Toothy Grin

An image created by Adam Yates comparing a photo of the "complete" cranial material of Ultrastenos huberi with prior interpretations of the material. At the bottom left sits a reconstruction of Ultrastenos willisi based on the 2016 interpretation of it as a narrow-snouted animal with a circle around the skull table and an arrow pointing to the skull table of the "completed" Ultrastenos skull in the middle. The top right corner shows a reconstruction of "Baru" huberi based on pre-2024 ideas of the animal. The snout tip is encircled and an arrow points towars the snout elements of the Ultrastenos huberi fossil. This shows how both individual fossils were once interpreted vs how it actually looked like put together. The finished fossil suggests a small animal with a fairly traditional looking crocodilian snout.

#Croctober Day 6
Heres a fun one from a research history POV.
In 1997 researchers described a snout tip under the name Baru huberi and in 2016 skull elements were given the name Ultrastenos willisi
Only last year did we recognize that both fossils belonged to a single individual

Gray to light brown fossilized (petrified) wood with interconnected spaces between the wood filled with sand-sized coprolites (fossil feces); the spaces are interpreted as a nest, and the coprolites are also attributed to termites. A few black spots on the surface are of modern marine mussels, with a marine snail and barnacle in the upper left, which were living there because the fossil tree was on a rocky marine platform on the coast of Victoria, Australia.

For #FossilFriday, an ichnological 2-for-1 special in a body fossil: a termite nest packed with termite coprolites (feces) in an araucarian tree trunk, from the Early Cretaceous (~125 mya) of Victoria, Australia; oldest termite nest in Australia & largest wood nest from this time. 🧪🪵🪨⚒️ #ichnology

Ha! Once upon a time, part of my job was fixing a crummy exhibit ipad every Monday morning. Visitors kept getting at the settings and messing it up.

Digital exhibits done right.

Any palaeoartists drawing extinct marine turtles may find this useful.

Longman's Beaked Whale! This was originally described on the basis of a skull that washed up in north Queensland. It was yonks before the living animal was recognised.

I am opposed to AI products and services because of the extra power they require... IN A CLIMATE CRISIS. I am opposed to AI results - texts and illustrations - because they've been created unethically, via theft and non-consensual use of the work of others. Share if you agree.

There's a new bettong in town! Like most bettongs, it's already extinct.

Thylacoleo commission i did for @exalt47.bsky.social

A Thylacoleo carnifex rests with her young joey in a cave, the joey lying with its head on its mother's arm. Some light shines on the cave floor through an opening somewhere. Thylacoleo was a carnivorous marsupial (sometimes known as the marsupial lion) that once lived in Australia.

A Thylacoleo and Her Joey

🎵It's the eye of the pika...🎵

This looks awesome! #MuseumCore

Somewhere in late Miocene Australia, a pair of Dromornis stirtoni renew their bond by dancing and gifting each other in the rain.
….
#paleoart #ink #art #extinct #bird #duck #megafauna

This is revenge. For this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...

“…a reassessment of coprostane/cholestane ratios shows Dickinsonia was unique in coprostanol enrichment, with ratio levels comparable to waste polluted marine waters and modern vertebrate feces.”
...
How long before someone reinterprets Dickinsonia as a poop? 💩

Phylogenetic relationships of Unenlagiidae among Paraves (Dinosauria) In recent years, several studies on the osteology, myology and palaeobiology of southern paravians of the clade Unenlagiidae have considerably increased the information on the group. Nevertheless, ...

A new paper takes another look at biomarkers in Ediacaran fossils: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Alongside the usual tees are hoodies, hats, bandanas, and even a rugby jersey that I’m calling the “Mike Archer special”.

The logos of Toothy Grin (a stylised theropod skull that looks chuffed) and CAVEPS 2025 (a stack of reconstructed prehistoric animals from South Australia, namely the plesiosaur Umoonasaurus, flamingo Phoeniconotius, lungfish Metaceratodus and echidna Megalibgwilia) are joined by a “+”, indicating a collaboration. Below, an assortment of items of apparel are arrayed, each with a form of the conference logo printed on it.

The third circular for CAVEPS 2025 is out, and with it the official announcement that conference merch will be sold through the Toothy Grin online shop! See the range here: caveps2025.toothygrin.com.au

a cartoon of homer simpson and his family standing next to each other with the words tickets tickets who needs tickets below them ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson and his family standing next to each other with the words tickets tickets who needs tickets below them

Registration for @CAVEPS_Palaeo conference is now open, secure your place here: pay.flinders.edu.au/SAE039

Visit the website for more info: www.caveps.org

A mounted skeleton of a small dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur. The dino is posed as if looking up while feeding on a carcass of a Centrosaurus. A mural in the background shows the aftermath of a flood event, with debris and dead dinos strewn about. The whole scene has a subdued brownish tone, as though everything is covered in silt.

Dromaeosaurus on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller. #MuseumCore

Given their association with humans, you’d think that something would have turned up in the archaeological record.

Signor-Lipps is certainly a thing, as is the well documented bias of Quaternary fossil studies towards sites in southern Australia. Despite all that, a suggested arrival time >10Ka does seem like quite a stretch.

Did the thylacine violate the costs of carnivory? Body mass and sexual dimorphism of an iconic Australian marsupial | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences The relative body masses of predators and their prey strongly affect the predators' ecology. An accurate estimate of the mass of an extinct predator is therefore key to revealing its biology and the s...

Five years ago, my second PhD paper came out: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
In it, I looked at the body mass of the recently extinct thylacine (aka Tasmanian tiger) & found that it was only about half as big as popularly thought.

Let's revisit the paper, & see where we are today.

🧪🧵 #evobio #Mammals

Respect to anyone attempting to make this daft creature look real.

Astrid O'Connor is a master of bringing extinct creatures back to life — reconstructing full skeletons of ancient Aussie animals and turning them into stunning 3D animations. 🌍✨

We couldn’t create our special exhibition on 3D models without their incredible palaeoartistry — and their attendance!

Front of a birthday card, featuring two sauropods (identified as Diamantinasaurus and Wintonotitan) driving a hot pink Holden Commadore (a once-popular car in Australia) on a red dirt track in outback Australia.

A birthday card for my dad. Inside it says “you’re a classic!”

Janjucetus dullardi, a fantastic, newly described mammalodontid mysticete from the oligocene of Australia!
#paleoart #sciart

Prevalence and implications of sex reversal in free-living birds | Biology Letters The ability to unequivocally identify the sex and reproductive status of individuals is crucial across many fields of study. Recent evidence indicates that avian sex determination is more flexible than once believed, with sex-reversed individuals ...

The paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1...

‘Mind-blown’: scientists discover sex reversal in kookaburras and lorikeets with cause unknown Almost all of the ‘sex discordant’ birds were genetically female but had male reproductive organs, study finds

Who needs frog DNA? Our dinos change sex all by themselves.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...