Anthony (Tony) J. Martin

Wait, puffins are in the PNW, too?! OK, guess I'll have to visit both places.

This Anthropic settlement case…fellow authors, are any of you feeling rage? I have 12 books listed and money (I don’t CARE how many thousands, even millions) is NOT adequate compensation. What was stolen & used without my permission is priceless! Where is the option to scrub my work from AI?!

Knowing that a puffin colony is in the U.S. (Maine) impels me to go to Maine, because, you know, puffins, but also to see their burrows. Adding it now to my list of must-visit places... 🧪🐦🕳️

Sharing for @Rebecca Hunt-Foster; "Happy Establishment day Dinosaur National Monument! On this date in 1915, President Woodrow Wilson established the original 80-acre national monument to protect the Carnegie Dinosaur Quarry." @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social @palaeontosoc.bsky.social

Current status

My dear friend! From now on, I apologize a thousand times for the long delay in my reply! You will, of course, laugh at me, perhaps even be angry with me, if I tell you what prevented me for so long from fulfilling this duty of friendship that I owed you: It wasn't that I wanted to avoid sharing my views on your theories with you; no, it was a geometric problem that had occupied me so intensely lately that it distracted me from everything I wanted to think and write and occupied me entirely. Several times I wanted to write down my views for you, but each time, after a few moments, instead of starting with a letter, I saw a geometric figure on the paper, which had drawn itself, almost without my knowledge or will.

Here's an excerpt from an 1841 letter from a scientist that I think pretty much any modern scientist can relate to.

‘Vanished: An Unnatural History Of Extinction,’ By Sadiah Qureshi — Review A poignant recounting of the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire, and how extinction is not necessarily inevitable but instead, is a political choice.

Briefly here to thank GrrlScientist for this lovely review of Vanished for
@forbes.com.

www.forbes.com/sites/grrlsc...

Also, by the same author a story about a spider that is half male and half female. The picture is extraordinary. www.forbes.com/sites/grrlsc...

Back to my break.

Ok, I’m loving the starter packs! This one is for women (inclusively defined) in Ocean Science.

You need more ocean 🌊 in your feed! Follow these folks.

If you would like to be added please just let me know 👋 … if I forgot you, please don’t be offended, it was an accident! go.bsky.app/7MdiLgo

Nnedi commenting on the Courthouse Butte in Oak Creek, AZ, south of Sedona in Yavapai County

“That butte really is quite a beaut.”

Your moment of calm this morning, in totally unwartorn Portland. Cedar waxwings lit by the sun, preening on branches.

Replace "the Cosmos" with "the History of the Earth and its Biological History." To specifically define how paleontologists must operate!

Can't stop the rovers!

Wow

On the Sunday following the Decatur (Georgia) Book Festival, feeling inspired by the meeting of minds there & being in the company of so many kindred spirits of authors & readers. It's enough to make me want to write another book. (You've been warned.) #DBF2025 📚✍️

Digital painting showing a long, lizard-like reptile running up a rocky slope against a white background. The animal is red with black markings, and loosely painted vegetation pokes between the rocks the animal is clambering over.

Since #Croctober has just kicked off, here's an older illustration of the VERY distant relative to crocodilians, the Triassic archosaur Teleocrater. I made this illustration in 2019, just 2 years into my career, for the Field Museum of Natural History's Evolving Planet exhibition
#sciart #paleoart

Early humans dined on giant sloths and other Ice Age giants, archaeologists find What did early humans like to eat? The answer, according to a team of archaeologists in Argentina, is extinct megafauna, such as giant sloths and giant armadillos. In a study published in the journal ...

phys.org/news/2025-10...

Street view with sunset in the background and people lining the sidewalk with candles and other lights; little LED lights”candles” are spaced along the sidewalk.

Unite in Light event happening now in Atlanta GA, with communities from downtown Atlanta to Stone Mountain lining up along & near Ponce de Leon Avenue with lights, coming together in solidarity.

Stopped by @ugapress.bsky.social’s tent at the Decatur Book Festival to say hi and thank them for publishing a paperback edition of my book with them, “Tracking the Golden Isles,” out in March 2026. #DBF2025

Two women seated on a stage with a table between them and a banner behind them.

Mary Roach, talking about body parts, but in an amusing way.

Went to this year’s Decatur Book Festival & saw my science-humor-author idol, Mary Roach! She was here to talk about her new book, “Replaceable You.” And yes, she was funny. DBF2025

Book cover for the Chinese edition of my book 'Life Sculpted,' published by Shanghai Scientific & Technological Education Publishing House in December 2024. Cover has the title in Chinese, but also includes English with "Life Sculpted" and "Anthony J. Martin." Cover image is a closeup view of a clam shell with small holes and branching tunnels from bioeorsion, and an out-of-focus beach sand is in the background.

