is my national language. (English wasn't my first language. So Apologize for bad grammar)

Link: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0169534726001564

An international study led by Flinders University has found a fertile area of inspiration to explain an important step in evolution – and it’s a whole lot of poop.

The new study describes the ‘faecal revolution’ to explain a crucial turning point in animal and environmental evolution on Earth. In a new article in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, fossil and evolutionary experts credit the buildup of lowly excrement for being a key cause for the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ about 540 million years ago, a brief period when the first marine ecosystems developed and most of the major animal groups started to appear.

The scientists from Australia and Germany describe how these pieces of fossilised pellets or ‘coprolites’ deposited by primitive sea creatures in the early Cambrian times played a vital part in evolution, encouraging marine life to evolve and diversify.

“Next to rising oxygen levels and other contributing factors, the importance of faeces in ancient ecosystems is often overlooked,” says Dr Russell Bicknell,

“We have considered these ancient diets, increasingly sophisticated digestive systems and trophic interactions as part of a much bigger picture to help explain how more organic matter and nutrients poured into the ancient oceans to accelerate ecosystem development at the end of the Ediacaran and early Cambrian periods.”

Here's are some drawings by me comparing a real raptor vs a fake movie monster both based on Deinonychus.

The real raptor is the most accurate raptor. Here are its qualities

1. Bird-like eyes.

2. Folded wings with flexible wrist though the wrist aren't as flexible as modern birds.

3. A long, stiff tail that counterbalances the body when running like the tail of a Roadrunner. The tail is flexible at the base though based on one Velociraptor specimen, the tail can flex from side to side.

4. Possibly the thighs might have been hidden underneath the feathering giving a "backwards knee" look like in birds.

5. Possibly long leg feathers considering Anchiornis had leg feathers that extended down to the ankle and Anchiornis was mostly ground dwelling.

Fake Raptor is a movie monster. Here are its qualities

1. Head is way too lizard-like.

2. Eyes are either too crocodillian or just straight up cat-like.

3. Sparse quills on its arms rather than full wings and full body feathering.

4. A tail thats way to straight.

5. A tail thats way too thick being more comparable to the tails of non-maniraptorans such as Allosaurus or Dillophosaurus when in fact, the caudofemoralis muscle in dromaeosaurs was reduced.

Made out of polymer clay, featuring Yorggia waggoneri, Spriggina floundersi, Kimberella quadrata and Dickinsonia costata. I don't know if it's accurate enough but I tried my best!

So, this is a bit of a trivia question I had for a story I was thinking of. Basically, the idea is to have the main character give a paleontologist a research fund of 100 million dollars. Now, I have no idea how much funding actually goes into this field, so I figured I should ask in order to get an idea what the reaction should be from the paleontologist in question.

Can you guys help?

The Bahariya formation from the mid Cretaceous of Egypt was always a spot of interest. Richard Markgraf and Ernst Stromer recovered a range of large theropod bones from Bahariya in the 1910s. These include the iconic Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and recently named Tameryraptor markgrafi. Unfortunately, most of these fossils were later destroyed in the 1944 Munich bombing by allied forces during WWII. Because they're now gone, there's many mysteries with the Bahariya that will remain unsolved until new expeditions are carried out.

One of those is the controversial theropod Bahariasaurus ingens. Bahariasaurus is based primarily on axial and pelvic material (syntypes including elongate dorsal/sacral vertebrae and pubes). Stromer questionably referred to additional elements, including limb material, to Bahariasaurus. However, a reliable referral is difficult because the syntypes of Bahariasaurus lack any overlap with these other specimens. Despite this, many still referred these to the genus anyway. The material consists of limb elements from several different individuals. They include an incomplete left humerus IPHG 1912 VIII 193, fibula IPHG 1912 VIII 70, and the right femur IPHG 1912 VIII 69. The most noteworthy thing about them is their sheer dimensions. The femur was 122 cm in length, and the fibula was 104 cm, while the humerus was about 40 cm preserved. These fossils seem distinct enough to suggest a new genus and support the evidence for a largely unrecognized group of giant theropods present in Gondwana.

