AshPoust

GO TEAM LEAST WEASEL!

It's apparently a made-up quote.

...but I wouldn't blame a single person who avoids this whole mess.

Three very delicate bones cleaned in the past 2 days. SUPER RARE - 2 limb bones from a parrot-mimic oviraptorosaur, and the other is a neck bone from a flying pterosaur.

From US Public Lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management

That vert looks great!

Happy #FossilFriday and #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth!

Join us to explore fossils whose names honor Indigenous territories and peoples, highlighting the importance of place, language, and respect in scientific discovery.

🕘 9 – 10 a.m. MST, 11 a.m. EST
🔗 Zoom: museumoftherockies.org/calendar/vir...

A cracked rhino taxidermy surrounded by other taxidermy specimens. The crack shows tightly arranged horizontal wooden branches. [NB the horns are fakes]

A close-up of of the cracked rhino skin, showing tightly arranged horizontal wooden branches.

Obviously it's sad when historic #taxidermy cracks, but it can show you how these specimens were converted from flat, treated skins to stand "alive" again. Here, the crack in this rhino at @nhmwien.bsky.social reveals an inner cage of willow beams. 🦏

Bringing up baby: preliminary exploration of the effect of ontogenetic niche partitioning in dinosaurs versus long-term maternal care in mammals in their respective ecosystems Mesozoic dinosaurs and Cenozoic mammals are often regarded as broadly ecologically equivalent, as they included the majority of medium-to-large-bodied terrestrial vertebrates of their respective eras....

Nice way to start the day:

www.italianjournalofgeosciences.it/297/article-...

Funds available for grads and postdocs to visit @burkemuseum.bsky.social collections! Applications due Dec. 15th. Please share!

🤔

it is righteous for paleontologists to proselytize to other biologists about the fossil record

Photo of part of my poster for SVP 2025. It's got a blue background, has some white text, a stratigraphic column, and photos of fossil fur seal mandibles.

I picked up my poster for #2025SVP and it looks SO NICE 🥰 I'm very excited! Hope to see you there - my poster session is on the first day (Wednesday) so please stop by, though I know many of us will be distracted by catching up with old friends! 🐬🦖

Black-and-white pencil drawing of a predation scene in the shallow coastal waters of California during the Pliocene. Near a large rock, a mother Herpetocetus morrowi (four-meter-long baleen whale) rests at the surface with her newborn calf balancing on her back. She has just begun to curve downwards in a dive, as a relatively large Homotherium sabertooth-cat is leaping towards her tiny calf with its front paws outstretched. The large cat had been crouched atop the nearby rock. In the distance, a massive cumulus cloud sits just above the surface of the open ocean. On the seafloor below are two small sea urchins, and on the base of the large rock near the seafloor is a Pacific Rock Crab.

On the coast of Pliocene California, a Homotherium pounces upon a newborn Herpetocetus morrowi. These are Cetotheres, small baleen whales that thrived during the Miocene/Pliocene. For the sabertooth, such a tiny calf so close to shore is a rare treat. #paleoart #sciart #pliocene #california

Double peak on the horizon over water under colorful twilight, Moss Landing stacks faintly visible also. 11/2/2025

The twin Chalone peaks in Pinnacles National Park, seen from across Monterey Bay, about sixty miles away.

A whale vertebra and taxidermy shrew. The label reads (translated from German): "Giants and Dwarfs Mammals have achieved great diversity in form and also they have evolved gigantic forms like whales (the blue whale weighs 130 tons) but also tiny species like the pygmy shrew (4 grams).

Little and large.
I really like this display at @nhmwien.bsky.social showing the size difference between the biggest and smallest #mammals, with a single #whale vertebra alongside a tiny shrew.

Oh those acid prepped really well! Kinda amazed they didn't fall apart.

Bittersweet to see our obituary of Mark Norell published in @currentbiology.bsky.social this week. Godspeed Mark, from Pete, Jim, and me--and the whole AMNH community.

A white willow ptarmigan with reddish-brown mottling on the back and head walks with purpose over the rocky ground, it's long, fluffy legs eating up the distance with each stride.

Coming through! Important ptarmigan stuff to do!
#birds 🌿

For all Dino friends and fans, there's never been a better time to check out @museumoftherockies.bsky.social

Happy #FossilFriday! The teeth of #Tyrannosaurus were a scary sight for all the #dinosaurs in the #Cretaceous #HellCreek ecosystem. Tyrannosaurus bite marks have been found on the bones of #Triceratops, #Edmontosaurus, and even other Tyrannosaurus!

And in that pause between pitch and contact - longer than logic, shorter than hope - we remembered why baseball existed long before we judged a sport's value by viral moments and betting apps. It is the romance of failure. The mortal beauty of trying and missing seven times out of 10 and still being considered great. It is the only sport where patience is a weapon, and panic the surest death. You cannot simply run out the clock in baseball; you must face it, pitch by terrifying pitch, until it finally releases you.

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper

www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

New Fossil Saber-tooth Predator Described from Museum Collection Paleontologists describe new species of sabre-tooth false-cat, showing early evolution of carnivores during time of global climatic instability.

I'm so glad someone excited bought this. It's so beautiful.

Im a long term fan too - I named an extinct sabertooth "cat" after Pangur ban, www.sdnhm.org/blog/blog_de...

A very pointy brown mask mimicking a fossil billion skull. Curator for scale

Nobody makes good fossil fish masks so this year I knocked out a Protosphyraena for myself!

A little cardboard and superglue goes a long way when paired with obsession

UNSM is now on Bluesky @unsmmorrillhall.bsky.social

Love those ancient "elephants"!

Happy last day of Gomphtober!

James Napoli, Witmer, and Cleveland Museum of Natural History Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Caitlin Colleary with the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) for CT scanning (June 2023).

James Napoli with the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) for CT scanning (June 2023).

Cleveland Museum of Natural History Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Caitlin Colleary with the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) for CT scanning (June 2023).

Witmer with the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) for CT scanning (June 2023). I had this same skull on loan in my Ohio University lab for study and CT scanning for over a year and, as far as I can tell, never appeared in a photo with it. I didn't my chance this time!

We'll close out this #FossilFriday with the obvious choice of Nanotyrannus. I couldn't share this CT scanning session at the time (June 2023) but can now. @jgn-paleo.bsky.social brought the holotype Cleveland skull he had on loan, and CMNH VP curator Caitlin Colleary & I joined in the fun!

Horrifying

OooooOoOOOoo!
🧠

A tan blob with wrinkles and folds visible on foam in a tray

A #Halloween #FossilFriday! Here’s a 🧠 brain! Sorta… this is an endocast, where sediment packed into a skull while there was still some soft tissue replacing and molding and casting where the brain was. This particular one is Miocene from Kyrgyzstan and likely horse. Found by @ashpoust.bsky.social

One of the best one of these.

"The men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future, and those are the days worth living for." Star Trek: The Original Series "City on the Edge of Forever" RODDENBERRY FOUNDATION

Goals for us all 🌌