iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

more croc news?! a warm welcome to ctenosuchus tenuidens, a new thalattosuchian described from middle jurassic morocco 🐊 described by imran et al. from a partial skull and scant postcrania, c. tenuidens is recovered as a teleosaurid www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (art by nathan dehaut)

art depicting ctenosuchus, a long-snouted marine crocodylomorph, lounging in shallow water with a dragonfly perched on its snout

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

a warm welcome to sinojapyx giganteus, a dipluran hexapod from from mid-late jurassic yanliao biota of china 🐛 sinojapyx is the earliest-known dipluran in the fossil record, and at over 5cm long, wang et al. note that it is gigantic compared to its modern relatives (art by jie sun)

the sinojapyx holotype, which appears to be a complete body fossil

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

a warm welcome to herugavialis cairensis, a gavialoid from middle eocene egypt 🐊 originally described as a species of tomistoma, h. cairensis is redescribed by burke et al. as an early-diverging gavialoid in an #openaccess paper royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article... (art by adel lee)

a reconstruction of herugavialis in a shallow marine environment

the holotype of herugavialis, a somewhat squished and damaged skull missing the lower jaws

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

a male cotylorhynchus proudly displays his nest of garbage as he issues a booming mating call. no doubt the ladies will soon be fighting for his attention #prehistorickingdom

a screenshot from prehistoric kingdom showing a workshop model by JAR of cotylorhynchus next to a nest made of garbage in a temperate/boreal landscape, the ground is mostly covered by leaf litter and there are rock formations in the distance. there is another faux cotylorhynchus behind the main one

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

new banner 🥰 thanks to luci257 on the #prehistorickingdom discord server

a cute screenshot of diictodon sleeping amidst a field of white italian strawflowers

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

happy #fossilfriday! this is fuxianhuia, a stem-arthropod from early cambrian china. a 2018 paper by fu et al. suggests that fuxianhuia engaged in extended parental care, making it possibly the earliest example of such behaviour in the fossil record (art by dongjing fu)

the stem-arthropod fuxianhuia on the seabed surrounded by its young

a complete fossil of an adult fuxianhuia

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

by the way! i saw the hybrid mallard x muscovy duck pair yesterday, first time i've bumped into them since spring 🦆 @beeronicca.bsky.social the genius has named them sarah and jimothy

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

also holy shit i got a community spotlight!!!!!!!!!!

a screenshot from the prehistoric kingdom dev diary showing a screenshot i took of a lakeside cafe overlooking some tiktaalik vivaria hidden in the water

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

and here is the beautiful press release art by the inimitable zhao chuang!

art of a four-winged dromaeosaur - norellraptor - with colouration similar to a magpie

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

🚨NEW MICRORAPTORINE🚨 a warm welcome to norellraptor barsboldi, a new microraptorine described from the early cretaceous jiufotang formation of china 🐉 named after the late mark norell and richard barsbold, norellraptor's holotype is a complete skeleton preserving feather impressions

several images of elements of the norellraptor holotype

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

a warm welcome to tenuicruris piscanexum, an enantiornithean bird from early cretaceous australia 🌏 tenuicrusis is described in an #openaccess study by white et al. based on a tibiotarsus (art by travis teller) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

art depicting a life reconstruction of tenuicruris

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

i remember a while ago @dragonsofwales.bsky.social painted a sauropod with a prominent proboscis so we have the trifecta of speculative sauropod soft tissues

a speculative portrait of the sauropod dreadnoughtus that features a prominent, bulbous proboscis kind of vaguely similar to an elephant seal

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

a fascinating #openaccess preprint by gobbo et al. suggests that the famous morrison formation sauropod camarasaurus had a beak! (art by fabio manucci) preprints.arphahub.com/article/2164...

Life reconstruction by Fabio Manucci depicting two Camarasaurus individuals in their natural environment.

In vivo reconstructions and morphological characterization of the odontoscutum in Camarasaurus in lateral and frontal views, depicting both open- and closed-mouth configurations.

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"birds of prey have dull plumage" the humble laughing falcon:

a photograph of a laughing falcon, a small falcon strikingly plumaged with a bold black 'mask' across the face and dark brown wings contrasted against a creamy-buff chest, throat, underside, and crown. the bird has a grey beak with yellow cere, and pale legs, as well as a black and white banded tail

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

a bit diabolical not to use subgenera for this cladogram i gotta say

a giant cladogram of all the varanus species, extinct and extant

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

accidentally took too many anti-depressants yesterday so this was the vibe until like 5am

image of dolphins jumping for joy in the ocean with a rainbow in the background

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

prehistoric kingdom is kinda the only game that exists for me rn lol

a screenshot from the game prehistoric kingdom showing a first-person POV shot looking over a lake where a leucistic spinosaurus is swimming; in the bbackground is another, taller viewing gallery to look at the animals. there is a lot of wetland vegetation i.e. mangroves on and around the lake

another screenshot - sans spinosaurus - of the same enclosure, from another angle that shows an island in the lake decorated with a fish feeder, faux ribcage, and vegetation. in the background a large mostly concrete shelter can be seen

