#i love you inostrancevia

[moonlitcomet]

finished life on our planet and while overall it was kinda mediocre, she was perfect

[mireyadc]

Paleo themed Spider-sona 🦴🦕🕷️

I've been trying to create a Spider-sona for myself and since one of my greatest obsession is the paleontology, I thought that a peleontology themed spider was the best.

The problem? I had three very different ideas:

Paleo-spider: A paleontologist bitten by a prehistoric arachnid, not absolutely sure if during an excavation or in a lab Jurassic world stile. (The more similar to me)

Spider-gorgonops: A Inostrancevia, a permian (favorite period) creature, front the group of the gorgonopsid, bitten by a radioactive arachnid. (Peter Permian is simply too cute)

Spider-silurian: a Silurian (prehistoric reptile people from Dr Who, Earth-5556) bitten by a radioactive arachnid. (Combines Dr Who, Spider-man and Paleontology)

I love the three designs the same amount and at the same time I don't feel completely satisfied with any of them.

For now I show you the first tough designs of the three and I will see what ends up coming out of this.

[graytrailcam]

Hopped back on Path after a hiatus from it because the server I play on now has the Inostrancevia mod! I love how the face stays bloody after you eat, very fun. The boy's name is 'Hog'

[sinosauropteryx--prima]

Life in the Permian

(top row: Estemmenosuchus, Coelurosauravus, Cotylorhynchus, Goniatites; middle: Moschops (top), Procynosuchus (bottom), Inostrancevia, Dimetrodon; bottom row: Dvinia, Edaphosaurus, Prionosuchus, Helicoprion)

Art by:

Goniatites - Christian Klung et al., Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 61(1):1-14 (2016).

Dimetrodon - Mark Witton

Edaphosaurus - Walkling with monsters, BBC

Cotylorhynchus - Sergey Krasovskiy

Moschops - Gabriel Ugueto

Estemmenosuchus - Ntvtiko

Inostrancevia - Julius Csotonyi

Procynosuchus - Nix draws stuff

Dvinia - DiBgt

Coelurosauravus - Charlène Letenneur

Prionosuchus - Vitor Silva

Helicoprion - Julio Lacerda

It‘s been a while since I started this little series on the geologic time periods - both because it has been about 250 million years since the Cambrian explosion, but also because I have been on vacation and just generally didn‘t feel like doing anything (sorry about that). Nevertheless we have finally reached the last part of the Paleozoic, the Permian (we will talk about why it‘s literally the end of an era).

The Permian was the first time synapsids took over. Sometimes referred to as “mammal-like reptiles“, this group includes big herbivores, saber-toothed predators, everyone‘s favorite “that‘s-not-actually-a-dinosaur“ dimetrodon and - eventually - us. We are synapsids. So who were these early cousins of ours?

The first synapsids appeared during the Carboniferous, shortly after amniotes became a thing (amniotes are terrestrial vertebrates that lay eggs). Back then those amniotes split into two lines, the synapsids on the one side and the diapsids on the other. In the beginning these two groups wouldn‘t have looked much different from each other: both were small lizard-like creatures. The big difference between them, and what is usually used to tell them apart, is the number of holes in their skulls. When you think about holes in skulls the first thing that comes to mind are probably eyes and nose, but there is another type of hole called the temporal fenestra. It‘s less visible from the outside, but you can feel it behind your eyes and above your jaw, and when you look at pictures of skulls you can usually see it. Synapsids like us and all other mammals, have one of these holes. The diapsids (reptiles including dinosaurs and birds) have two.

During the Permian the synapsids became diverse and dominant. The first group that split off of the synapsid family tree were the Pelycosaurs (although that term isn‘t used anymore, but for the sake of simplicity, I‘m going to ignore that). Pelycosaurs were very reptile-like: They had a sprawling gait and were most likely cold-blooded. They are however closer related to us than to any living reptiles, your great-great-great uncle, if you will. The most famous ones were the sail backed Edaphosaurus, one of the first herbivorous tetrapods, and Dimetrodon, a 3.5 m long apex predator. As impressive as those two are - most Pelycosaurs did not have sails. Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus were just weird.

