Alexandre Fonseca

A brown and blue-green splotched Tyrannosaurus stands triumphant over the carcass of a hadrosaur. A rich bed of ferns extends far into the distance, where the fern prairie gives way to forest. Dark clouds fill a dreary sky behind the giant carnivore.

Today's random piece of nostalgic palaeoart: John Gurche's Tyrannosaurus!

Commissioned to accompany the Field Museum's exhibition of Sue the T.rex, this is among the definitive works of 2000s T.rex artwork. It's a moody piece that makes good use of Gurche's mastery of texture and lighting. (1/6)

Em abril a @cienciasulisboa.bsky.social e Instituto Dom Luiz estiveram no XXIII Encuentro de Jóvenes Insvestigadores en Paleontología com @lexfonseca.bsky.social que falou sobre: "Appendicular myological reconstruction of Lourinhasaurus alenquerensis (Camarasauridae, Sauropada). #dinosaurs

Just published: "A revised name and new insights into the Middle Jurassic sauropod trackways from Portugal", by Vanda Santos!
The Galinha Quarry footprints have a new name: Galinhapodus gomesi.
Link to paper below 👇

Iguanodont swimming, digital.
Originally started somewhere in 2022/23. Finished today.

Why are we all teaching ancient statistics? If we taught molecular biology the way we teach statistics, we'd still be arguing whether proteins or nucleic acids were genetic material.

Why are we still teaching 100-year old statistics?

scienceforeveryone.science/p/why-are-we... 🧪

😊🦕🦕🌈As últimas semanas foram intensas! Os meus alunos apresentaram o trabalho desenvolvido nos últimos meses em torno dos dinossáurios saurópodes e no âmbito dos projetos conduzidos pelo grupo de Paleontologia da
@cienciasulisboa.bsky.social e IDL (ULisboa) com a @uneduniv.bsky.social

E por outro lado, P. Fonseca (@lexfonseca.bsky.social , @cienciasulisboa.bsky.social ), com "Appendicular myological reconstruction and functional analysis of Lourinhasaurus alenquerensis (Camarasauridae, Sauropoda)", em colaboração com Daniel Vidal (@uneduniv.bsky.social , University of Chicago)

Newest #watercolor in time for Valentines is of Khaan, two of which were discovered with slightly different tail vertebrae. Males may have had more muscles there for courtship displays. #sciart #paleoart

Revisiting Bird’s swimming sauropod: new insights on Manus-dominated Dinosaur Tracks from the Mayan Dude Ranch in Bandera, Texas Recent discoveries at Roland T. Bird’s famous ‘swimming brontosaur’ tracksite on the Mayan Dude Ranch in South Texas have resulted in seven additional footprints in Bird’s original sauropod trail, ...

Full article: Revisiting Bird’s swimming sauropod: new insights on Manus-dominated Dinosaur Tracks from the Mayan Dude Ranch in Bandera, Texas www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Fossilized partial skeleton of a bird-like dinosaur.

New Jurassic avialan Baminornis zhenghensis: www.nature.com/articles/s41... The oldest known avialan with a pygostyle! 🪶🧪 (📷Chen et al.)

The lost long tail of early bird evolution Fossil find reveals the earliest known short-tailed bird.

Welcome Baminornis! Only the second undoubted bird from the Jurassic. Joining the iconic Archaeopteryx.
But Baminornis could fly better!
My thoughts in this commentary for @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A LATE JURASSIC short-tailed bird from China
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Baminornis zhenghensis gen. et sp. nov.
Art by Zhao Chuang

My predecessor as State Paleontologist, Dave Gillette passed away on Feb. 10th. He will be missed. He oversaw the excavation of the Huntington Mammoth. @jlivelypaleo.bsky.social @utahpaleo-ufop.bsky.social

One Richard Butler sitting on the left with an assortment of preparation tool and parts on a hotel carpet with Susie Maidment sitting on the right.

Pre-assembly for a new preparation lab, in Fes, Morocco on the hotel floor with Susie @tweetisaurus.bsky.social and Richard @richardjbutler.bsky.social

#fossils #dinosaurs #fossilprep #zoicpalaeotech

Gharial acoustic signaling: Novel underwater pops are temporally based, context‐dependent, seasonally stable, male‐specific, and individually distinctive Male gharials (Gavialis gangeticus) produce loud underwater POPs by rapid jaw clapping 1–3×. POPs are temporally based, context-dependent, seasonally stable, and individually distinctive. The bulbous...

Ajji M, J. & Lang, J.W. (2025) Gharial acoustic signaling: Novel underwater pops are temporally based, context-dependent, seasonally stable, male-specific, and individually distinctive. Journal of Anatomy, 00, 1–29. Available from: doi.org/10.1111/joa....

