iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This is a sacrum (vertebrae that fuse over the hips), from a parrot-mimic raptor dinosaur (caenagnathid, oviraptorosaur). These feathered raptors have quite fragile bones and are consequently quite rare. #dinosaur #dinosaurs #FossilFriday #fossils #SciComm

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Water spout (tornado) hit camp while we were away. Some parts of camp untouched other parts absolutely battered. It came off the lake, knocked over a tree, mauled the north side of camp, smashed its way through a hedge, then blew the metal dumpster across the parking lot!

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Metatarsal & tail vert from our gryposaurus, tibia & lower jaw from a small lambeosaur, & couple of bones from something small and fragile. And there's something way more exciting at the other end of the quarry. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs #publiclands

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

RAPTOR TOOTH: very large tooth from a raptor #dinosaur, Paronychodon. It's been really rainy here for a few days, but we're back in the quarries today and finding new things! Dinosaur Park Fm, 76M yrs old. From US public lands administered by @BLM_MTDKs #FossilFriday

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

#Tyrannosaur tooth of the day. Found by Laura. Dinosaur Park Fm, Montana. #dinosaurs #fossilfriday

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

#Tyrannosaur hand claw? Found 2 hrs ago, live on @Paleontologizin. From US public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. #dinosaur park Fm, 76 million yrs old, Montana. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs. Badlands Dinosaur Museum, Dickinson ND. Loads of good fossils today!

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Big metatarsal from a Gryposaurus skeleton that we're digging up at Jack's bone bed. Lots of cool new bones turning up every day. This is where the raptors and pterosaur skeletons are too. Us public lands BLM #fossilfriday #dinosaurs

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Amanda 3D scanned our existing bones for the reconstruction, then painted the restored parts. I edited and 3D printed the missing parts. Steve and I designed and made the complicated mount.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

kindly donated to Badlands Dinosaur Museum summer 2025 by the Leppart family. Brule Formation, 35 million years old, Oligocene, Dickinson North Dakota. Built in house. 3D scanned using our @Revopoint3d mini2 and printed on our @Phrozen3D mega8k

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

The omnivorous entelodonts are actually more closely related to modern hippos and whales. However they had long striding legs for living on land in the ancient US Great plains. This enormous specimen was found in the 1970s by Gary Leppart, near Dickinson, ND.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

NORTH DAKOTA'S BIGGEST HELL PIG: Our brand new exhibit, a Hell Pig from right here in Dickinson! The past few months we've been piecing this together, and today we got it finished! #fossil #fossils #paleontology #hellpig #entelodont #FossilFriday #NorthDakota #dickinson

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

We still have ours from the old Museum shop. It'll probably get used again in the new shop refit which is quite exciting. Plus we have this big boy.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Excited! I just found out that the FOSSIL BAT jaw my dad found 20 yrs ago was described in 2024! We'd collected macromammals from Boldnor, Isle of Wight (Oligocene) for over a decade, but in 2000, I discovered a rich concentrate of microverts in situ at the top of the beach /1

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Made this nice Compsognathus. Adapted it a bit for our exhibit. Thinking of writing about how Compsognathids are a fake clade created by ontogenetic clustering (Cau's work). Cool stuff. model by Nova. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Entelodonts were large omnivorous mammals that lived from 38-15 million years ago. Although they look a bit like a pig, they're more closely related to whales. We think this specimen belongs to Daeodon, although it could instead be a very large individual of Archaeotherium.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

RECONSTRUCTING A HELL PIG: This really big entelodont snout is possibly the biggest found in North Dakota! To reconstruct it, Amanda laser scanned a smaller skull, then we scaled it up, and 3D printed the missing back half #fossilfriday #scicomm #museums #mammals #fossil

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

This fossil may look small - that's because it's from a salamander, but what a salamander! It's actually very large and surprisingly complete for the late Cretaceous of North America. From US Public lands administered by the BLM. #FossilFriday #fossils #scicomm #salamander #microfossil