More “advanced“ synapsids are called Therapsids. They again include us, other mammals and basically everything else that isn‘t a pelycosaur. Some of the Therapsids that were around during the Permian were the Dinocephalians (“terrible heads“). They are very fittingly named if you consider that the weirdly horned Estemmenosuchus and thick-skulled Moschops (that maybe head-butted like goats) were some of them. Another group are the Gorgonopsids, including the saber-toothed predator Inostrancevia. I just love the fact that synapsids were doing the “saber-toothed cat thing“ for pretty much their entire existence.

Towards the end of the Permian (don‘t worry about the end of the Permian, it‘ll be fine), a group of therapsids that was even more “advanced“ appeared. They were called Cynodonts (“dog-teeth“) because they had different teeth for different purposes. You for example have incisors to bite of a piece of a sandwich and molars to chew it up (and other types of teeth, I‘m not a dentist). This is something that differentiates us from many other groups of animals like reptiles and earlier synapsids. The cynodonts also had their legs under their body instead of sprawling to the site, they most likely were warm-blooded and probably had fur. They weren’t true mammals yet, but if I saw one, I’m not sure I would be able to tell the difference between them and a modern rodent on first glance.

The synapsids were the main players during the Permian, but they were of course not the only bizarre creatures around: There was the amphibian croc-mimic Prionosuchus that could reach sizes of 5 to maybe even 9 m (although to be fair, there were no crocodiles around yet, so technically crocodiles are Prionosuchus-mimics). There were the first gliding vertebrates like the small reptile Coelurosauravus. There was the shark-cousin Helicoprion, whose name translates to “wheel-saw“ and describes its terrifying dentation. Andy many, many more.

To say that all these animals were doing great might be a bit of an overstatement. The Permian was not an easy time to be alive. The warm and wet coal swamps of the previous Carboniferous disappeared as the climate got much hotter and dryer. All the continents of our planet had collided into one giant landmass, the roughly C-shaped supercontinent Pangaea. The interiors of this land were so far away from the oceans that rain very rarely reached them and they became almost inhabitable deserts. Closer to the coasts there might have been seasons with extreme monsoons and heavy rainfall.

The animals would have withstood all of this, dealing with their surroundings, just like animals do. That was until the very end of the Permian. You guessed it - it is mass extinction time! And the end-permian mass extinction is not any silly little mass extinction, it is one of the Big 5. But not only that - it was the worst one in the history of our planet. Worse than all the ones that came before and after it (although we as a species are working very hard to make the current extinction event maybe even worse, which is terrifying). It was way worse than the one that killed the dinosaurs. The End-Permian Mass Extinction was so bad, it is referred to as “The Great Dying“: Depending on the source, between 75-95% of life disappeared.

The reason was most likely vulcanism. It wasn‘t the cute “covering Pompeii under a layer of ashes“-vulcanism though. It wasn‘t even the “Indonesian eruption causes a Year Without Summer even all the way over in Europe and leads to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein“-vulcanism. It was lava fields that covered an area bigger than India. All kinds of toxic gases were released, but the deadliest of them all was CO2. Millions of tons got into the atmosphere and, much like today, caused an extreme increase in temperature, maybe up to 8° C. All of this didn‘t happened over night - but rather during a couple 10,000 years, but it still happened way to fast for most animals to cope with it.

At this point, approximately 250 million years ago, after we saw the weird creatures of the Cambrian, the first plants taking to the lands, shortly followed by insects and other arthropods, after fish crawled out of the waters and our synapsid-cousins started to rule the earth - after all of that, the Paleozoic Era ends.

It‘s almost a bit depressing. But don‘t worry: The life on our planet is resilient. It will bounce back. The Mesozoic has just begun and it too will be filled with many fascinating creatures.