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

the precise dating of the manda beds has long been a subject of debate; traditionally considered anisian in age, new evidence increasingly supports a younger age, ranging between the ladinian and carnian stages of the late triassic

a figure from the paper showing the traditional equivalency of the age of the manda beds, compared to newer data that suggests the deposits are younger

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

a warm welcome to dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, a new dicynodont species described from the middle-late triassic manda beds of tanzania 😍 described by george et al. based on a skull and partial postcrania, d. isiyavamanda is the first species of dinodontosaurus found outside of south america!

art by gabriel ugueto depicting a pair of dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

a belated warm welcome to mandrasuchus 🐊 this alligator is described from the early paleocene corral bluffs site in colorado by lessner et al., and was likely only 2m long when fully grown, comparable to some of the smallest living crocodilians (art by andrey atuchin)

art of mandrasuchus in a swampy environment crunching down on a crustacean

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

kayrasaurus is recovered as an early-diverging therizinosaurian, falling just outside of therizinosauroidea; like its contemporary beipiaosaurus, the holotype was not fully grown when it died, though it is the largest therizinosaurian known from the yixian formation at this time

a cladogram showing the phylogenetic position of kayrasaurus within therizinosauria

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

🚨THERIZINOSAUR NEWS🚨 an incredible study by liao et al. describes kayrasaurus changliensis from the early cretaceous yixian formation of china! the holotype is almost complete, missing only a few hand bones as well as the legs, offering valuable insight into its biology 😍 (art by kohei futaka)

art depicting the newly described kayrasaurus alongside other therizinosaurians from the yixian formation, including beipiaosaurus, jianchangosaurus, and lingyuanosaurus

a skeletal diagram showing the known material from kayrasaurus

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

i propose calling chasmaporthetes the cheetah hyena :3

a full skeleton of chasmaporthetes progressus at the hezheng paleozoological museum; chasmaporthetes was a long-legged, cursorial hyena that lived throughout eurasia, africa, and north america during the pliocene and pleistocene epochs

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

park lake cygnet update: they've started moulting! their mother still dislikes me and i respect that

two large cygnets; they are starting to moult their greyish-brown juvenile plumage

a mother swan leading her cygnets across some grass; she is side-eyeing the photographer (me)

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

it's been 90 years since we lost them forever 💔 extinction is irreversible, and the thylacine's legacy reminds us of the importance of protecting vulnerable and endangered animals still with us today

a colourised photo of the last captive thylacine - this individual has been nicknamed 'benjamin' by pop culture, but was in fact a female, and we don't know what her name was

another colourised photo of the last captive thylacine

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

while other #prehistorickingdom players gush over the beautiful feathered baryonyx, catch me losing my mind over mud walls and riverbanks

a preview still of three cave bears standing on a rooted dried up riverbank, surrounded by dead logs, stumps, and what look like placeable leaf litters pieces

an allosaurus jimmadseni strikes a menacing pose, dipping its toes in water next to a riverbank

a mammoth exhibit featuring a waterfall backed by light-coloured mud walls

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

this is what happens when you stop petting my buster

a beige brown-eyed american bulldog gazing plaintively at me with his chin resting on my wrist

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

"convergence between therocephalians and cynodonts"

two still from the US version of the office. in the first, two identical photos of a building are presented, and dialogue says "corporate needs you to find the differences between this picture and this picture." in the second image, the character pam replies, "they're the same picture."

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

happy #fossilfriday! this is asaphus, a trilobite from ordovician europe. the species a. kowalewskii – featured in the images below – is famous for its long eyestalks, which allowed them to see even if the rest of their body was covered by debris on the seabed (art by @mariolanzas.bsky.social)

art of asaphus kowalewskii, a middle ordovician trilobite with very long eyestalks

a fossil of asaphus kowalewskii at the chicago field museum

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

an interesting new study by gaetano et al. suggests that the triassic probainognathian cynodont chiniquodon gave birth to live young, challenging the idea that mammaliaformes were ancestrally oviparous, as inferred from monotremes www.frontiersin.org/journals/mam...

art by maría de los angeles miceli baro depicting three chiniquodon moothers with large, well-developed pups

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

happy international cat day, luna is truly one of the best to ever do it

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Claude ✡️🦖🦕 @cascoclauda.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

another new delightfully silly galeaspid has been named 🐟 bataspis crux originates from the early devonian of china, and is described by meng et al. in an #openaccess paper, linked below onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... (art by dinghua yang)

artistic depiction of bataspis, a jawless fish that very vaguely resembles a manta ray, fleeing the pincers of a eurypterid (also known as a sea scorpion, though they are not scorpions)

the holotype of bataspis, an incomplete skull

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