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Specimen in the UV photo is Archaeotherium sp., from the historical League collection. Originally found in South Dakota White River Group, 32 million years old. Plus a reminder photo of how MASSIVE the Leppart skull is (AND it's from North Dakota)

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Today, Amanda is 3D scanning our Hell Pig (Entelondont) skull (usually in the lobby display). We're going to use the 3D scan to restore the enormous snout kindly donated 2025 by the Leppart family. Here UV light shows the skull is ~60% real. #FossilFriday #fossils #scicomm

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

BABY DUCKBILL: Steve just finished cleaning this super cute jaw, with rows of tiny teeth! This matches another jaw, femur, and vertebrae that we collected from the same site. A baby dino skeleton is coming out! #fossilfriday #dinosaurs #dinosaur #scicomm #fossils #publiclands

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Stupid tyrannosaurs in a million bits. This is the left side of the snout of Holger, a Daspletosaurus c.f. wilsoni. The skull of Holger, our 2nd completed Dasp site, is currently being restored. From US Public Lands administered by the BLM; Judith River Fm, Montana. #dinosaurs

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

ALSO: Would you be interested in a lab-based volunteer experience? I'm thinking of applying for money to fund a person to run our (new, BIG) lab in the summer so we could have ~5 volunteers prepping dinosaur bones. Not everyone can do fieldwork, so this would make paleo available to more people.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Incidentally, the main photo I chose was taken during lunch, that's why we're all sat around eating. Here's a photo (taken by Dani Barrera) of some work being done at the ankylosaur quarry.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

VOLUNTEER ON A DINOSAUR DIG: We run one of the only free dinosaur digs in the USA. We work public land and the fossils go in our public museum, forever. It's hard work, but we find some cool things. If this sounds like you, we're taking applications. Link in comms. #dinosaurs

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

The specimen (BDM 124) was discovered in 2012 by fossil collectors Brent and Rod Olson on private land in Montana which contains exposures of the Judith River Formation. In 2023, it was donated to the public repository at Badlands Dinosaur Museum, Dickinson ND. /6

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Although rare, cannibalism is documented in modern carnivores, and evidence for cannibalism within tyrannosaurs has been noted before. The new specimen is the first example with a reversed body size discrepancy between the large-bodied carcass and small-bodied scavenger. /5

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

There's no healing around the marks, so the adult tyrannosaur was already dead when it was fed upon. There also would not have been much meat on the feet, suggesting that the small tyrannosaur fed on the large carcass after it had been lying on the land surface for some time. /4

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

The toothmarks form sets of subparallel marks made during the same bite. Tooth spacing allows us to calculate the size of the carnivore feeding on the carcass. Intriguingly, it appears that the large adult tyrannosaur was being nibbled on by a much smaller tyrannosaur, probably a juvenile.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

We're used to seeing images of tyrannosaurs standing triumphantly above their vanquished prey, gorging on a bloody meal. However, Nielsen et al. (2026) describe an adult tyrannosaur foot bone with multiple tooth marks cut into the end. This time, the giant was a meal for someone else! /2

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

CANNIBALISM OF AN ADULT TYRANNOSAUR BY A JUVENILE: Our new study on a Badlands Dinosaur Museum fossil reveals dinosaur cannibalism where a juvenile tyrannosaur feasted on the carcass of a dead adult! 3D reconstructions supervision Yu Xin, designer Shen Li, sculptor Liang Junwei /1

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

We have one from the Dinosaur Park Fm equivalent near Havre - ours has multiple brood chambers. Or at least, that's how I am interpreting it. Just another specimen we should describe...

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

JOB: SEASONAL PALEONTOLOGIST BADLANDS DINOSAUR MUSEUM (DICKINSON, ND) 2026 summer tourist season. May/June start, 15wks, end Aug/Sept. Full-Time, 40 hrs/wk, $19.84hr. 50% working with public, 50% lab/collections. See link in comms for info. Come work with us!