(PS: all my sources are just straight up wikipedia. I know that‘s not a great source but it‘s not like I‘m writing a peer reviewed paper or something)

[tysonfurybattlepass]

Heard you were looking for some anon hate, so here's some that I've thought about over the past few years 😉

Your art is pure garbage. Your shading is so basic and yet it looks worse than the drawings on wikihow articles, and your colors are an abhorrent mix that looks like neon puke. Literally one of the first tips beginner artists get is "don't use the airbrush". And what do you do? Airbrush the fuck out of your markings and shading! Your older anatomy and character designs were far more superior while the newer ones are a bastardized version of their former glory days. I'm younger than you and I can actually paint and pick good colors lmao

You haven't improved at all in 5 years. You actually got worse! You're drawing the same snarling cat 20 times a month instead of working on your backgrounds, shading, anatomy and compositions, and their jaws still look crooked with displaced teeth Every. Single. Time! I wonder how strong their bite force is when the lower jaw is at a 45° angle from the upper one?

All your characters look crazy and deranged and like absolute psychopaths. It's not a good look for your "brand" <3 And their torso takes up 90% of their body. How are they supposed to be strong beasts when their stumpy legs can barely hold the weight of your bad stylization? And you call that an improvement instead of godawful anatomy!

And then, and then!! Y're constantly making new characters, drawing them a bunch and forgetting about them! Algernon, Jarith, Lucia, Geneph, Xiaoya, Bailey, Jicama, Utah, Felin, Civen, Afryea, Thyodore,.Tyson (Aster's pet Inostrancevia), Donnie... And you have even more that you haven't even posted about? How does it feel to know that someone knows your characters more than YOU do? Talk about being an irresponsible artist

You're not even creative enough. "Here's a species that looks exactly like a cat but trust me guys it's not a cat, see? it has two extra arms!" "Here are 20 smilodons that are yellow-brown and have spots, but I love all of them and can differentiate between them!!" "Here's a leopard seal who's bigger than the natural ones and is a made-up species (who's supposed to be part bear and I definetely didnt forget about that) even though nothing is different between her and a regular anthro seal!!!"

I hope you give up on art. It won't take you anywhere in life, just like your autistic interest in paleontology won't help you. You didn't even get a superior education, so it's clear you'll live your life working minimum wage jobs because you're not qualified to do anything better. You’re lazy as fuck and you have no excuse for how weak you are.

You say you have 1000 followers but you barely pass 10 notes on your art and even less on your vents, and whenever you demand people to send you asks daily, nobody says anything. So not even your followers like you. They're just observing your every move and are laughing at your pain. The only thing you're good at is being daily entertainment for me and hundreds of others like me.

All your "female" characters loook like males regardless of what they identify as. It's as if you're incapable of drawing women.

Hooray for making all your best characters trans since you seem to be allergic to normal people. I'm glad you confessed that you support the mutilation of middle schoolers / transing gender non-comforming females (Azure).

You call yourself a "he/they" but you're still competing in the women's category cuz you know you wouldn't last in a fight against real men. You're such a failure that even your step father calls you his daughter publicly. (Your parents surely are disappointed in what you've become. I wouldn't be surprised if you were the reason for their divorce)

Only a few years back you were a proud tomboy girl, but I guess you hate yourself so much that you project your self-misogyny through self-identification and an atrocious art style.

You even chose the name “Tyson”, like that troon Chris Tyson. Considering the recent controversy, that’s what people will associate with your name, not whoever “Tyson Fury” is, and truthfully you deserve it.

You're so fragile being called a girl when you look, sound and act like one. Girl. Woman. Female. Dike. Lass. Lady. She. Wahine. Kaikamahine. Did this make you cry some pathetic manly tears? 100% sure you look like the soyjak in the soyjak vs chad meme right now. Can’t wait to read your breakdown on tumblr, if you’re not going to outright delete every account you have to escape me

Typical white girl starving for attention online behavior lmao.

You boast that you are "hot" but you are objectively ugly, not even mid. Your undercut is shit and your face is so damn bland. Your fursona is strong and beefy but you have a thin female body with stick arms and visible breasts. Talk about projection and an inflated ego. You're oozing with narcissism, and I wouldn't be surprised if you got diagnosed with it. It would 100% suit you.

