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Gary McGaughey

@garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social
388 followers 296 following 46 posts

PhD candidate in the Peecook Lab at ISU, Paleontologist | Marine Reptile FINatic | Football and Basketball Fan | He/Him

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Reposted by Gary McGaughey
Kiersten Formoso, PhD(epressed) @formorphology.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Hi! My World View in Nature Reviews Biodiversity was published today! Read about my three main aims when educating people about topics in natural history. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Three ideas to inspire curiosity in natural history education
Nature Reviews Biodiversity - Natural history can captivate the minds of all manner of people for a multitude of reasons, but a shifting media landscape demands adaptation from public educators....
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
More excellent CT-based work finding new things in previously described fossils.
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Robert Gay @paleorob.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Out in #BearsEars. Or are we?
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Idaho approved spelling
Door sign for the Vertebrate Paleontology Collections at the Idaho Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University. Vertebrate is misspelled V-e-r-t-i-b-r-a-t-e.
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MZ4250 @mz4250.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
For fun today I also worked on a 3D printable Jimothy! He's Seattles favorite cryptid :D I made a standard Jimothy, but then I also made four adventurer archetypes of him! I made a Wizard, Rogue, Fighter and Trash Cleric lol. Free stls: mz4250.com/posts/jimoth... Have a great weekend friends!
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I've been waiting for this paper since the specimen was talked about at SVP!
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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Today is my first day in office as the new curator of vertebrate paleontology at @nhmdk.bsky.social & @ucph.bsky.social! 🇩🇰 🏛️ 🦴 🦕 😁 Starting off right with some proper Paleozoic Greenlandic friends (🐟/🐸, 🦈) and an extremely Danish office surprise! 🧱
A guy stoked outside a newly painted brown office door with a lil picture of him on it“Grace” (NHMD 72798), a particularly beautiful skull of the early tetrapodomorph Acanthostega. A light, wooden brown “rock” with a large grey orbit and small white teeth arcing below. Hand for scale. Four fingers against a swooping dark grey rock that contains the holotype (NHMD-167021) of a very bizarre cartilaginous fish. The swoop at top is a semicircular whorl of teeth from a very special animal you’ll be hearing more about.A Lego kit of a Triceratops skull
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Idaho State University College of Science and Engineering @idahostateucose.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Thanks to researchers at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, ISU, and their colleagues around the globe, we’ve got the answer to a question perplexing paleontologists for years: What exactly is a turtle? More at www.isu.edu/news/2026-sp.... @gondwannabe.bsky.social #idahostateucose #STEM
isu.edu
IMNH, ISU Researchers Upend Understanding of Turtle Origins
Thanks to researchers at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, Idaho State University, and their colleagues around the globe, we’ve got the answer to a question perplexing paleontologists for years: Wh...
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Female Black-chinned Hummingbird from our campsite in Zion National Park. The nesting spot was perfect for getting some really great photos with the telephoto lens.
Female Black-chinned Hummingbird sitting on her nest on a branch in a deciduous tree. The hummingbird is facing the camera looking up and slightly to the left giving a few of her chin and beak.Female Black-chinned Hummingbird sitting on a branch. Her back is visible with ruffled feathers. She is facing to the left of the image with her tongue out.Female Black-chinned Hummingbird sitting on a branch. Her back is visible with ruffled feathers. She is facing to the left of the image.Female Black-chinned Hummingbird sitting on a branch. Her back is visible and she is currently grooming herself.
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Lene Liebe Delsett @leneliebedelsett.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Dear fellow ichthyosaur researchers! Unique opportunity to talk only about our favourite animal group🤩🐬 Abstract submission is now open for @ipc7.bsky.social, we hope to see many abstracts for our symposium, on ichthyosaur origins, phylogeny, evolution of traits, ecology, physiology and extinction.🧪
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
When we incorporate all of this into a phylogenetic analysis of 962 characters, the result is unambiguous: Eunotosaurus is a millerettid. Turtles (Pantestudines) are among the earliest relatives of archosaurs.