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

A nice addition to our exhibit. This Ornithomimus skull was painted by one of our volunteers, Ty Patterson. #dinosaurs #fossils #fossilfriday #museums

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

The house sparrows in Bozeman did that to our old rental.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

A rare portrait of me with the snout of a hell pig (entelodont). Kindly donated to our museum this year by Betty Leppart, from the Gary Leppart collection. In the new year I will be 3D printing a back part of the skull, and getting this on exhibit. #FossilFriday

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

TOMORROW (Thurs, 8pm ET/6pm MT/5pm PT) Our Annual field report! Learn about fossil discoveries so new we're still cleaning them up in the lab! Live & FREE on Youtube, Facebook Live, & Twitch (FossilPreparator and @paleontologizing.bsky.social . Links in comms! #fossilfriday #dinosaurs #scicomm

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

This is a slide in our fieldwork presentation, streaming this Thursday!

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Daspletosaurus wilsoni holotype skull full-size reconstruction. Went on display in our exhibit hall (Badlands Dinosaur Museum) Sept 2025. The nicest Daspletosaurus skull reconstruction I think. Casts possibly available in 2026. #dinosaurs #fossils #fossilfriday

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Postcard sets are up now too. I really wanted a big range of exclusive merch available for this christmas. We've got a few out there, but we've got lots of cool new ideas in the pipeline, based on specimens and artwork we commissioned.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I made a lot (I run them off on our printer when it's not making exhibits). The detail is really nice -you could probably code characters from these! (I am unreasonably pleased with how well they came out). We're planning on more exclusive merch like this.

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

NEW MAGNETS: Our shop now stocks magnets of Liberty the Lambeosaurus, & Daspletosaurus wilsoni, all in glorious shades of gold, silver & copper (only US$12 each!). Lambeo based on 3D scan of our skull (the only USA specimen); Dasp by Andrey Atuchin. Link in comments #dinosaurs #fossilfriday

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Three very delicate bones cleaned in the past 2 days. SUPER RARE - 2 limb bones from a parrot-mimic oviraptorosaur, and the other is a neck bone from a flying pterosaur. From US Public Lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

This new finding adds to our understanding of dinosaur behavior. Although it might seem unintuitive, these battling dinosaurs being injured during reproduction is in keeping with what we see in modern day animals. (art: Troco) /10

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

A key implication is that these injuries should only be sustained by females, so this might be a way to infer the sex of dinosaurs. The inability to infer males & females in dinosaurs has frustrated scientists since study began nearly 200 years ago! (art: Troco) /9

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

The new study combines detailed descriptions of the injured specimens with Finite Element Analysis (FEA) which computer-models how a structure reacts under stress. This showed that the injuries caused to the tail spines were consistent with a force delivered from above. /7

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

A more recently collected Dickinson specimen, "Had Enough", is another of the nine key skeletons in the study. (specimen found by volunteers Stephanie and Samantha Sutton) /6

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Here Filippo and Liz look at one of the key skeletons, "Warwick's Duck": on loan at Badlands Dinosaur Museum from Museum of the Rockies for a number of years, and can be seen in the exhibit (found by Warwick Fowler, in 2009). /5

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Duckbill researchers have noticed for many years that there were often injuries to the long spines of the tail vertebrae. The tips of the spines were broken, but had healed (albeit usually twisted and deformed) showing that dinosaur survived the incident. /2

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

CLUMSY MALE DINOSAURS INJURED FEMALES DURING MATING: Our new paper (Filippo Bertozzo et al. 2025), shows that a common tail injury seen in duckbilled dinosaurs was probably caused by heavy male dinosaurs clumsily crushing the spines of females during mating. /1

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Denver Fowler Ph.D @denverfowler.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

BABY DUCKBILL #dinosaur: Deanna just finished prepping this cute femur. We have a couple of nice jaws from a similarly-sized baby hadro from this same site, so maybe they are part of the same skeleton. Dinosaur Park Fm, Montana. ~76M years old, Late Cretaceous #fossilfriday

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