Your "girlfriends" are still lesbian women, but you’re not one? “Transmasc butch lesbian” my ass, you absolute pooner. It’s not that hard to be a regular woman. Pretty sure you're not even dating them, you're just friends who haven't even held hands. And you’re still a virgin lmao. No bitches? 🥺 And you have not one, but two, because you're insecure in your feelings and can't commit to only one person since you need that external validation. I'm sure they're cheating behind your back because they know you wouldn't check on them.

I hope your sleep apnea kills you in your sleep. You deserve it.

L + ratio + you’re a loser + cope and seethe

Don't bother blocking and reporting me, I said all I had to say, I don't plan on interacting with you anymore and I don't have this level of hatred against anyone else.

Now, have I stalked your accounts until their beginning, or have I followed you for a really long time? Or a secret third thing (I stalked you for a really long time)?

the color thing is true but you should get a job

[herebecritters]

Can I just say that you have a very neat looking sona? :)

Thank you! I draw myself as one of my favorite animals that ever lived. Gorgonopsid Inostrancevia! A late Permian therapsid that lived and died out long before the dinosaurs and one if the largest of the gorgonopsians.

Science hour with herbecritters!

Amniotes, land animals that arose in the Devonian period, characterized by being able to form fetal tissue known as an amniote (essentially animals that develop an egg within a uterus). These amniotes split off into two groups, the sauropsids (birds and other reptiles) and the synapsids (mammals and their now extinct relatives), therapsids were one of the synapsid lineages that came about in the Permian period 298 million years ago. Synapsids, like you, me, the gorgonopsids, and all mammals alive today, have a single temporal fenestra behind the eye socket, whereas sauropsids have either two (the diapsids) or none (the anapsids). Diapsids contain all birds and reptiles alive today, anapsids contain extinct organisms though there is some debate as to whether turtles are considered from the diapsid lineage or the anapsid lineage (it confuses me too, but I honestly haven’t studied turtles enough to have a valuable opinion on it).

Anyways, therapsids are really cool and I love them! It’s thanks to the few little therapsids known as the cynodonts that survived the end-Permian extinction (the greatest mass extinction in earths history, also known as The Great Dying) and branched off into true mammals throughout the Mesozoic that you and I exist today.

[furby-illusia]

random toy posting again. i love gorgonopsids, but they're VERY under-represented in the animal figure world - so much so that the 2011 wild safari inostrancevia is one of the few there is and it's apparently very sought after AND therefore way out of my budget. however, i learned there's a morerecent and more affordable schleich dinogorgon and just bought one off of ebay! my dog's vet bills were a couple of hundred euros less than i was afraid so i guess i had to throw that money somewhere because i apparently can't just, erm... be.

dimetrodon is cool and all, but....... you know give the other permian synapsids some attention..... anyway thanks schleich and ebay

[gatorbeast]

can we get some facts about the skrungy grimley

(if i remember correctly i drew him!! it’s nice to see it in arg form)

YOU DID I REMEMBER!! his design got a little modified for this

facts abt him

- he’s my favorite. he’s the main protag and actually what started this whole idea. also he’s based on me and is kind of a sona

- he is just a complete beast. he eats anything he sees.

- his apartment is completely trashed. he has a tire hung from the ceiling that he uses as a chew toy.

- he’s a big boy. 7’3”

- early 20s, transmasc nb, pan, adhd, enfp

- his aspect is an extinct animal called inostrancevia! it’s a kind of gorgonopsid, which is a group of animals which were kinda the transitional form between reptiles and mammals

- i don’t think he actually knows this though. if someone asks what his aspect is he just goes “idk bro LOL i’m a beast”

- he gets the predator zoomies and gets someone to drive an RC car around in the woods at night every week or two so he can run on all fours and chase it and get his ridiculous prey drive urge out

- makes “deez nuts” and “your mom” and “that’s what she said” jokes every five minutes

- thinks sex jokes are the funniest highest form of humor ever

- loud as hell and has an annoying laugh

- his perfect canon voice is jason mantzoukas

- probably eats raw meat

- jock as hell

- colorblind

- owns a lot of novelty joke trucker dad hats. most of the jokes involved are related to sex, fishing, or both