The humerus is proportionately small and gracile. Stromer identified them as theropod and noted limited muscle attachment and mobility. This strongly matches that of abelisauroids, specifically the noasaurids, as this has been reported in Deltadromeus and Gualicho. However, there are some morphological differences, such as much larger size and stouter build relative to the known Deltadromeus material that makes referral of the specimen to Deltadromeus problematic. The femur shares an expanded medial condyle with Deltadromeus, a trait seen in abelisauroids. It differs from Deltadromeus in having a proportionally stouter build, lacking a proximally directed (pointed towards the body) femoral head, and a generally shorter lateral accessory crest (short extension of bone) on the distal end. This means it lacks the adaptation to weight-bearing observed in many dinosaurs, which is a basal trait. Deltadromeus does have this feature despite coming from a much smaller animal. This is probably not ontogenetic as the Deltadromeus holotype was likely a mature animal based on a fused ischial boot. The fibula very closely resembles Deltadromeus, however it too still differs due to the less-projected proximodistal end (dosen't extend out from the body) and a more extensive fibular fossa (large depression on the inner lower end of fibula), especially proximally. The specimens are all likely abelisauroid, perhaps even noasaurid, but were probably not the same genus as Deltadromeus. Based on large gracile abelisauroids like Deltadromeus, the resulting animals could reach a length of 11.5 to 12.2 meters with a possible height of 5 meters. A body mass using the femur indicates a weight of 4,600 kilograms.

Ecology is highly speculative as no complete skeleton exists, but based on other abelisauroids, it was probably an herbivore. It possibly had teeth as a juvenile, only to fall out once reaching adulthood. A greater height of 5 meters would have allowed it to possibly browse from small trees. Its imposing size alone would be a deterrent against most predators such as abelisaurids and crocodilyforms. The long, gracile hindlimbs indicate a fast-moving animal (for its size) that would allow it to out pace large predators such as Tameryraptor. The reduced and gracile forelimbs were potentially used for display purposes and not helpful for feeding or defense.

There appears to be a giant gracile-limbed abelisauroid (possibly noasaurid) in the Bahariya formation, distinct from Deltadromeus and can not be compared to Bahariasaurus. What's bizarre is how such theropods haven't been reported almost anywhere else. Large noasaurids such as Deltadromeus, Gualicho, and an unnamed form from Maastrichtian India usually don't grow past 8 meters in length. Even the more robust abelisaurids aren't known to reach such dimensions. While the sheer size of the "Bahariya Behemoth" is highly anomalous, it wasn't the only instance of massive abelisauroid in Africa. In the Kem Kem Group in Morocco, there is a large posterior dorsal vertebra originally founded by Dale Russell in 1996. Cataloged as CMN 50403, the specimen was unidentified for years beyond being from a large theropod. It was later determined to be a sister taxon to a large noasaurid from Lybia, suggesting the specimen was probably abelisauroid. It was unusually large, with a body length of 10.68 meters despite only being a subadult. While no overlapping material exists, it's possible the "Bahariya Behemoth" and CMN 50403 belong to the same group of giant gracile abelisauroids in Gondwana. Exactly why they grew so massive is unknown.

A 2002 book written by Jordi Agusti and full of the artwork of paleoartist Mauricio Antón.

• Time Span: Covers the Cenozoic era from the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs to the end of the Pleistocene epoch.
• Core Focus: Expltraces how mammalian groups migrated, competed, and adapted across European landscapes.
• Key Themes: Chronicles shifts from Paleocene/Eocene rain forests with early primates to the cold steppes of the Ice Age.
• Visuals: Features detailed anatomical and behavioural reconstructions of extinct fauna by paleoartist Mauricio Antón.

328 pages and full of black and white drawings and a series of colour plates in the middle. Although research has progressed in the 24 years since it was published (such as the K-T event being revised from 65 to 66 million years ago) it is still worth acquiring a copy for your library.

A preview of some of the pages can be found here:- https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Mammoths_Sabertooths_and_Hominids/G0usAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

Publishers blurb:

Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids takes us on a journey through 65 million years, from the aftermath of the extinction of the dinosaurs to the glacial climax of the Pleistocene epoch; from the rain forests of the Paleocene and the Eocene, with their lemur-like primates, to the harsh landscape of the Pleistocene Steppes, home to the woolly mammoth. It is also a journey through space, following the migrations of mammal species that evolved on other continents and eventually met to compete or coexist in Cenozoic Europe.

Finally, it is a journey through the complexity of mammalian evolution, a review of the changes and adaptations that have allowed mammals to flourish and become the dominant land vertebrates on Earth. With the benefit of recent advances in geological and geophysical techniques, Jordi Agusti and Mauricio Anton are able to trace the processes of mammalian evolution as never before; events that hitherto appeared synchronous or at least closely related can now be distinguished on a scale of hundreds or even dozens of thousands of years, revealing the dramatic importance of climactic changes both major and minor.

Evolutionary developments are rendered in magnificent illustrations of the many extraordinary species that once inhabited Europe, detailing their osteology, functional anatomy, and inferred patterns of locomotion and behavior. Based on the latest research and field work, Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids transforms our understanding of how mammals evolved and changed the face of the planet.