Ivan Kay

Womp womp

Art by Todd Marshall

Fossilized bones and skeletal diagram of a small dinosaur.

New specimen of Alnashetri shows it to be a late-surviving non-alvarezsaurid alvarezsaur retaining unreduced forelimbs and representing an independent evolution of miniaturization: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪 (📷Makovicky et al.)

Spangled coquette - Wikipedia

Today, according to my 12yo, is Spangled Coquette Awareness Day!

The males of this South American hummingbird have a spectacular crest.

This article says “sedentary” which confused me for a hummingbird but I read further to realize that simply means it’s not migratory… not a couch potato.

I remember these like it was yesterday! Do we know the name of the person who actually did these? Such a specific style

An excellent three-post take on one of the many facets of the recent Spinosaurus/Myhrvold/Epstein controversy. Science journalists, this story really needs covering! #scicomm #science #ethics #epstein

Boar taxiderm model, and piglet, in NHM London.

Italian boar statue at Ashmolean in Oxford, flipped for comparison.

I've never paid much attention to the European wild boar included in the artiodactyl display but today it occurred to me that its pose _might_ be based on that of the famous Italian statue shown here, first written about in the 1550s, stolen and taken to Oxford, and cast many times in bronze...

Blue whale model at NHM London.

Blue whale model at NHM London.

I've written at length about the Blue whale model, the very first of its kind and built to accompany the Irish skeleton from 1891 now known as Hope. So I'll avoid talking about it again... there's tons to say. It was constructed by Percy and Stuart Stammwitz in 1937 and 38...

Dolphin model at NHM London.

Dolphin model at NHM London, close-up of head.

Everyone loves Lagenorhynchus... err, I mean Cephalorhynchus cruciger, the brilliant Hourglass dolphin of the far south. I've always enjoyed looking at the NHM model of it, but today I noticed... you can see its teeth!! I never noticed this before.

Risso's dolphin model at NHM London.

Squid arm scar on Risso's dolphin model.

Today I noticed - I think for the first time - that some of the scars on the Risso's dolphin (a species I've seen in life, once at close range) are very specifically meant to be squid arm scars... brilliant detail!

Selection of whale models suspended from the ceiling, NHM London.

Selection of whale models suspended from the ceiling, NHM London.

One of THE best things in the whole museum is the collection of life-sized whales, made in the NHM workshops during the 1930s. They're phenomenally good...

Mantellisaurus in foreground, Hope the Blue whale behind.

Mammal Hall, with Blue whale model at left and proboscideans at right.

Sophie the Stegosaurus.

I had a few errands to run at London's Natural History Museum this morning. There is so much amazing stuff there I always notice and appreciate something new, so here's a thread on things I saw...

A phylogenetic framework of the lower vertebrates.

"We describe the only known example of a three-dimensionally mineralized heart, thick-walled stomach, and bilobed liver from arthrodire placoderms, stem gnathostomes from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation in Western Australia"
www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Corythosaurus - digital bust
#scicomart

Aplomado Falcon, Brazil

In my mind, the Aplomado Falcon is the prettiest falcon out there. I was fortunate to see my first ones in Brazil nearly a decade ago, and have photographed them a few times since.

London's NHM, illuminated at night by reddish light.

Fern the bronze Diplodocus, at night.

London's NHM, illuminated at night by reddish light.

Hello again from the Natural History Museum at night

Hintze Hall at NHM London.

Hope the Blue whale at NHM London.

Good morning from one of the world's greatest museums. We're here before opening.

Like everyone else, I was pleasantly surprised by the news of spinosaurus mirabilis being officially named and described. And reading how we have material from multiple distinct specimens is amazing. I was not gonna slouch on the flood of new paleoart depicting it.

Finally we have Spinosaurus mirabilis Sereno et al. 2026 here

Myhrvold has denied a friendly relationship and any wrongdoing. But it's pretty tone-deaf that coverage of this paper isn't addressing his involvement, especially when he's prominent in the authorship (3rd of 28). Lots of questions need answering about this, and our media have failed to ask them.

Records show deeper ties between Epstein, ex-Microsoft exec Emails show a yearslong relationship from at least 2010 through 2018, according to documents released to the public last week.

I mean, yes, fun dinosaur stuff is fun dinosaur stuff. But Myhrvold is mentioned in the recent batch of Epstein files over 1000 times (far more than Horner). Some of the correspondence between the two is very chummy and concerning. See: www.seattletimes.com/business/loc....

New fossils may settle debate over mysterious sail-backed spinosaurs Spinosaurs have sometimes been portrayed as swimmers or divers, but a new species of these dinosaurs bolsters the idea that they were more like gigantic herons

In which I provide a few thoughts on the new Spinosaurus species, S. mirabilis.

www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

I also stressed the deep connections between one of the study authors - Nathan Myhrvold - and Geoffrey Epstein to New Scientist. They didn't mention it, neither has anyone else.

Love this, the sand tiger looks very like a smalltooth sandtiger, which I think is one of the most underrated sharks and a great basis for a sort of generalised lamniform look

closeup of a male takahe, with green back, deep blue breast and head, and massive bright red bill.

Takahē were thought to be extinct until 1948.

When I first learned about them as a kid visiting New Zealand in 1981, there were only 100 birds and I desperately wanted to see one.

Now there are 500 birds. Yesterday I first saw them—seven in one day. Thank you, NZ, for brilliant conversation work.

Finished the final piece for the shark book - the electric ray Eotorpedo zapping a sand tiger in the Early Eocene. That concludes 80 pieces generated for the book. Got me a sore right hand that smacks of RSI so going to relax then get back to doing some commissions and a bit of art just for fun.

Elusive sleeper shark seen off Antartica in a first Scientists have captured footage of a sleeper shark farther south than ever before, suggesting this Antarctic ocean is not shark-free

Scientists have captured footage of a sleeper shark farther south than ever before, suggesting this Antarctic ocean is not shark-free

large chonky white and black striped lizard, the white bands with some tiny "bricks" of black.

Today's feel-good story: a tegu rescued from the snow by a kind person in Providence, RI, has been saved by ET Reptiles & New England Wildlife Center. Usually, pet reptiles die in these circumstances, but frostbite treatment worked. @rickclaypool.bsky.social even visited the tegu + took this photo.

Is that the ELC tiger lying on its side? Earliest animal figure I remember having as a child

“Dragging a ladder through long rows of bookshelves can be exhausting. It’s much more efficient to have a co-worker who’s able to reach the top shelves on their own or at least give you a boost climbing up.”

#miragaia #stegosaur #dinosaur #paleoart #library #librarian #books

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.

Me working on the painjob for a lifesize nile crocodile head sculpture

The completed life size nile crocodile head sculpt

Nile croc head, currently on display at Vancouver aquarium