- his mouth is ridiculously huge. it defies physics and can just be big asf

- he works at the lost and founds equivalent of a 7/11 and hits on all the customers. he’s convinced he’s a womanizer and is ridiculously thirsty to take anyone home. he flirts with anything that moves

- he has an insanely good sense of smell

- he’s just naked all the time. it’s like rigby from regular shows logic, no one really cares

- if he DOES wear clothes, it’s this old beat-up red letterman jacket his dad gave him

- he has a gallon jug of mysterious fluid labeled in sharpie “GRIMLEYS SHAMPOO”. he uses it for soap, toothpaste, lighter fluid, car cleaner, you name it. no one knows what it is

- the living embodiment of that one meme “what’s your personality type? mine is intj :)” “he/him ❤️ can you pop a titty for me”

- just so, so, dumb. big ol himbo

- responds very well to positive enforcement

- very sweaty

- also very touchy. physical touch is his love language. if you’re his friend, there’s a lot of big bear hugs, back rides, and headbutting in store for you

- he’s gross ok he is so grimy and greasy and needs to be hosed down. he drowns his dirt in men’s cologne and it does not work well

[majingojira]

Brief Review of Every Dinosaur/Prehistoric Documentary/Educational Short I’ve ever seen (1923-1996).

And thanks to a certain project, I’ve seen a LOT! 

Evolution (1923) - This is the oldest of the bunch, a silent film.  Mostly it uses modern animals to represent ancient forms, with a few statues and brief animated bits to fill things out. The only real highlight?  Seeing where some of the “film real” segment from Gigantis the Fire Monster comes from! 

Monsters from the Past (1923) - A short documentary with original stop motion (this was pre-The Lost World, so that’s to be expected).  Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, and Brontosaurus are the key creatures. Included as an extra on the second DVD release of The Lost World. 

Prehistoric Animals (1938) - Reuses footage from The Lost World (1925) for its prehistoric segments. This will not be the last time it happens. 

Prehistoric Times: The World Before Man (1952) - This thing is so quintessentially 1950s, it’s highly riff-able.  It uses a mix of paintings, sculptures and some live animals to represent prehistoric life.  

A World Is Born (1955) - Ya know what Fantasia needed?  Overbearing Narration! That’s it.  That’s what this documentary is.  I saw this thing rebroadcast in the 90s on the Disney Channel, believe it or not. 

The Animal World (1956) - Ray Harryhausen.  Willis O’Brian. Their stop motion segment is the ONLY notable part of this documentary.  This is also the only part that has seen some release in modern times, as a bonus feature on the DVD of The Black Scorpion.  

Prehistoric Animals of the Tar Pits (1956) - Black and white, but also quintessentially 50s and riff-able.  Aside from the bones, it shows some wooden models to represent the animals. 

Journey into Time (1960) - Fantasia this is not, but it TRIES to be.  Lord it tries.  Or, rather, there’s a Fantasia-adjacent thing elsewhere which does the same thing.  Has some unique choices for animals to represent, including showing Permian forms like Scutusaurus and Inostrancevia. 

Dem Dry Bones: Archaeology, Paleontology, Identification, and Preservation (1966) - This was a lucky find, it was on Youtube for half a second.  And not worth digging out, really.  Stuffy, dry, and mildly condescending.  It was still interesting looking at the dinosaur hall of the Smithsonian back in the 1950s. 

Dinosaurs - The Terrible Lizard (1970) - The stop motion here is pretty neat, if slow and plodding, it’s refreshing after all this crap. The puppets for many of these would later be re-used for The Land of the Lost.  Including Grumpy, Alice, and Spot. 

NOVA: The Hot-Blooded Dinosaurs (1977) - Robert Bakker’s first appearance in a documentary.  HE HAS SUCH LONG HAIR!  Not bad, a little dry, with National Geographic titles.  It reminds me of 1990s documentaries, just so show how long it’s taken for various ideas to filter down.  Currently, it’s available on Archive.org. 

Dinosaurs: A First Film (1978) - The art style for this half-animated 70s abomination makes identifying various prehistoric animals almost impossible.  Almost painful to sit through. Stops with the Dinosaurs. 