A blue-skied landscape set around a watering hole in the Early Cretaceous. Three large, subtly-striped iguanodonts are emerging from the water while white flying reptiles flap past them. They approach a group of smaller iguanodont species with red-orange backs and pink-grey hides, who are drinking from the water. Seen between them is the front half of an armoured dinosaur, a polacanthid, walking by. The group of small iguanodonts stands on a churned-up mess of brown mud, the product of many heavy animals coming to drink. In the mid-foreground is a small, gold tyrannosauroid with its head tilted back to trickle water down its throat. Several small, bird-like oviraptorosaurs sneak along the water margin in the lower left. Dinosaurs of opposing size - two enormous, long-armed brachiosaurs - stand in the far distance, in front of a sparse forest.

For #FossilFriday, here's some #paleoart of a casual afternoon in the Early Cretaceous Wealden group, with iguanodonts, tyrannosauroids, polacanthids and sauropods making a mess of a watering hole. The mashed-up muds left by these animals can be found to this day in Wealden rocks. #dinosaurs #sciart

Long-Handed Ostrich-Like Dinosaur Unearthed in Mexico | Sci.News A bizarre new genus and species of ornithomimid dinosaur has been identified from the fossilized remains found in 2014 in Coahuila, Mexico.

www.sci.news/paleontology...

Photographs of isolated fossil sauropod teeth from the Upper Jurassic of Portugal, illustrating various different morphotypes. All in labial view. Each image has a vertical 1 cm scale bar nearby. Clockwise from the top centre: two heart-shaped morphotypes (type 1, ML 1928 from Barrocalvo; type 2, ML 368 from Vale Pombas, attributed to Zby atlanticus); at bottom right, a pencil-shaped morphotype (ML 2560 from Paimogo); bottom left, two compressed chisel-shaped morphotypes (type 1, ML945 from Porto das Barcas; type 2, ML 2867 from Peralta); and finally at top right, a spatulate tooth (ML 636 from Lourinhã). All specimens are housed in the Museum of Lourinhã.

New sauropod dinosaur teeth from the Upper Jurassic of Portugal & their implications for sauropod dental evolution onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #FossilFriday #PapersinPalaeontology

Diagram showing the evolutionary relationships of birds to their close extinct relatives. Color-coded pie charts indicate the points at which modern "avian" features evolved.

If you need a summary of recent advances in the field of bird paleontology, my labmates at @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social have a new paper out reviewing the origins of the avian brain, palate, wing skeleton, and air-filled bones! royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🪶🧪 (📷Field et al.)

“Drop that baby!” My watercolor of Leptoceratops defends their young against Quetzalcoatlus. I do think smaller ceratopsians were punching above their weight class and made sure to convey it here. #paleoart #sciart

#Commissions Open!
Updated commission board.

Panthera uncia lusitana subsp. nov., a snow leaopard from Portugal

"Insights on the evolution and adaptation toward high-altitude and cold environments in the snow leopard lineage"
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

"Pyramid"
Tameryraptor markgrafi, digital, ~2hrs

#paleoart #dinosaurs #paleontology

Re-evaluation of the Bahariya Formation carcharodontosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) and its implications for allosauroid phylogeny The first partial skeleton of a carcharodontosaurid theropod was described from the Egyptian Bahariya Oasis by Ernst Stromer in 1931. Stromer referred the specimen to the species Megalosaurus saharicu...

Redescription of Stromer's carcharodontosaur:

"Re-evaluation of the Bahariya Formation carcharodontosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) and its implications for allosauroid phylogeny"
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

I wonder if a l live-stream field trip would be possible..?... in St George during paleo-salvage project at SGDS.....

A pterosaur (Ferrodraco) lands atop of the extinct tree fern Tempskya with its wings still momentarily outstretched. The background is dim and cloudy while the two main subjects are illuminated by sunlight. The scene takes place in Cretaceous Australia, where fossils of both of these taxa have been found.

Tower of Ferns

First piece of the year! Featuring Tempskya and Ferrodraco

Count Orlok, digital, ~2hrs
#nosferatu #horror #film

Balaur bondoc, here interpreted as a bird, being harassed by small, colorful azhdarchids.

#paleoart #sciart #paleostream

A Triassic landscape

A piece capturing the rise of dinosaur (and pterosaur) age, for a Natural History Museum of the University of Zurich

𝒢𝓃𝒶𝓉𝒶𝓁𝒾𝑒
I like this version better
#paleoart #sciart #paleontology #dinosaur