Alberta Claw

Photograph of a small, round, stocky rat with very small ears and dark eyes. Its fur is dark brown.

Same subject, side view showing a remarkably short scaly tail and dark feet.

Same subject, but now munching on grass while keeping a wary eye on the viewer.

Australian Swamp Rat (Rattus lutreolus)!
Most Australians don't know that we actually have our own native species of true rats, such is that little cutie that I found at Mt Tomah today.

Breakwater is on my list to check out! I've seen clips of Heaven's Design Team and it's certainly a hilarious concept.

Virginia Rail chicks are cute black floofs with big feet. These chicks are about a week old.

Post by @joanjournal · 11 images 💬 0  🔁 1  ❤️ 1 · Parade of Life Through the Ages Before the Dawn of History · Recently, I acquired through interlibrary loan a copy Charles R. Knight's book Before the Dawn of History. This was par…

In which I discuss three works written and illustrated by classic paleoartist Charles R. Knight www.tumblr.com/joanjournal/...

Screenshot from the anime Slow Loop showing a model of a snail infected by Leucochloridium flatworms.

Screenshot from the anime Slow Loop showing a model of a fish head with parasitic isopods in its mouth.

Watching Slow Loop and I just knew that @the-episiarch.bsky.social had to have posted about it before. This fishing anime knows how to hook the zoology nerds, that's for sure. #スローループ

Numerical cognition in birds Nature Reviews Psychology - Birds demonstrate complex numerical abilities at levels similar to primates. In this Review, Regolin and colleagues describe the contribution of laboratory, field and...

Our new review on numerical cognition in birds, just out in Nature Reviews Psychology! 🐦🧠

Behavior, neurobiology & field studies across avian species

Very fond of the neurobiology part :)

📖 Read it here: rdcu.be/eyErI

Museomics and Salvaged Feathers Piece Together the Evolutionary History and Conservation Genomics of the Elusive, Critically Endangered Night Parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) The Night Parrot is a critically endangered nocturnal bird of Australia's arid zone. The species was “lost” for most of the 20th century until its rediscovery in 1990. Extant populations are now know....

An exciting & important new paper by @annamkearns.bsky.social & co-authors: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.....

Conservation genomics of the previously assumed to be extinct night parrot, showing recent connectivity between populations ~2000 km apart, but very low effective population sizes.

Love the novel pose and perspective; don’t see them from this angle very often!

YouTube video by ODEX Anime Australia Cinema Release Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Art World Tales (95s Trailer)

Following up from last year, this year's #Doraemon movie is getting a theatrical release (with English subtitles) in Australia and New Zealand again (appropriately, on Nobita's birthday). Pretty surprising! Maybe a sign they'll start doing this every year? www.youtube.com/watch?v=hARq... #ドラえもん

An illustration of the extinct Carolina Parakeet in flight.

The extinct Carolina Parakeet in flight, detail of the head area.

The extinct Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), from my book A Field Guide to the Mid-Atlantic Coast, Yale University Press. a.co/d/6rKgbMQ 🧪🌿🌎🪶 #sciart #wildlife #scicomm #sciviz #wildlifeart #iNat #scientificillustration #natureart #visualscicomm #sciviz #scicomm #birds #extinct

Comparison of the wing and leg bones of several species of rail, including the recently extinct Hodgens' waterhen (A, D, G, J), the closely related Australian crake (B, E, H, K), and the black-tailed nativehen (C, F, I, L).

Genetic analysis reveals that the recently extinct Hodgens' waterhen ("Tribonyx" hodgenorum; A, D, G, J in figure) was a giant, flightless crake in the genus Porzana: link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🪶🧪 (📷Sangster et al.)

YouTube video by Dave Goulson Be Kind to Wasps

Be Kind to Wasps! A plea for tolerance of these fascinating and useful creatures.
youtu.be/bhAgza_E3ww

Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses. Some eat bone marrow. Some drink nectar. They outswim fish in the sea. They smile politely at gravity’s demands. ‬

‪I am grateful to see them. I am grateful to feed them. I am grateful to know them.‬

Three little grey-brown birds with yellow bills looking around while perched on a mossy stone

Three black redstart fledglings waiting for the next food delivery
#photography #birds

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age image showing two homotheres interacting in a snowy landscape.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age image showing two Woolly rhino, a calf and old adult.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age image showing a glyptodont.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age image showing a mother sloth climbing up a rocky surface, baby on her back.

It's true, #PrehistoricPlanet Ice Age is coming to #AppleTV for November 2025. These images show how good our animals are, but... believe me, this barely scratches the surface!! It has been a massive thrill and privilege to help bring this series together... you're in for an incredible treat.

