Stephanie Drumheller

Baby Longnecks Were Jurassic Popcorn Brachiosaurus was among the largest of the Morrison Formation sauropods, including at Dry Mesa. If I could travel to any ancient environment, where would I...

Who was eating whom 150 million years ago? The answers help outline how Jurassic ecosystems worked. My latest newsletter's out now! 🧪

a man in a tuxedo and suspenders is holding a baton and says science Alt: Bill Nye in a tuxedo and suspenders pulls an abrupt dance move while the screen flashes "science"

A friend of mine just told me that I should start a consulting business to connect parents and kids with school science fair projects that won't end in tears. Unclear how big my potential market would be, but hey, in this economy every penny counts?

😂

This may be the oldest ‘butthole’ imprint on Earth Fossils show exceptionally rare evidence of a cloacal vent—the slit that most vertebrates use to excrete, have sex and lay egg—which could shed light on the evolution of the orifice

Fossils show exceptionally rare evidence of a cloacal vent—the slit that most vertebrates use to excrete, have sex and lay egg—which could shed light on the evolution of the orifice

Dinosaur puke figure, calculating impact force in N

Counter offer:

I should have used that as a figure in my dissertation.

Taphonomy-themed 'Far Side' today aimed directly at @uglyfossils.bsky.social.

Well that's thoroughly messed up. I'm very sorry.

Our security system was clearly set up on a business scaffold, so it doesn't much like emails that aren't in system, but our IT people are at least aware of the issue and are willing to help.

Maybe that's the issue? I keep reporting predatory journal emails as spam, so now it thinks all journals are predatory? That would be funny if it wasn’t so annoying.

a man in a sweater says thank you so much for this in yellow letters Alt: a man in a sweater says "thank you so much for this, it was entirely unhelpful"

My university email is kicking all messages from journals to my junk folder, including any decisions related to my own manuscripts and also any peer review requests. So that's great.

Michelle Stocker and Stephanie Drumheller (selfie) at a lab bench.

Back at it today on the VTCT scanner.

And also working on an unrelated manuscript while the machine hums away in the background.

That bucket had some mid-sized theropod bits in it. So yeah, the day started with babying along a big honking chunk of rock. We're now on to other, smaller things now, whew.

Apparently you need to remember to remove the metal handle, but yes!

Also no, those wispy distortions in the lower left hand corner aren't the ghosts of dinosaurs, protesting being scanned, but they ARE called x-ray ghosts, because apparently the camera output and x-rays don't always play well together.

Hanging out at @vtgeosciences.bsky.social with Michelle Stocker today, CT scanning a variety of fossils.

Close up of a pile of alligator osteoderms with twigs and leaves on top.

With the understanding that I'm a taphonomist, so my worldview is a little bent with regards to such things, I think my decomposing alligators are actually kind of beautiful at this stage of things:

Earliest direct evidence of trophic interactions between terrestrial apex predators and large herbivores - Scientific Reports Trophic interactions between large predators and herbivores are unknown in the fossil record of Permo-Carboniferous tetrapods at a time when these members of the terrestrial vertebrate communities mak...

Young, J.M., Maho, T. & Reisz, R.R. Earliest direct evidence of trophic interactions between terrestrial apex predators and large herbivores. Sci Rep 16, 6977 (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

These videos are all so funny. I rewatched this one today and just about spat out my drink at his dinosaur sounds response.

YouTube video by The Dr. Is In The Doctor Is In | Episode 1 | What sound dinosaurs really made?

I was actually reminiscing about Hans Sues' "The Doctor Is In" series on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, and this morning, I found out he had passed away unexpectedly. My impression of him is that he was a rare blend of highly intelligent and also profoundly kind. He will be greatly missed.

This is just awful news.

Just saw the incredibly sad news that Hans-Dieter Sues has passed away. Beyond his major contributions to paleontology, in all my interactions with him over the years, he was a stellar human being. He took great joy in life and in being a paleontologist. I learned so much from him.

Yeah, I wasn't in the room when it happened, but I was at that conference.

A chunk of fossil hash rich limestone with a few identifiable bits (brachiopod crinoids, etc)

It's science fair time again, and my yougest wanted to do "fossils." He is now identifying and counting everything he found from 2 Ordovician sites, so he can do a little compare and contrast project. I'm mostly here as a safety net when he gets stuck.

PeerJ Digesting an ancient ecosystem: coprolites from the Grippia bonebed, Lower Triassic, Svalbard peerj.com/articles/207... @peerj.bsky.social

The Paleontological Society statement on recent events.

Take care. This whole situation is dredging up a lot of bad memories for many of us. Hopefully we can translate it into some real change.

It was not a great welcome to the wider academic community. We need to do better.

Happy #FossilFriday! Over 66 million years ago this duck-billed #Edmontosaurus (MOR 1627) came face to face with #Tyrannosaurus. Today, the tooth embedded in its snout tells the tale of this Cretaceous encounter. Specimen from lands managed by by Bureau of Land Management.

I have never taken a student to a conference without my cell number programmed into their phone and a solemn oath from them to text me if anything started to get weird or uncomfortable. And maybe that's indictment enough of the culture.

I had one incident happen at my very first conference (SVP) as an undergrad, but none since. I know of a lot more, which have happened to various friends and colleagues. Even with that context, this was a grim breakdown of the wider problems in the field.