Michael Deak

Our findings brought to life: Different climates, different integument, all sloths 🦥. #PrehistoricPlanetlceAge

But those are my big stand out segments of this wonderful series! Huge congrats to @tetzoo.bsky.social and everyone else who was involved, and I can't wait to see what you all cook up next!

On another note, I really liked the juxtaposition of other megafaunal species such as elephant birds and Stellar's sea cows thriving with others in a decline in this episode. Ironic given that the former two will face extinction thousands of years in the future.

Oh Deer: This was an intense game of cat and mouse between a #Megaloceros stag and a pack a cave hyenas. While plot armor kicked in too hardly in the end, it did give us the biggest fake out of the series with the male shedding his antlers (has this been done in paleoart?)

Also, good on the team for not making the dire wolves white akin to Colossal's liar wolves.

The Battle @tarpits.org: Given that La Brea holds some of the last known North American megafauna, I knew this was going to be in the last episode. Some big stakes with the female #Smilodon having to defend her cubs from #Direwolves with one paw in the tar.

Also, can we talk about how INCREDIBLE this shot is?

Mammoth Caravan: While I think the calf got a bit too much plot armor, seeing #woollymammoths in a dust storm was a fresh change of pace compared to the tundra environment.

The Lonely Giant: Hands down one of the best segments in all of PhP. The #Gigantopithecus design has the perfect blend of orangutan and gorilla-like features and seeing this species on its way out with no resolution was a change of pace from the other "happy endings".

Birds of a feather: I never realized how big female #Moas were until now. This entire segment remined me of the #Carnotaurus mating display back in Season 1, albeit with the male being successful in this case.

Wandering Wombats: I could feel the heat from this segment. The vastness of the environment really sells the dire situation that the #Diprotodon herd finds itself in. Plus, the "harmless vegetarian" trope is thrown out the window yet again.

Big Brained Tiny Terrors: Seeing small #phorusrhacids represented in the form of Psilopterus was an unexpected treat. The cello score for the #Smilodon hunt was stellar, and it was great seeing PhP breaking another stereotype by showing the birds outfoxing the cat for once.

A Tropical Titan: While #Eremotherium is not the primary focus of this segment, its introduction partnered with its bizarre calls gave it a huge presence. Seeing a sparsely fuzzy sloth in a documentary for the first time made this animal all the more alien in the best way.

Saving Grandma: This is another sweet segment with an adorable #woollyrhino foal, an epic chase sequence with the #Homotherium pack, and an equally epic score from Hans Zimmer when the crash comes back to save the old female.

Sloth Snow Day: Seeing the two young #Megalonyx bond in the snow almost brought a tear to my eyes. I also loved the music that plays when the mother is plodding around in the snow.

Having digested all five episodes of #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge, I wanted to put together a thread of my 10 favorite segments from the series. Spoiler warning in case you haven't seen any of the episodes yet.

"But her real ice age superpower is taking life slowly. Because saving energy is vital when it's this cold." Best line of the first episode of #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge.

YouTube video by People Are Fish What Colour Was T. Rex? - A Visual Ecologist Explains

What Colour Was T. Rex? - A Visual Ecologist Explains www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAhC...

Giant Ice-Age-Era Sloths Loved Eating "Cannonball Fruit", And You Can Too It smells a bit like a skunk, but it’s edible.

“Well, why not call it The Big Chill? Or the Nippy Era? I’m just saying, how do we know it’s an Ice Age?” “Because of all the ice!” An @iflscience.com article on #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge ... www.iflscience.com/these-extinc...

YouTube video by IFLScience Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age – Woolly Mammoths Sense A Storm With Their Feet

New #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge clip! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAS7...

If I'm being entirely honest, that's up to you.

The big problem here is that "the evidence so far" consists of a few scraps of skin that are barely a centimeter in length, and feathers don't preserve well in fluvial deposits where tyrannosaurids are found in. You can't say that a structure was absent if the means to preserve it are not up to par.

It has certainly held up very well!

Will do! Here are some further comments regarding the problems of a literal interpretation of the data thus far: eartharchives.org/articles/is-...

More on this to come into the future. The 2017 paper's conclusions fail to account for the diversity of extinct and extant dinosaur integument, extant animal thermoregulation, and taphonomy among other things....

In short, when an unpublished thesis goes through peer-review, expect things to change. Just keep that in mind when you read my MS thesis as opposed to the JME paper (which is the version that you all should totally check out!). This is just the process of science in action.

#PrehistoricPlanetIceAge accurately reflects the diverse array of hairstyles that ground sloths likely had throughout their range that we state in our paper, and I cannot wait to see more.

...But a lot of things happened that unfortunately delayed its proper publication that were beyond our control. With that said, while we largely cast doubt on hairless megatheres due to low metabolic demands, tropical populations of Eremotherium were seemingly the exception.

Later versions of the simulations in Niche Mapper for my thesis casted doubt on this, but refined simulations validated our initial interpretations. The peer-reviewed version was supposed to come out the same time as my thesis (which was delayed by a year to begin with)....

A lot of things happened between the work for my thesis and the peer-reviewed version, as most things in science do. Our initial results presented at conferences suggested regional variation in integument (as per this illustration by
@fossilfracas.com)