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
It's so great to finally see this out! I am thankful to have gotten to be part of this project with such an amazing group of collaborators.
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
I'm off to a shockingly hot start this year considering that I didn't watch any college basketball. I'm sure it'll all bust soon, but I guess I pick better when I don't watch.
Screenshot showing 2 March madness brackets. The top one is Gary's which has picked Kansas to win and is ranked 33,000 and in the 99.9 percentile with 220. The other is picking the high seed every game with Duke as the champion, it has 170 points putting it in the 44.3 percentile and a rank of 15.4 million.
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Skeletal morphology of an early ichthyopterygian, cf. Utatsusaurus hataii, from Japan with an emphasis on CT scan data of the skull: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: Vol 0, No 0 - Get Access www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Skeletal morphology of an early ichthyopterygian, cf. Utatsusaurus hataii, from Japan with an emphasis on CT scan data of the skull
The Early Triassic Utatsusaurus hataii is one of the earliest ichthyopterygians and shows numerous plesiomorphic features. An ichthyopterygian specimen, NSM-PV-20028, from the Osawa Formation in Mi...
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Cy Marchant @slvrhwk.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
"I believe In evolution, except for the whole Triassic period"
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Joe Keating @evopalaeo.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Not fussed about Spinosaurs, but I do like PCAs. I do not like this PCA
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Emily Thomas 🦤🏳️‍🌈 @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Nice theropod but check out the third author on it
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Letters of Note @lettersofnote.com · 12/02/2026
Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
It's a sad world when articles about a photograph use an AI image instead of the actual photograph.
Screenshot of an article about a photograph of a coelacanth taken by French divers. The image used in the article is a poorly made AI image that doesn't resemble an actual coelacanth.Screenshot of 4 different articles about the photo of the coelacanth that all use AI images of varying poor quality.
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Robert Gay @paleorob.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
@garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @tuttran.bsky.social and myself are here at the @nhmu.bsky.social DinoFest! Come by today and tomorrow to learn about the #Idaho fossils from @imnh208.bsky.social that come from our ancient fliers!
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Whitesheepranch @whitesheepranch.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Oh, Idaho. You make me ashamed. #idpol idahocapitalsun.com/2026/01/26/n...
idahocapitalsun.com
New Idaho bill would fine cities for flying LGBTQ+ pride flag • Idaho Capital Sun
Idaho Republican Rep. Ted Hill's bill would create fines for government entities that violate a recent state law restricting flag displays.
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Robert Gay @paleorob.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
First paper of 2026 is out for #FossilFriday, and the first of probably several ornithischian papers over the next interval. Here my coauthors and I describe some tantalizing bits that suggest that ornithischian diversity in the Morrison Formation is higher than previously recognized.
The first page of the paper described in the post.
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Even more recently, the holotype of Scyllacerta was referred to newly named Akkedops bremneri on the basis of them being from the same locality….. But they are separated by hundreds of miles and millions of years in stratigraphy…. As are the other specimens to referred to Akkedops 👀 🤷‍♂️
Biostratigraphic map of the Karoo basin in South Africa, showing where in the section Scyllacerta and other younginids are from.
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...
Skull of Scyllacerta, reconstructed based on scans of four nearly complete skulls.
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Had a productive week scanning at VTCT! I'm excited to dive into the data and start segmenting.
Gary crouched next to a mounted fossil in the CT scanner.A fossil mounted for scanning inside the CT scanner.
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
Come work with the vertebrate paleontology team at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC this summer! REU Students will have the opportunity to study and reconstruct the skulls of Permian and Triassic reptiles 😃 Reach out to me if you have any questions (: Apply by the 31st!!
