Dr Michael J Ryan

Rare fossil at Montana museum records Tyrannosaurus attack A fossil on display at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies reveals how dinosaurs in the Tyrannosaurus genus may have subdued prey, and the specimen is the focus of a new collaborative res...

phys.org/news/2026-02...

Cover of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences featuring a person outdoors with greenery in the background, highlighting the most read article in 2025.

Our most read article of 2025 examines the Canadian fossil record supporting anagenesis in Triceratops. Read it now ▶️ https://ow.ly/1KQC50XVNF1

👥 Jordan Mallon, Mathew Roloson, Emily Bamforth, John Scannella, Dr Michael J Ryan

#BestofCSP Canadian Museum of Nature Carleton University

Key proteins reveal how evolution of locomotion shapes bone remodeling processes An international collaboration study reveals how evolution and locomotion patterns, such as bipedalism, shaped bone structures through proteins present in the bone matrix. The findings of the study, l...

phys.org/news/2025-12...

Fossil of Triassic Sauropodomorph Dinosaur Discovered in Switzerland | Sci.News Paleontologists have discovered the skeletal remains of an entirely new, yet-to-be-named species of massopodan sauropodomorph dinosaur in the Klettgau Formation in Canton Aargau, Switzerland.

www.sci.news/paleontology...

YouTube video by Screen Prism The Dinosaur And The Missing Link (1915) | Early Stop Motion Film

PREMIERED THIS DAY (1915): THE DINOSAUR & THE MISSING LINK. It features the earliest work of a young Willis O'Brien who would go on to bring King Kong to life. Watch the film thanks to The Library of Congress. youtu.be/so9Exr5Ammo?...

BORN THIS DAY: ELKANAH BILLINGS (May 5,1820-June 14,1896): Canada’s first paleontologist. His boss Sir William Logan wrote him (1869): "Your constant absence from the office is a worrying annoyance, particularly as I have reason to suspect that it does not arrive from rheumatism."

More for May the 4th: colleague Dr David West Reynolds standing at the bluff where Luke looked down on Mos Eisley. In the distance you can just see the palm trees that mark the location of the Well of Souls dig site from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Was this Tunisian adventure really 30 years ago?!

My colleague, Dr. David West Reynolds, released a Kickstarter-backed documentary about this adventure with LucasFilm a few years ago.

Looking forward to this overdue collection. Any chance DC might also reprint the old Golden Age Doctor Fate archive collection? Mine went AWOL during a move.

For May the 4th: Me discovering the origin Krayt Dragon prop skeleton in Tunisia back in the early 90’s. The film quarry abandoned this & all the Star Wars props when they left. After I found them (and left them in place!), collectors followed in my footsteps and scoped them up. Hello Ebay!

BORN THIS DAY: JOSEPH BARRELL (Dec 15, 1869–May 4, 1919: Proposed that sedimentary rocks were produced by the action of rivers, etc (1917); used radioactive dating to reinterpret Earth's age to billion years; argued that severe climate drove the evolution of air-breathing vertebrates

Died This Day: Joseph Leidy (Sept 9, 1823 - April 30, 1891). The Father of American Vertebrate Paleontology described the holotype of Hadrosaurus foulkii, the 1st American mostly complete dinosaur. He also mentored a young E.D. Cope and pointed he and Marsh to the rich fossil resources of the West

DIED THIS DAY: LOUIS DOLLO (Dec 7, 1857–April 19, 1931). Dollo researched the Iguanodons found in 1878 in a mine at Bernissart, Belgium. He is also noted for ‘Dollo's Law of Irreversibility’ which states that a complex structure once lost in evolution never reappears exactly in its former state

Died This Day: Erasmus Darwin (Dec 12, 1731 – April 18, 1802). Grandfather of Charles Darwin, he was a philosopher/naturalist who formulated one of the first theories of evolution in his ‘Zoonomia’ (1794-1796). In it he discussed how life evolved from a single common ancestor

Footprints of tail-clubbed armored dinosaurs found for the first time For the first time, footprints of armored dinosaurs with tail clubs have been identified, following discoveries made in the Canadian Rockies. The 100-million-year-old fossilized footprints were found ...

phys.org/news/2025-04... Really? I thought that Martin Lockley described some years ago. Either way, congrats to Victoria and the team!

Air pockets found in bones of Alvarezsauridae skeleton for the first time A team of archaeologists and paleontologists from Argentina, the U.S. and China has unearthed the first known example of a fossilized Alvarezsauridae skeleton with evidence of air pockets in its bones...

phys.org/news/2025-04...

The Canadian fossil record supports anagenesis in Triceratops (Ornithischia, Ceratopsia) Evolution of the ceratopsid dinosaur Triceratops has been hypothesized to have proceeded anagenetically, with the geologically older Triceratops horridus having directly given rise to the younger Tric...

cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... Thanks to Jordan Mallon for inviting me onto this nifty paper.

I wonder how those other bands did? 🎸🔊

Scientists baffled at mysterious ancient creature that doesn't fit on the tree of life as we know it An ancient and enormous organism called Prototaxites, initially found to be a type of fungus, may actually be an unknown branch of life, researchers say.

www.livescience.com/animals/gian...

She's great in The Inner Circle (1946). That film needs a Bluray restoration!

YouTube video by 19king14 Film2Video Archiving Radatron - Journey to the Dinosaurs - Stop Motion - 1960s?

youtu.be/-UWRBzi0Heo?... Who doesn't love stop-motion dinosaurs?! "Radatron - Journey to the Dinosaurs" circa 1965. That looks a lot like Jack Kirby's Devil Dinosaur.

DIED THIS DAY: JAMES HUTTON (June 3, 1726 – Mar 26, 1797). Scottish geologist known as the Father of Modern Geology for helping establish geology as a modern science. His Principle of Uniformitarianism states that modern geological features are the result of continuing natural processes over time.

I was all over the radio and MTV in it's day.....

147-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Fossil Discovered in England | Sci.News Paleontologists have discovered and described a new ctenochasmatid pterosaurian mandible from the Late Jurassic Portland Limestone Formation of southern England.

www.sci.news/paleontology...

From dinosaurs to birds: The origins of feather formation Feathers are among the most complex cutaneous appendages in the animal kingdom. While their evolutionary origin has been widely debated, paleontological discoveries and developmental biology studies s...

phys.org/news/2025-03...

Vulture fossil discovery reveals how volcanic deposits can preserve the microscopic details of animal tissues An analysis of a 30,000-year-old fossil vulture from Central Italy has revealed for the first time that volcanic rock can preserve microscopic details in feathers—the first ever record of such a prese...

phys.org/news/2025-03...

Cool!

Marsh

Died This Day: Othniel Charles Marsh (Oct 29, 1931 - Mar 18, 1899). One of the most important figures in North American dinosaur paleontology, Marsh is noted for naming numerous dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus and Triceratops, and his bitter rivalry with Edward Drinker Cope know as The Bone Wars.

Premiered This Day (1970): When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. Hammer’s follow up to One Million Years B.C. (1966) lacked Ray Harryhausen’s animated dinosaurs, but did feature excellent stop-motion work by Jim Danforth and David Allen, and arguably a better script by English SF author, J.G. Ballard.

Isn't that Guilala, the X from Outer Space?