#fossils

[retrogamingblog2]

[sinosauropteryx--prima]

National Fossil: Argentina

For “season 2“ we‘re moving to South America, more precisely to Argentina, which has lots of fossils to offer.

Once again, you get to vote on which one should represent the nation. As always, it could be a fossil that is just exceptionally well preserved and beautiful, had a huge impact on paleontology and our knowledge of the past, is very common/representative of the area, is beloved and famous in the public eye, is just a very unique and interesting find, or has any other justification.

Here are the options:

Argentinosaurus: The first contestant is one of the biggest land animals of all time with a length of more than 30 m and a weight of 80 t or more. It‘s also very fittingly named after the country.

Carnotaurus: Next up is the carnivorous dinosaur Carnotaurus. Only one skeleton has ever been found, but it was so well preserved, that Carnotaurus still is one of the best understood theropod dinosaurs of the Southern hemisphere. It‘s a fan favorite movie star, with roles ranging from the dorky dancer of Prehistoric Planet all the way to the main villain of Dinsey‘s Dinosaur (Art by Fred Wierum)

Eoraptor: while Argentina has some of the biggest dinosaurs ever to offer, it is also well known for some of the earliest ones. The small Triassic Eoraptor and some of its Argentinian cousins are very important for our understanding of the evolution of dinosaurs as a whole

Kelenken: One of my favorite groups of South American animals are the terror birds, giant predatory flightless birds that make it very clear that birds are in fact dinosaurs. The biggest one of them was 3 m tall Kelenken, known from some leg bones and the skull. It lived during the Miocene about 15 million years ago (Art by Julio Lacerda)

Argentavis: If one giant Miocene bird is not enough for you, Argentina also offers you Argentavis. While it maybe wasn‘t the biggest flying bird in terms of wingspan, it most likely was the heaviest one (more than 70 kg; for comparison, the heaviest flying bird today weighs about 20 kg) (Art by Fabio Alejandro)

Fasolasuchus: If you‘re really not a fan of dinosaurs (including birds), maybe I can interest you in the crocodile-site of the Archosaur family tree: Fasolasuchus was an distantly-related triassic cousin of our modern crocodiles and it was the biggest terrestrial predator of its time; the only carnivores to ever surpass it were the biggest theropod dinosaurs

Arctotherium: South America is home to many bizarre mammals, but most of them I want to reserve for other countries. Still, here is one mammal option for y‘all: Arctotherium, the giant short-faced bear. The biggest species of them lived in Argentina and they were probably the biggest bear ever (maybe up to 1500 kg and more). (Illustration by Soibelzon, Schubert 2011)

[fossilprep]

Adult Lambeosaurus? femur with Tyrannosaur bite marks. Collected in 2023 from Jack's Bonebed, being prepped by volunteer Wes.

[dougdimmadodo]

September's Fossil of the Month: Hyracotherium (Hyracotherium spp.)

Family: Horse family (Equidae) or Paleothere family (Palaeotheriidae)

Time Period: Early Paleogene (55-45 Million Years Ago)

Living across much of what is now Europe and North America, the members of the genus Hyracotherium were early members of the order Perissodactyla (the group of mammals to which horses, tapirs and rhinoceroses belong,) and are believed by some authorities to be among the earliest known members of the horse family, although some palaeontologists instead regard them as belonging to a separate but related extinct family of small, horse-like Perrisodactyls known as paleotheres (which would make them relatives or possibly ancestors of modern horses, but not technically true horses themselves.) Though notably horse-like in terms of their overall anatomy, members of this genus were small animals (growing to be 30-60cm/11.8-23.6 inches tall and weighing around 9kg/20lbs,) and, in contrast to the feet of modern horses (which consist of a single toe enclosed in a hardened hoof of keratin, forming a sort of built-in shoe well suited to running on flat surfaces,) had separate hoof-tipped toes on each foot (4 on the front feet and 3 on the back feet) which may have aided them in walking on the uneven, muddy ground of the dense forests the would have covered much of their range at the time. Further distinguishing Hyracotherium species from modern horses is their teeth, which (in contrast to modern horses which have long incisors for grasping and tearing grasses and tall crowns on their molars to protect them from being worn down when chewing tough plants,) consisted of relatively small incisors and short-tipped crowns, suggesting that, as forest dwellers, members of this genus fed on fruits, shoots and low-growing leaves much like many modern forest antelopes. Throughout the Paleogene period, temperatures gradually became cooler and drier compared to the period's warm, humid beginning, and this change in climate led the then abundant rainforests that Hyracotherium species inhabited to be gradually replaced with open grasslands and temperate woodlands. This drastic change led to the extinction of many forest-dwelling specialists towards the end of the Paleogene, but also provided a new selective pressure that would eventually result in the surviving descendants of many forest specialists adapting to life on open plains - by 37 million years ago the members of the genus Mesohippus (which are unanimously excepted as early true horses) had lost the 4th toes on their forefeet and developed longer legs and larger bodies as they adapted to life in open habitats, and roughly 22 million years later the members of the genus Merychippus were larger still, bore their weight on only one toe per foot (though two tiny, presumably vestigial toes still remained,) and had tall crowns that would have allowed them to graze on the abundant tough grasses that surrounded them. Today, the anatomical changes that can be seen in the transition between paleotheres like Hyracotherium and the modern horses of the genus Equus are commonly used as a textbook example of how lineages of organisms have changed and adapted in response to environmental changes over time.