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Thanks for taking this photo @paleorob.bsky.social! *doctoral student*
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Jingle Jam @jinglejam.co.uk · 01/12/2025
Jingle Jam has officially begun, and our 2025 Games Collection is live! The redesigned collection is back, with 15 top-tier titles (and a few bits more). Donate £35 to charity, get some awesome games as a reward. Got a games-lover in your life? It's the perfect stocking stuffer!
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Tut Tran @tuttran.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
New paper alert! (My first!) This is a benchmark paper on all NPS fossils within the State of Utah through 2024. Loads of illustrations by me and pic by coauthors and collaborators. Open access, free to download! Thanks to all who made this possible! giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.ph...
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Animal Photo Reference Repository @animalphotorefs.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
GenAI has polluted image search results, especially for animal pics. It’s now basically impossible to find accurate art references. Enter this: a repository of open-access, AI-free images of wild & exotic taxa. Artists creating *without AI* have blanket permission for derivative/transformative use.
animal-photo-references.com
Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository
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Emily Thomas 🦤🏳️‍🌈 @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Mary Anning famously survived being struck by a bolt of lightning when she was 15 months old. From this and her extensive work on fossils and geology, we can infer that she was likely Ground-type
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Biodiversity Pics @biodiversitypix.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
🐉 The book of the great sea-dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, [gedolim taninim] gedolim taninim, of Moses. London, W. Pickering, 1840. [Source]
Illustration showing two detailed fossilized skull bones of Chiroparekostinus, a prehistoric sea creature. Both skulls are elongated with visible teeth along the jaws and intricate bone textures, depicted in fine pencil or ink shading. The image highlights the anatomical structure resembling dragon-like sea reptiles, consistent with the 1840 book on great sea-dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri. The background is a blank, aged, spotted paper typical of historical scientific plates. The title "Head of Chiroparekostinus" is noted vertically on the right side.
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Buffa et al.’s paper on the enigmatic Permian reptile 🦎 Galesphyrus and the origin of Neodiapsida is out in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology! Read the thread 👇 for some important takeaways from our study @valentinbuffa.bsky.social #Paleontology #Reptile #Permian doi.org/10.1080/1477...
The holotype of Galesphyrus, an articulated skeleton of a small stem reptile preserved as a mold. It is beautifully preserved, but decided to lose it’s skull prior to discovery A diagram showing the evolutionary relationships of early reptiles found in this study. Importantly, this study places Galesphyrus as sister to Millerettidae + Neodiapsida, reconciling postcrania and cranial data for support of Parapleurota!
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Always a great time at #2025SVP! I enjoyed getting to share some of my early dissertation work and hear what's going on around the world of marine reptiles.
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Birding in England has been a good time. It is fun to see species that are similar to the North American birds I'm used to but with a fun little twist.
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Pre-SVP trip to the NHM in London! The marine reptile wall is what I live for.
Gary standing in front of the wall of plesiosaur fossils in cases.Gary standing in front of the mount of the skeleton of Baryonyx, a large theropod dinosaur.Selfie of Gary and Victoria in front of the Stegosaurus skeleton mount on the Earth Hall.
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Biodiversity Pics @biodiversitypix.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
🐉 The book of the great sea-dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, [gedolim taninim] gedolim taninim, of Moses. London, W. Pickering, 1840. [Source]
Illustration of fossilized bones attributed to "great sea-dragons" from the 1840 book on Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri. The detailed black-and-white drawing depicts five large bone fragments, including a curved jawbone with teeth, a vertebra, and other irregularly shaped skeletal pieces with fine texture and cracks. The bones are arranged on a plain background, highlighting their size and structure, representing the ancient marine reptiles described as dragons in historical texts.
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Mrs. Detective PikaBOO, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 05/10/2025
FINALLY some good fuckin science www.cell.com/action/showP...
cell.com
Correspondence
Lateralized sleeping positions in domestic cats
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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
#FossilFriday and the Peecook lab is out in the Pleistocene of Idaho making some new friends! 🦬🐪🦥 @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social @imnh208.bsky.social @idahostateucose.bsky.social
Group selfie on an Idaho beach: wide sandy expanse and blue skies. Sloth vertebra in the foreground!