Dinosaurs: The Age of the Terrible Lizards (1978) - Similar to the above, but available from Rifftrax, so much more watchable.  Also, it’s actually animated!

Dinosaur (1980) - Wil Vinton Claymation with Dinosaurs.  A few edits of this exist, the latter works a bit better, but the original is interesting to track down. Most of the edits are audio only, so you aren’t missing anything.  The dinosaur sin this are top notch for color and design.  They even have Corythosaurus and Tyrannosaurus not dragging their tails! 

Cosmos (1980) - the animated segment covering Evolution is still wonderful if only for the narration from Carl Sagan. 

The Age of Mammals (1981) - A follow up of sorts to Dinosaurs: The Age of Reptiles.  Decent stop motion if a little slow.  Decent variety for the time. 

64,000,000 Years Ago (1981) - A solid stop motion short film.  Still worth checking out for stop motion fans.  Available on Youtube legally! 

Dinosaurs: Fun, Facts, and Fantasy (1981) - Nostalgic for some, but aimed at a rather young audience.  Some interesting stop motion bits in here too... if awkward in that way British stop motion can be outside Aardman Studios. 

Reading Rainbow “Digging up Dinosaurs” (1983) - Definitely nostalgic for me.  Besides, it’s Reading Rainbow!  And opens with a clip from One Million Years B.C.!  What’s not to love?

Prehistoric Beast (1984) - One of the best stop motion shorts on this list.  Included because it INSPIRED a documentary from it.  Phil Tippett firing on all cylinders.  Well worth watching.  And he uploaded it on Youtube himself! 

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs (1985), More Dinosaurs (1985), Son of Dinosaur (1988),  Prehistoric World (1993) - Gary Owens and Eric Boardman have a series of documentaries on dinosaurs and prehistoric life.  The presenters are what really make these work. Colorful, fun, and yes, silly, these still hold a nostalgic gleam for people like me.  The last one has Dougal Dixon talk about his After Man speculations.  Fun times. 

Dinosaur! (1985) - Hosted by Christopher Reeve, this is one of the best documentaries of its time.  Reeves loved dinosaurs and was happy to work on this project with Phil Tippet behind the animation.  Covers a lot in its hour long format, and well worth watching.  Do you know how good this special was?  When Reeve died in 2004, the Discovery Channel (or similar station) re-aired this thing as a tribute.  It holds up that well! 

Tell Me Why: Pre-Historic Animals, Reptiles and Amphibians (1986) - This is something I had when I was a little kid.  Dry, straight forward, a “Video Babysitter” at it’s best. It consists of a narrator while looking at pictures of the Invicta Dinosaur Toys that were also on the poster. 

Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time (1987) - Wil Vinton’s Dinosaurs! tied with a short setup/framing device with the kid from the Wonder Years involving a low-animation music video (this was the MTV age) and a guide through art from various dinosaur books from the 1950s through the 1980s.  Rather meh, but Wil Vinton is why we are here.  This was the only way to get Wil Vinton’s short back in the day, and is the version of the short shown in Museums like The Academy of Natural Sciences.  

Digging Dinosaurs (PBS-WHYY) (1988) - Something I managed to record of TV back in the day, though not much of it, about the uncovering and preparation of Avaceratops. Bone Dry. 

Maia: A Dinosaur Grows Up (1988) - A VHS version of the picture book, with narration and the whole spiel.  Actually not to bad for what it is, but it is what it is.  The art for that book is rather wonderful. 

Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives (1988) - David.  Attenburrough. Need I say more?  Not one of his best, but still wonderful. Hard to track down.  

Dinosaurs (1989) - From the Smithsonian Institute, one of the video followups sold in various museums (I have one from the Royal Tyrell, but haven’t been able to track it down).  Not great, but I’ve seen worse. 

Infinite Voyage: The Great Dinosaur Hunt (1989) - A rather dry documentary, but one I find extremely relaxing and calming.  Very nostalgic for me.  But still dry. 

Vestie Video Sitter: Dinosaurs (1989) - This is for babies. It hurt to watch. 

