fishsfailureson - Tumblr blog

[fishsfailureson]

boop

boop!!!!

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turning on anons for a little bit be as silly as you want just don't be weird

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"I should complete (insert important task here)," I say as I write a personalized prompt list for an art challenge that takes place in November.

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reblog for sample size !!

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So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!

[fishsfailureson]

The NEW Ultrastenos and its Ironic History

So those that have been keeping up with my posts on mekosuchines might recall the name Ultrastenos, as I've talked about this genus back in August of last year. If you've read that post you might also remember how I highlight at multiple points that a lot of the info was tentative on the basis that Ultrastenos was highly incomplete and that close relatives awaited description.

You may also remember "Baru" huberi, a small mekosuchine that lived roughly around the same time, clearly distinct from Baru yet at that point still unnamed. Oh, how I wished for the former to get more material and for the latter to recieve a proper genus assignment.

My now outdated reconstructions for "Baru" huberi (the small one in the left image) and Ultrastenos (right image)

And then the monkey's paw curled.

As it turns out....they are the same damn animal. Now, back when "Baru" huberi was described, Willis also named a bunch of other mekosuchines from the same locality (the White Hunter Site of the Riversleigh WHA) and described even more material that remained unnamed, including the White Hunter Cranial Form 1. Now, when Ultrastenos was named in 2016, the type material was from the Low Lion Site (also Riversleigh), but importantly, the skull tables identified as WHCF1 were also assigned to the genus (and were the basis for my reconstruction).

Well, re-examination has shown that the WHCF1 and the holotype of "Baru" huberi aren't just a single species.....THEY ARE A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL.

Given the fact that the assignment of the skull table to the Low Lion Ultrastenos material still holds up, this means that Ultrastenos willisi and "Baru" huberi are a single taxon. Which consequently requires some reshuffling of the names.

"Baru" huberi was named first, so the species name takes priority and continues being used. However, since it was never given a genus name, Ultrastenos does stay valid. Except now it's called Ultrastenos huberi, not Ultrastenos willisi. A name that has aged like milk. Back in 2016 it was proposed that Ultrastenos had a very narrow snout (thus the name), so now that we know that the rostrum was flat and mesorostrine, the name really is just wrong.

So next up, lets examine what went wrong.

As I said before, Ultrastenos was fragmentary, so that certainly played a big part in it. But the team in charge of describing the animal still cited several lines of thinking to support their interpretation, most of which are now thoroughly debunked.

As an example, the lower jaw was rather shallow, however while this was initially taken as evidence for longirostry, the 2024 paper states that this only an argument against altirostry (a deep skull), not against a more generalized condition. The teeth were also initially used as evidence, citing their homodont condition (the teeth looked uniform), HOWEVER, the problem in that was that there were only a few teeth present, all of which notably do not bear any resemblance to the needle-like teeth seen in other long-snouted taxa. Another important clue initially taken to mean longirostry was the orientation of the quadrate area and the seemingly sudden constriction of the lower jaw. But the quadrate area was not found in articulation and would support a generalized skull form if simply rotated a little, while the constriction of the mandible appears to at least be partially exaggerated by preservation.

Of course, the fact that we now have proper material of the snout makes the interpretation of a generalized skull shape a lot more solid.

Image 1: The left and right halves of the mandible of Ultrastenos compared to that of Baru iylwenpeny (D), note how the right half is a lot more straight. Image 2: The initial reconstruction of the quadrate area of Ultrastenos compared to one that is slightly rotated Image 3: The revamped skull reconstruction by Yates and Stein

The size of the animal does stay relatively unaffected by these new discoveries. "Baru" huberi has been estimated at only around 1.5 meters in length and my own scaling of Ultrastenos got up to 2 meters, which seems to be in line with what is still assumed for this animal. So among aquatic mekosuchines, its still rather small.

There are however some interesting implications for mekosuchines at large. Now that we no longer have a longirostrine member of this family, one has to wonder, why is that? Well, there might be several reasons.

It could be that the types of environments that were present in Cenozoic Australia simply didn't support such animals. Even in the type description, its been noted that the Riversleigh isn't exactly known for its fish remains, leading to the idea that Ultrastenos might have gone for other small vertebrates like frogs. Hell, the ecology of Baru might suggest that the reason that this genus was so robust might tie to the fact that the local bodies of water just weren't deep enough to allow the typical crocodilian grab-and-drown tactic.