Post by @joanjournal · 9 images 💬 0  🔁 1  ❤️ 0 · Stem Placental Mammals - What Do We Know? · Competing hypotheses for some stem-eutherian relationships, from Brady, et al. 2024 Placental mammals - clade Placentalia - constitute…

Cimolestans, zhelestids, asioryctitheres, adaposoriculids... what the heck are all these things? I'm glad you asked! I wanted to know too, so I wrote this latest Joan's Journal to show what I learned~ www.tumblr.com/joanjournal/...

The New Dinosaurs new cover, showing animals from the book (most prominently a big Cutlasstooth) on white background.

The 1980s #SpecBio classic book THE NEW DINOSAURS, by Dougal Dixon, is about to be republished, and we're hosting a special signing event at #DinoConUK! Be among the first to get one, get it signed, and meet the author! DinoCon tickets and info... www.dinocon.co.uk

Do I know any proper image analysts: people able to look at a photo and work out key circumstances of photography (like, whether an image is a photo of a photo, a photo of a slide, and such)? Thanks indeed.

Dinosaur badges 1

Dinosaur badges 2 (plus ichthyosaur).

Jurassic Park and pterosaur badges.

Spaghetti-saurus badge.

HELP me decide which badge(s) to wear to #DinoConUK! I have been collecting dino-themed badges for decades for this one reason :) Show me your DinoCon badges too! Less than 3 weeks to the event: Aug 16th-17th, Exeter. Follow @dinoconuk.bsky.social for news and info. #dinomerch

A gray bird with a bright yellow eye and a dark, stout curved bill. It is standing in shadows looking up toward light. There are scrubby plants and desert colors in the background.

The Curved-billed Thrasher has a shorter and straighter bill than LeConte’s, Crissal, and California Thrashers. When naturalist William John Swainson first described the Curve-billed Thrasher he had not yet seen these other three species.
Cave Creek Ranch, Portal, AZ 🪶

Bones of an extinct duck (left in each comparison) next to those of the closely related extant paradise shelduck (right).

New recently extinct shelduck Tadorna rekohu from the Chatham Islands (on left in each comparison, next to bones of the extant paradise shelduck on right): academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a... 🪶🧪 (📷 @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social et al.)

Remembering Dr Tony Thulborn (1944–2025) - a pioneer in Australian palaeontology and a leading figure in the study of dinosaur tracks.
We are saddened to share the news that Dr Richard Anthony ‘Tony’ Thulborn passed away suddenly on 22 July 2025.

Diagram showing the evolutionary relationships of birds and their close extinct relatives, with icons marking notable evolutionary transformations in breastbone and flight anatomy.

Evolution of the sternum (breastbone) in birds and other pennaraptoran dinosaurs: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🪶🧪 (📷 @talialm.bsky.social et al.)

#Sciart #Paleoart #Dinosaur Tyrannosaurus, commissioned by @grumpchan.bsky.social

Post by @joanjournal · 5 images 💬 0  🔁 0  ❤️ 0 · Multituberculates - a primer · Taeniolabis (Nobu Tamura, CC BY-SA 4.0) Mammalian diversity today consists of three major lineages: the egg-laying monotremes, the pouched marsupial…

In the latest Joan's Journal, I discuss what we know about that now-extinct but highly-successful group, the multituberculates! www.tumblr.com/joanjournal/...

My depiction of the possible causes of the caimanine tooth marks on a terror bird bone found in Colombia, by scavenging and by active predation.
Reference:
doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Social pairing in the absence of reproductive senescence in a socially monogamous songbird Older, more experienced individuals may make better mates than young, inexperienced individuals, but reproductive ability often declines in old ages. Mount

New paper from the lab by @jwelklin.bsky.social
In mountain chickadees, there is positive assortment by age in pairing, but such assortment appears due to pair longevity rather than active mate choice based on age.
academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

Origins and Diversification of the Caatinga Dry Forest Endemic Avifauna Aim Understanding the geographic origin of lineages is critical to comprehending their biogeographical and evolutionary histories and the historical connections among biomes. In northeastern Brazil,...

Have you ever wondered about the origin of birds restricted to specific regions? Led by doctoral student Hevana Lima, we attempt to unravel the origins of birds endemic to the Caatinga dry forests in Brazil. Check our ms out! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Today is a very good day for long-standing enigmatic weirdos being pretty conclusively figured out. Longisquama is a drepanosaur, Nectocaris is a chaetognath, and Palaeocampa anthrax (metal name) is an aysheaiid (!!!)