In November, 1990, Jurassic Park (novel) was released, and thus began the great shift. 

In Search of the Dragon: The Great Dinosaur Hunt of the Century (1991) - a.k.a. The Dinosaur Project, The Great Dinosaur Hunt, The Hunt for China’s Dinosaurs.  Edited into a 1 hour NOVA special from a nearly two hour documentary, all about the joint Canadian/Chinese Gobi Desert Expedition in the 1980s that gave us Mamenchisaurus among many other species.  With another stop in the Arctic for good measure.  Some good stop motion and pencil animation for Troodon round this one out. 

A&E’s Dinosuar! (1991) - There’s so many things named “Dinosaur” that I have to specify.  Hosted by Walter Cronkite, this is rather dry, but still entertaining documentary series has some nightmare-fuel puppet-work.  The ‘sad’ music gets caught in my head sometimes when I think about it.  It is 4 episodes long.  “The Tale of a Tooth”, “The Tale of a Bone”, “The Tale of an Egg”, and “The Tale of a Feather”

T. Rex: Exposed (1991) - a Nova Documentary on T. Rex.  Not too bad overall, focusing on the Wrankle Rex unearthing. Parts of it are available on Youtube, but not all of it.  

The Case of the Flying Dinosaur (1991) - the third in the “NOVA” 91 trilogy, this covers the bird-dinosaur connection as it was still contentious at the time. 

PBS’ The Dinosaurs! (1992) - A gold standard for documentaries on dinosaurs. The hand drawn animation with colored pencil style still hold up today. The narrator has a bit of an accent and pronounces “Dinosaur” oddly, but that is the only complaint I can really give. It has 4 episodes: “The Monsters Emerge”, “Flesh on the Bones”, “The Nature of the Beast”, “Death of the Dinosaurs.”

Muttaburrasaurus: Life in Gondwana (1993) - A half-hour short about dinosuars and mesozoic life in Australia. Solid stop motion animation. Australian Accents makes it fun to listen too.

NOVA: The Real Jurassic Park (1993) - Jeff Goldblum narrates this bit of scientists going on about “But what if we really did it?” Quite fun, lotta fun details the movies and even the books didn’t get into. My favorite bit had Robert Bakker talking to a game keeper at the Rockefeller Refuge in a Louisiana Cypress Swamp about what could happen if they kept a few dinosaur there (Edmontosaurus, Triceratops, and T. Rex).  Namely, he talks about housing ‘about a thousand” Edmontosaurs on the 86K acre facility, with 2 or 3 mated pairs of Rexes.  It’s fun getting numbers like that. 

Bill Nye the Science Guy “Dinosaurs” (1993) - BILL! BILL! BILL! BILL! BILL!  Not a bad kids entry for documentaries. Available from Netflix. 

Paleoworld (1994-1997) - Running originally for 4 years, and being revamps once along the way, this rather dry, “Zoom in on paleoart” style of documentary was a good holdover for bigger things, and covered some pretty niche topics.  Much of the later version has been uploaded to youtube. 

Dinosaur Digs: A Fossil Finders Tour (1994), Dinosaurs: Next Exit (1994) - These films hurt me.  They hurt me so much.  I’ve seen some painful things, but these are hour long tour advertisements for road trips with annoyingly earworms.  Available on youtube, but I ain’t linking anything! 

Eyewitness: Dinosaur (1994) - Not a bad documentary, but I still hold a grudge on it for replacing Wil Vinton’s work at my local museum! Still, it is narrated by Martin Sheen. The clip selection is wide and varied, but we’re still getting The Lost World (1925) footage. 

Planet of Life (1995) - This documentary series is rather dry, but boasts some interesting coverage of topics.  Though some of it’s conclusions regarding dinosaurs are... not great.  Still, the episode “Ancient Oceans” is a favorite of mine. 

Once Upon Australia (1995) - The bests stop motion documentary on Australia’s prehistory. Has some humor to is, and Australian fauna that it does cover is solid.  Though finding out how one of the animals is spelled, ( Ngapakaldia) drove me nuts for literally decades. 