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(Note - Depending on who you ask, the fossil pictured above may belong to the species Hyracotherium angustidens or to a separate but related animal, Eohippus angustidens. Some authorities consider Eohippus to be the only species in its own distinct genus, while others consider it to simply be a species in the genus Hyracotherium. For the sake of this post, and because the image above is VERY pretty, I've assumed here that the latter is true.)

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HyracotheriumVasacciensisLikeHorse.JPG

[netmassimo]

An article published in the journal "Nature" reports a study on a trilobite fossil of the species Bohemolichas incola dating back to around 465 million years ago, in the Middle Ordovician period, which reveals the contents of its guts in the last meal that occurred before its death. A team of researchers subjected the fossil in an extraordinary state of preservation to a sophisticated synchrotron microtomography that made it possible to create a 3D reproduction that also shows the contents of its intestinal tract. That revealed that this trilobite ate some marine invertebrates such as ostracods, bivalves, and echinoderms.

[bisonwares]

💕KICKSTARTER FULLY FUNDED💕

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Thank you so much for the support on this project! I'm working to add a few smaller stretch goals such as pins and patches. What would you like to see?

Available in sizes S-3XL

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[allosuchus]

Also some pictures of a resident Steppe bison femur.

"Leg bone from the now extinct large Bison priscus. The hole is where a piece of bone was removed for radio-carbon dating. This bison roamed the Peace River region around 11,000 years ago before being replaced by the ancestors of modern bison coming in from the south."

The musuem pamphlet is 22.8cm/8.9in tall and 10.3cm/4in wide for reference.

[jolly-jello]

Daily Dino Dose!

🦕 today's dino is the Diplodocus 🦖

(: because I do love them spaguetti shaped animals :)

This absolute unit of a reptile lived in the late jurassic period and was equipped with four sturdy as heck legs, a tiny head, a tail with 80 vertebrae that may have been used as defence or making some type of noise similar to a whip -kinky- and one, i repeat, ONE claw on it's front paw. Scientists are still debating its use but in my opinion it would've been used to flip other jealous sauropods that didn't have it.

The Diplodocus was more on the chill side and as such chose to have a diet which consisted of plants, chomping on trees and bushes, but alas, it was "not like other sauropods" and chose an unilateral stripping method for eating. This shows because its teeth have a different shape from its cousins and even from its young, this strategy was made so that there were no food competitions between species or age groups.

Diplodocus means "double beam", relating to its uncommon structure observed on the tail bones, but truth be told its discovery story is unfortunately not so rare. Discovered in 1877 during the Bone Wars it ended up caught up in, you guessed it, a scientific feud once again, between classifications and the second dinosaur rush a complete mould was finally exposed in 1899 as Diplodocus longus.

There are 4 possible species but only 2 are recognized (D.carnegii and D. hallorum). The main difference between the two is the amount of fossils, while D.carnegii had a full skeleton known -aka Dippy-, D. hallorum is composed of a few vertebrae and minor skeletal parts which are not enough to determine its position.

By being part of the most well known and recognizable dinos due to the amount of remains found including bones -duh-, footprints and even skin impressions, it's again, a character present in the BBC documentary Walking with Dinosaurs.

-for me it's one of the cutest episodes bcz tiny spaguettis :(( -

thank you for surviving my awful writing and sorry for any mistakes be it factually or grammatically and please let me know if there are any alterations that'd make this posts better, have a good one my pre-historic friends <3

[casualcarpetshark]

BOW DOWN TO THE ANCIENT ONE

[orangetruckercap]

Fossilas: crinoid stems and stars including a 6 pointed pentacrites and a pyritised ammonte

[fox-teeth]

Hello, today is my birthday, and I would like to share a comic I made in the last year with you. It's called Broomistega and Thrinaxodon.

This comic was originally printed with yellow, fluorescent pink, light teal, and violet risograph inks. Physical copies are available in my shop.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Jurassic World and other media things: Have their raptors have ridiculously wiggly tails

Actual raptor tails:

the tail is so stiff the tendons became bones

[fossilprep]

The zygapophyses and centra of these cervical vertebrae on the Daspletosaurus wilsoni holotype have been exposed a bit more. A mix of acid prep and mechanical prep are being used.

[elixir]

The fossil of a 20cm baby crocodile from Germany.

[samimarkart]

more embroidered fish fossils