Side note on the Chinese cover image of 'Life Sculpted': I'm sure it's a photograph & not AI, because the patterns in the shell are identical to borings made by sponges & bryozoans. Although I didn't have a "No AI!" clause in the original contract, I'll insist on them for all future books. 📚✍️

Book cover for the Chinese edition of my book 'Life Sculpted,' published by Shanghai Scientific & Technological Education Publishing House in December 2024. Cover has the title in Chinese, but also includes English with "Life Sculpted" and "Anthony J. Martin." Cover image is a closeup view of a clam shell with small holes and branching tunnels from bioeorsion, and an out-of-focus beach sand is in the background.

Pleased to report that the Chinese edition of my book 'Life Sculpted' (2023, @uchicagopress.bsky.social) was published in December 2024 as 雕刻地球的生命 by Shanghai Scientific & Technological Education Publishing House. The cover image is beautiful, featuring a bioeroded clam shell as its main image. 🧪📚✍️

A slab of fine-grained mudstone with numerous bird footprint impressions, although none seem to be organized into linear trackways. Catalog label: "Fossil bird tracks (Order Charadriiformes, suborder Charadrii) Soldier Summit Member delta facies, Green River Formation, Eocene Epoch, Tertiary Period Left Fork of the White River North of Soldier Summit Wasatch County, Utah." Collection label: "Fossil bird tracks on shale U-3 bed of Green River Fm. (Eocene)- Soldier Summit, Utah"

"There is no branch of detective science that is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps." -- Sherlock Holmes, A Study In Scarlet.

#FossilFriday was here, my dear Watson! ⚒️🧪👣

Here, for your consideration, are some bird tracks preserved in the mud of the Green River Fm.

#FossilFriday An unused view of the bizarre tooth-whorl of the Permian cartilaginous fish Helicoprion taken for ‘Fossils. The Essential Guide’.

Get really into dinosaurs. That's my recommendation for a happier life. Each day, I get news like "Look at this big freak that used roam the Earth!" or "Ya know the big freak you already loved? Fossils show it was even more freakish!" and it's a blessing every time.

Festival Schedule | Decatur Book Festival Check out the 2025 Decatur Book Festival lineup! Explore author events, panel times, and the full schedule for one of the nation's most beloved independent book festivals.

The Decatur Book Festival starts tonight, with keynote speaker @theferocity.bsky.social & panel discussion of "The People's Project," then author talks & other events tomorrow! Also hoping to see & meet my science-humor-author idol @maryroach.bsky.social! www.decaturbookfestival.com/festivalsche...

Black and white book illustrations. Various antediluvian reptiles (and glyptodonts), many of them Crystal Palace-inspired, are emerging from a cave directly toward the viewer

“Do not all these beings who preceded man and who are emerging from their tombs today seem like monsters?

Yet they are connected to us by original bonds”

Translated from “Le monde avant la création de l'homme” (The world before the creation of humankind), by Camille Flammarion. Art by Georges Devy

Hey geo-friends: if you're attending the @geosociety.bsky.social meeting in San Antonio TX in a few weeks, I'll be talking about these tiny (but mighty) fossil termite & mite feces in a theme session, "Coprolites Happen," Tues., Oct. 21, 1:30 p.m. Hope to see you there & then! 🧪🪵🪨⚒️

Fossil footprints at the late Lower Paleolithic site of Schöningen (Germany)

Fossil footprints at the late Lower Paleolithic site of Schöningen (Germany): A new line of research to reconstruct animal and hominin paleoecology 🏺🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Fossil tracks at the 300 ka Paleolithic sites of Schöningen (northern Germany) are described.

This digitally painted piece honors the survivor spirit of the coyote by tracing its lineage from the first cells of life to the animal trotting our landscapes today. Below the horizon, carefully chosen ancestors mark pivotal moments in adaptation, each contributing to the form and survivor we see today. Above the horizon, Coyote stands alert at the center, framed by both Denver’s skyline and a mountain backdrop, symbols of their ability to thrive in cities as well as wilderness. Embedded in the ground are the skulls and bones of carnivores whose lineages ended long ago, emphasizing Coyote’s persistence in contrast.

"I Contain Multitudes"

This digitally painted piece honors coyote by tracing its lineage from the first cells of life to the animal trotting our cities and the wilderness today.

The thread gives descriptions of all the extinct organisms shown in this piece (not to scale)

Ocean Three quarters of the ocean has never been seen by humans. Drawing on the recent success of Trees, this companion book explores our oceans, taking readers on a deep dive through the different depth zo...

New book OCEAN with @thamesandhudson.bsky.social release date is January 2026! Edited by @ashadevos.bsky.social with chapter authors @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social, @helenscales.bsky.social, @drandrewthaler.bsky.social,
@petergs.bsky.social, & me. Preorder: www.thamesandhudson.com/products/oce... 🧪🌊🪸🐟