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And that thing when every new extinct dinosaurs species is 'cousin of T. rex' if it's theropod or 'food of T. rex' if it's a herbivore

Early birds: new study reveals when birds of a feather appeared altogether

Exhaustive global analysis finds avian ancestors first appeared within 5 million years of dinosaur extinction.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3257729/early-birds-sweeping-new-study-reveals-when-birds-feather-appeared-altogether

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Okay so I bought a GR Toys Spinosaurus back in 2020 [this one, but the green version] fron an online store I had never used before but after Googling it it seemed trustworthy - I didn't find any reviews or forum posts that said it's a scam site. Aaaaaand then after waiting for a really long time the Spinosaurus never arrived. Ugh, I tried to be careful and still got scammed, I thought. Ended up buying that figure from a different online store I had used a couple of times before. So at least I was able to get that Spino figure, even though I had to pay for it twice and got only one figure.

But guess what happened today! A parcel from that original store I used was delivered to me and there was the new release of the green GR Toys Spinosaurus! Honestly I'm not even mad I had to wait so long since the original green Spino and new green Spino are slightly different in colouration so they will look very nice together in photos - if they were identical it would look a bit weird. And I didn't even think about buying the new release because it's just a repaint of a figure I already own but now I'm happy it was sent to me.

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drawing i did of the yule Deinonychus skin from Prior Extinction! it’s one of my favs haha

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A fish-eye view of a group of sauropods making their way through the Morrison. By Julius Csotonyi

The blog Archosaur Musings has a very (and I mean very) interesting article in which Dave Hone and Julius Csotonyi talk about how this exceptional piece was conceived. If you are interested in paleoart, you want to read it here and then take another good look at the painting in full size.

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The hunter from down under, Australovenator

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Therizinosaurus maleev

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TIL that there's an '80s movie where they portrayed Smilodon by sticking actual fake teeth onto actual live lions.

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The mancallines were a lineage of flightless semi-aquatic birds closely related to auks. Known from the Pacific coasts of what are now California and Mexico, between about 7.5 and 0.5 million years ago, they convergently evolved a close resemblance and similar lifestyle to both the recently-extinct North Atlantic great auk and the southern penguins.

Miomancalla howardi here lived in offshore waters around southern California during the late Miocene (~7-5 million years ago). The largest of the mancallines, it just slightly beat out the great auk in size – standing around 90cm tall (~3') and weighing an estimated 5kg (11lbs).

Like great auks and penguins it would have been a specialized wing-propelled diver, swimming using "underwater flight" to feed on small bait fish. It probably spent much of its life out at sea, probably only returning to land to molt and breed.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

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A couple of Anchisaurus polyzelus being extra romantic on an Early Jurassic Valentine’s day🌹

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Hey! Since theres a ton of people deciding to post here again I figured I might as well update w a shitload of paleoart I’ve done recently lol. Genus names are in the alt text. 

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[ Life reconstruction of Macrocollum itaquii by Márcio L. Castro. ]

"The missing link has just been found, bridging the gap between the earliest dinosaurs, which varied significantly in size from mere centimeters to a maximum of 3 meters, and more recent giants that could be more than twice the length of a bus and have so much appeal to the popular imagination. Macrocollum itaquii, which was discovered in the region of Agudo in the Rio Grande do Sul state of South Brazil and dates back 225 million years, is the most ancient dinosaur known to have structures referred to as air sacs. These bone cavities, which persist in present-day birds, enabled dinosaurs to capture more oxygen, keep their bodies cool, and withstand the harsh conditions of their era. They also helped some become giants: Tyrannosaurus rex and Brachiosaurus, for example. An article on the study that led to the discovery was published in the journal Anatomical Record. Two of its authors are researchers supported by FAPESP at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo state. “Air sacs made their bones less dense, allowing them to grow to more than 30 meters in length,” said Tito Aureliano, first author of the article. The study was conducted as part of his PhD research at the Institute of Geosciences (IG-UNICAMP). “M. itaquii was the largest dinosaur of its time, with a length of about 3 meters. A few million years before then, the largest dinosaurs were about 1 meter long. Air sacs certainly facilitated this increase in size,” Aureliano added."

Read more: "Missing Link Discovered: New Research Sheds Light on How Dinosaurs Became Giants" by the São Paulo Research Foundation.

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Acanthostega

Acanthostega was among the first discovered fossil animals with four recognizable limbs. It is from the Devonian Period of Greenland.

License this stock resource at: https://paleostock.com/resource/acanthostega-stock-photo

Illustration by @paleoart

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Since it's almost that time of year for us, could we get a post on...

The Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido)

Yes absolutely, one of my favorite prairie birds!

Time to start booming!!!

Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido), male, calling on a lek, fully inflated, and fully erect, and on display!, family Phasianidae, order Galliformes, Illinois, USA

Some populations of this bird are endangered or threatened, due to habitat loss and introduced species.

The Attawater's Prairie Chicken subspecies (Coastal Texas Prairie) is endangered, and the Heath Hen subspecies (Coastal NE U.S. Heathlands) is extinct.

photograph by Ryan Sanderson

Males face off on a lek in Yuma, Colorado

photograph by Bryan Calk

Lone male in Yuma, Colorado

photograph by Cristian Hagerlocher

Female in Logan, Kansas

photograph by Zach Millen

Atwatter's hen with chick

via: North American Grouse Partnership

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Here's my YouTube channel

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a typical example of a juvenile turkey vulture perched next to a leucistic adult turkey vulture. leucism is a lack of pigmentation in feathers; it can be throughout the full body, or distributed in patches, like in this bird.

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A team of paleontologists and biologists from Hokkaido University, Hokkaido University Museum, North Carolina State University and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, has uncovered a previously unknown species of dinosaur that appears to have slept in the same position as modern birds. In their paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the group describes where the fossil was found, its condition, and the unique position in which the specimen had folded itself before dying. Until recently, members of the Alvarezsauridae family, a group of small therapods (carnivorous bipedal dinosaurs), were believed to be a kind of flightless bird—now, they are classified as Maniraptoran dinosaurs, a type that is non-avian but is still related to modern birds. In this new study, the researchers found a new species of Alvarezsauridae they have named Jaculinykus yaruui. It translates to "speedy, tiny dragon" and has a lineage with a group that had several bird-like features. The fossil was found at a dig site in Mongolia's Gobi Desert called the Barun Goyot Formation, embedded in rock in a place called Nemegt. The site has yielded a number of dinosaur fossils over the past several years. The newly found fossil has been dated to approximately 71 million years ago. The team describes it as being in very good condition—it is a nearly complete, 3D preserved fossil.

Continue Reading.

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Inktober days 1-4 Ring: Leaellynasaura Mindless: Torvosaurus Bait: Pteranodon and Xiphactinus Freeze: Koolasuchus