Cary Woodruff

Chinzo & Lindsay were gracious enough to host me for a day last year to see this remarkable specimen in person, and as gorgeous as the photos are, they pale in comparison to the actual fossil 🤩

#Zavacephale is SUPER important for our understanding of pachycephalosaur evolution! Some parts look pretty derived, others pretty basal, and there are so many parts of the skeleton that provide crucial details of the evolution of this bizarre dino clade.

A domed pachycephalosaur from the early Cretaceous of Mongolia - Nature The pachycephalosaurian Zavacephale rinpoche, from the Early Cretaceous of Mongolia, provides crucial insights into the early evolution of dome-headed dinosaurs, including the development of the front...

And the link to the paper:
Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig, Ryuji Takasaki, Junki Yoshida, Ryan T. Tucker, Batsaikhan Buyantegsh, Buuvei Mainbayar, Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar & Lindsay E. Zanno (2025)
A domed pachycephalosaur from the early Cretaceous of Mongolia
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#ZAVACEPHALE IS FINALLY OUT! 🥳 Our first definitive Early Cretaceous pachycephalosaur! (~15 my older than the previous oldest pachycephalosaurs) And the first hand material for the clade! I can't tell y'all how much of a pleasure it was to review this paper! ☺️

Some of the only Sphaerotholus paleoart!

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a window with blinds and says `` everybody stay calm ! '' ALT: a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a window with blinds and says `` everybody stay calm ! ''

Phil and co. have found *EVEN MORE* of the #Prenocephale holotype?!?!?!
@MongoliaQuest

Thank you! 🙏

If you have the pdf, I would love a copy 🙏

DEAL! 🤝 JR Fm?

Collect it!!!!!

How Are You Supposed To Get The COVID Vaccine Now? An Explainer | Defector As the muggy malaise of summer winds down, you might find yourself interested in taking advantage of one of several safe and proven vaccines to help protect you from the inevitable brumal surge of res...

We took the paywall down on this one. defector.com/how-the-fuck...

1) I LOVE how Frank the donkey is getting so much attention! 2) I never realized there was a photo of the moment I saw the turiasaur teeth! 😂

For #FossilFriday some more images from the discovery & study of the new Spicomellus skeleton. An amazingly fun project with great people.

That's Frank the donkey! He was my bestest friend during fieldwork 😂

Reposting this because with all of the wonderful #Spicomellus news, riding Frank the donkey around the Moroccan badlands (ok, right around the house...) was unequivocally the highlight of the entire dig for me 😅

x.com/i/status/165...

Out today in Nature is the most exciting dinosaur paper I've ever been involved in - led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social we describe a partial skeleton of the UTTERLY BIZARRE Spicomellus from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco, the oldest known ankylosaur. (1/x)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#Spicomellus. It's effing weird, right?! A dino kaiju if there ever was one. I mean seriously, it's Anguirus! I remember seeing the half ring for the first time and literally exclaiming "HOLY SHIT!" (more AMAZING reconstructions by the absurdly talented @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social )

1st off, my extreme thanks to @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & @richardjbutler.bsky.social for inviting me to participate in this fieldwork & research. & to our amazing colleagues at the Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah - thank you for allowing us to help be a part of, and to help tell, this story.

It's already blowing up on the paleo sphere, but let's welcome another #Spicomellus post!
(reconstruction by the insanely talented @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

Listen to the seagull!!

*THIS* is a story I want to know more about! 😨

For #FossilFriday we recently imaged a bunch of microfossils with a Keyence microscope at @univmiami.bsky.social, & this #Troodon tooth was one of my favorites! Their teeth are something...but under such high mag, they really are wicked, and "wounding tooth" is certainly an appropriate name!

Hunter *LOVES* pools. Hunter *HATES* sharing pools. 🤣

This was a MASSIVE and EXCEPTIONAL multi-institutional collaboration led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social and @Palaeo_Bham, and it was incredible to meet, work with, and learn from our amazing colleagues at the Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah.
-fin

And while there have been proposed turiasaurs from here, these three teeth are the first definitie turiasaur from Morocco. And they're also the geologically oldest turiasaurs from mainland Africa!

These are turiasaur teeth! Turiasaurs are a very weird/cool group of sauropods that are classically known for their unique "heart-shaped" teeth. Made famous by the Spanish #Turiasaurus and @Losillasaurus, this odd clade of hard to place 'pods has a near global distribution.

This is one I'm really excited about! A few years back, I was fortunate enough to join an expedition to Morocco led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social and @Palaeo_Bham. We were in Morocco hunting for other things, but these three teeth were found, & I *vividly* remember holding them and going "Holy sh#t!"

(& Christ, it was *BIG* team effort!: @NHMdinolab, Driss Ouarhache, Abdessalam El Khanchoufi, Khadija Boumir, @kawtar_ech, @AhmedOUSSOU, @Palaeo_Bham, @LukeEMeade, @Simon_D_Wills, Mike Smith, & @Tweetisaurus)

NEW PAPER DAY! 🥳I'll start by sharing the OPEN ACCESS paper:
🧵

www.app.pan.pl/article/item...