Dinosaurs: Myths and Reality (1995) - Like a little more polished episode of Paleoworld, with a lighter-voiced narration, this covers common myths about dinosaurs. Overall, a Meh.  But it has a LOT of movie clips. Which makes sense given it was funded by the Disney Channel! 

The Ultimate Guide: T. Rex (1995) - The Ultimate Guide series of docs were overall rather solid, as was the Tyrannosaurus one.  Stop Motion animation along with puppets and some minor CG help round out the normal talking heads and skeleton mounts.  Along with a solid narrator, it has a real mood to it.  

The Magic School Bus “The Busasaurus” (1995) - The original Magic School Bus was a solid series, and their episode on Dinosaurs bucks trends even the reboot didn’t cover.  The core thrust here wasn’t just dinosaur information, but the idea that Dinosaurs were not Monsters, but animals.  And they conveyed it in a unique way.  

I may do more of these mini-reviews, but there are a LOT of documentaries post The Lost World: Jurassic Park that don’t have as much easy access.  Like, I’ve seen them, but digging out links/citing places to watch them is a lot harder. 

[palaeoplushies]

The Inostrancevia alexandri plush from Hansa should be with me soon. I've just made a pre-order listing on my website so you can get one as soon as they arrive: http://www.palaeoplushies.com/product/pre-order-inostrancevia-alexandri I wasn’t expecting these guys for another month, so them being ready earlier is both a blessing and a curse- I get them earlier, but I currently don’t have all the funds I need set aside to pay the last part of the invoice. I’ve opened pre-orders to help with this and if I don’t get enough to cover it in the next few days I’ll be borrowing some money from my family to make sure they’re here by the end of the month. If you’d like one of these fellas I’d really appreciate the pre-order to help things along quicker! Palaeoplushies.com is proud to be the first in the UK to stock this lovely Inostrancevia alexandri plush by Hansa. I have always been a fan of Hansa's plushies and their quality and detail were a huge inspiration to me! If this product does well, expect to see more of Hansa's more unusual (and hard to get) plushies stocked here! Plush Details: Length - 45cm Width - 13cm Height - 24cm Inostrancevia alexandri was one of the largest Gorgonopsids with specimens found up to 3.5m. Their upper sabre-like canine teeth could reach 15cm in length. They inhabited northern Russia during the Wuchiapingian stage of the Late Permian.

[tysonfurybattlepass]

sabercat genera whose teeth probably stuck out when their mouths were closed:

-megantereon

-smilodon

sabercat genera whose teeth probably did NOT stick out when their mouths were closed

-promegantereon

-machairodus

-amphimachairodus

-paramachairodus

-homotherium

-dinofelis

-xenosmilus

-lokotunjailurus

-literally most of them that aren’t classified as “dirk-toothed cats”

genera whose teeth probably stuck out when their mouths were closed but are NOT sabercats (or cats at all)

-afrosmilus(?)

-albanosmilus(?)

-barbourofelis

-hoplophoneus

-thylacosmilus (sparassodont. on thin fucking ice.)

-inostrancevia (hey you’re not even a mammal who let you in-)

(?)- these two are barbourofelids so it’s reasonable to assume that their dental morphology resembled barbourofelis itself but for the love of god i CANNOT find a single goddamn publicly available image or description of a specimen assigned to either of these taxa please fucking help me

incomplete list but thanks for coming to my ted talk

[tysonfurybattlepass]

This is one-weird-mammal-a-day, I LOVE your character! So perfect! I’d love to see your leopard seal and gorgonopsid, those are some of my favorites! My header image is one c:

omg thank you so much🥺 i love weird mammals so much. your blog always makes my day

this is kali, my sea leopard/otter/crocodilian/polar bear thing.

she’s still got functional legs and paws but she’s not exactly graceful on solid ground, lol. she’s also almost twelve feet long even without her croc rudder-tail!

this is tyson, my inostrancevia alexandri! i tried to model his coloring off of a golden tiger morph, but i made the oranges too bright here :/ i’ll probably do a better one soon. he’s about the same size as kali but much, much faster on his feet.