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Prof. Valentin Fischer @val-fisch.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Are you tired of people constantly overestimating body size of marine reptiles? No longer! We provide equations to estimate body size in ichthyosaurians, mosasaurids, and thalattosuchians. 1/4
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Ontogenetic dietary partitioning in a Triassic sauropterygian: implications from a new juvenile specimen of Brevicaudosaurus jiyangshanensis (Reptilia: Diapsida) url: academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
academic.oup.com
Ontogenetic dietary partitioning in a Triassic sauropterygian: implications from a new juvenile specimen of Brevicaudosaurus jiyangshanensis (Reptilia: Diapsida)
Abstract. During the first 10 million years of the Triassic, sauropterygians diversified rapidly into a variety of marine predatory niches. Adults of the l
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Cy Marchant @slvrhwk.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Reconstructed skeleton of Spicomellus ('spiky collar'), certainly one of the most unusual dinosaurs known. Found in the mid-Jurassic El Mers Group of Morocco, it is also the oldest definitive ankylosaur.
Reconstructed skeleton of Spicomellus afer, an armored ankylosaur dinosaur, showing known material on a black silhouette. The holotype specimen (an isolated partial rib) is shown in yellow, with a more complete referred specimen in white. Unknown material is indicated in grey, inferred from surrounding elements and related taxa. The arrangement of many of the osteoderms is speculative. Scale bar=1m.Graphic illustrating the reconstructed skeleton of Spicomellus afer, an armored ankylosaur dinosaur. The smaller two skeletals at the top show known material on a black silhouette; the first shows only the internal bones in light blue, while the second shows only the osteoderms in yellow. Unknown material is indicated in grey, inferred from surrounding elements and related taxa. The arrangement of many of the osteoderms is speculative. The larger bottom diagram shows a hypothetical full skeleton, with a human (~1.8m) for scale. Scale bars=1m.
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Lene Liebe Delsett @leneliebedelsett.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Ichthyosaurs were fully pelagic five million years after the End Permian Mass Extinction - and we have fetal vertebrae from two Early Triassic taxa. That is the main findings in our @natureportfolio.nature.com Scientific Reports paper published just now🥳 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Vertebral microstructure marks the emergence of pelagic ichthyosaurs soon after the End Permian Mass Extinction - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Vertebral microstructure marks the emergence of pelagic ichthyosaurs soon after the End Permian Mass Extinction
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Rick CarBOOso’s Private Fire Crew @amandasmith.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
🚨 The Lego mineral set is available for preorder and it’s not as good as the original design but I won’t let that stop me 🚨 www.lego.com/en-us/produc...
lego.com
Mineral Collection 21362 | Ideas | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
A beautiful gift for nature lovers
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
X.A Jenkins et al. (2025) Evolutionary assembly of crown reptile anatomy clarified by late Paleozoic relatives of Neodiapsida Peer Community Journal 5: e89 doi: doi.org/10.24072/pcj... - peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....
doi.org
Evolutionary assembly of crown reptile anatomy clarified by late Paleozoic relatives of Neodiapsida
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
It’s finally out! Our work addressing the origins of reptiles is published in PCJ! peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.... We use novel info gleaned from the scan data of dozens of stem reptiles to substantially revise our understanding of early reptile evolution #paleontology #herpetology
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Gary McGaughey @garyonyx-mcgoy.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Stratigraphy 🤝 Phylogeny One of my favorite parts of this paper as a paleontologist with a heavy geology background.
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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Specifically, by placing 'the earliest reptile' Hylonomus on the amniote stem and removing a ~50 million and ~30 million year ghost lineage for Millerettidae and Neodiapsida, we greatly improve the stratigraphic record of early reptiles and amniotes more broadly!
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