Competition might have been another factor. In environments that may have been more suitable for such morphology, mekosuchines might have been beaten to the punch by other types of crocodilians. Harpacochampsa for example, tho originally thought to be a mekosuchine, is now more often regarded as either an unrelated crocodile or a gharial and its very possible that it filling the nische of a longirostrine simply meant that mekosuchines didn't have the opportunity to expand into that space. Same goes for Gunggamarandu in the Pliocene and Pleistocene and Freshwater Crocodiles from the Pleistocene onwards. (Tho it should be noted that both Harpacochampsa and Gunggamarandu are so fragmentary that their snout shape is technically unknown).

Images: Gunggamarandu (Eleanor Pease), Harpacochampsa (ArtbyJRC) and Freshies (Antoni Camozzato) might have been key factors in why mekosuchines never evolved slender snouts.

Finally, its also possible that something in the growth of mekosuchines simply prevents them from evolving longirostrine skulls, which Yates and Stein liken to alligatoroids (notably the closest alligatoroids got to traditional longirostry as seen in gharials is the Rio Apaporis Caiman, and even that one is closer to some extant crocodiles in its morphology).

Whatever the case, I for one mourn the loss of our long-snouted Ultrastenos. Tho as a note for any paleoartists, there is not a single illustration of this new interpretation since nobody ever drew "Baru" huberi either. Wink wink nudge nudge

Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasteno

Ultrastenos revised (palaeo-electronica.org)

[fishsfailureson]

I don't go exercise much due to being in pain a lot, I complain to my parents about the pain, they tell me that I'm in pain because I don't exercise enough. I am going to lose my mind ;-;.

[fishsfailureson]

why the fuck am I so hungry I had dinner like 3 hours ago (I ate a lot)

[fishsfailureson]

Tiresias: sorry man, I saw Penelope with another guy

Odysseus: I will throw another fuckin baby off a wall

[fishsfailureson]

"i'll go where poseidon won't reach us" says man sailing on ocean

[fishsfailureson]

Listening to the underworld saga on repeat rn (I am not ok)

[fishsfailureson]

So you've joined Tumblr with a brand new blank blog! And then you end up getting blocked by everyone you follow, why is that?

Tumblr has a bot problem - blank blogs look like bot accounts and most bots are porn bots that post malicious links and images or videos. I've seen some truly horrendous content because of these kinds of accounts as have most other users here.

How do you show that you're a person and not a bot? Pretty simple - find something you like and reblog it! Something you find funny, a piece of fan art, a nicely made gif set, whatever you want. Tumblr doesn't have an algorithm, you've got to look for content yourself. Upload a pfp and a banner image as well!

This is not tiktok. You should not be censoring yourself if you make your own post, tumblr isn't going to shadowban you for cursing.

Reblogging is not reposting - a reblog is always attached to the original account it was from I promise you are not stealing it. reblogging is the only way a post gets seen! It's similar to a retweet.

You can add to someone's reblog as well, maybe someone made a joke and you think of a pun to go with it. Or maybe they're sharing some cool facts and you happen to know some more related cool facts. Or maybe it's a wholesome post - someone said they're sad and asked to see people's pets, then it'll be a huge reblog chain of cute animals.

Liking posts - does nothing to elevate the post, it's not like Instagram or tiktok or youtube. Think of a like as a bookmark you can come back to later. It's still a kind thing to do, to say "hey this is a good post!" but it's not going to help someone looking to advertise their art or attempting to boost a gofundme.

Tagging - this one is a bit more complex in some ways. But for the basic common courtesy, use tags that relate to the posts' content. let's say it's from a specific fandom, you could tag the show name, the characters, a ship name, and so on. Another example, if you make a piece of artwork that contains depictions of blood/gore it's good to tag "blood tw" and "gore tw" (tw stands for trigger warning). Ultimately though? You can also just reblog without tagging, that's also fine it's up to you!

for a lot of us, it's used as a form of non-permanent commentary. It's kind of like a whisper. and sometimes if that whisper is funny or makes a good point people will screenshot it and add it to a reblog.

This website is a blogging platform that you can use however you want to with the exception of posting explicit content (This is potentially getting changed but we don't know yet). You could curate a blog with one specific thing or you can just reblog whatever the hell you want. Follower count doesn't matter here and cannot be seen by anyone but you so don't feel like you have to meet some weird criteria and maintain an audience.

Have fun and start reblogging!

[fishsfailureson]

old one up top btw. Idk how this happened I pressed a button and it changed

I accidentally changed the colour of my tumblr dashboard somehow??? I think???

[fishsfailureson]

I accidentally changed the colour of my tumblr dashboard somehow??? I think???

[fishsfailureson]

tumblr why are you giving me ads in Italian