iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Cast on display in the Shropshire Hills discovery centre, Craven Arms

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Nice to see Isanosaurus get redated to a more sensible age range!

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Dystopian future in which taxonomy and anatomical description have been completely abandoned and palaeontology is just thoughtlessly feeding AI drawings of fossils into the next big data set

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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I wonder if this isn't also an inevitable outcome of the "taxonomy and morphology are important only if they support other research, so let's just speed it up as much as possible so that we can do the 'real' science."

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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Hot Take for #FossilFriday - the quest to make paleontology "useful" and "relevant" and "high impact" has backfired spectacularly. A hypothetical "Big Data Approaches to Deep Time Ecosystem Services" almost always end up largely disconnected from actual fossils. (thread) <1/n>

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

That's fair, I guess my experience is visiting collections in countries that are at the complete opposite end of the spectrum to the UK. There is obviously a lot of middle ground!

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I think part of the reason people are talking at cross purposes about this, is that this issue doesn't just impact UK specimens which are exported. A lot of UK specimens which remain in the UK are also unavailable for study due to weaknesses in our geoheritage laws

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Tangentially related to the arguments about UK geoheritage, there are several UK museums which have specimens on display which are either entirely or partially unavailable for study because they are privately owned. This situation just doesn't exist in countries with stricter geoheritage laws.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

This criticism is wild to me because, to me at least, a museum IS it's collection. All of the research and the vast majority of the public displays, outreach etc, are directly tied to the collection.

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Paul Barrett @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Thanks to my coauthors for the fun we had on the shore of Lake Kariba: @larasciscio.bsky.social @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social @jenniferbotha.bsky.social Mike Zondo, Darlington Munyikwa, Ed Mbambo, Steve Edwards, Tim Broderick, Steve Tolan, Brandon Stuart, Kimi Chapelle, Kath Dollman, Jonah Choiniere

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Paul Barrett @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Musango comes from ChiShona and means 'in the bush' reflecting the remote wilderness location of the find and the nearby Musango Safari Camp. We dedicate the paper to Wendy Edwards who was based at Musango and sadly passed away while this work was being completed

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Paul Barrett @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Welcoming Musango matusadonaensis, a new sauropodomorph dino from the Late Triassic of Zimbabwe found by our team back in 2018. Read about it for free here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... and have a look at this lovely reconstruction by @markwitton.bsky.social (1/2)

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Heading back early* from the big shindig to celebrate the restoration of Crystal Palace Park and the @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social. I'm proud to have played a part in a huge effort to repair and restore the Dinosaurs... *Stupid trains.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

As someone who has worked on dinosaurs for several years on a PhD stipend, I'm surprised to see all the major news outlets printing, unchallenged, that the going rate for working on dinosaurs for several years is $50 million

Screenshot from BBC article "Hatton says the price paid reflects the time and resources that went into uncovering the specimen"

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Short notice, but I will be on the BBC world service news hour at 21:20 talking about a new sauropod from Thailand!

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

* although Paracyclotosaurus is not from the Jurassic or the Ocean, possibly in the exhibition as some sort of witness protection program?

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

The large Temnospondyl Paracyclotosaurus for #fossilfriday! This mount currently hangs out in the Jurassic Oceans: monsters of the deep* exhibition @nhm-london.bsky.social

A large mounted temnospondyl skeleton in a glass case in front of a light blue background.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Felt like a bit of a quest getting this one finished. Hopefully won't have to slay a draconian reviewer two or pull any new data from a stone.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Paper on a cool British dinosaur submitted!

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

A perfect dorsal vertebrae from the tiny Welsh Coelophysoid Pendraig for #fossilfriday

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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Our new 🦕 paper led by @es-ucl.bsky.social PhD student Sam Beeston shows that pneumaticity extends far into the tail in multiple sauropod dinosaur lineages, including brachiosaurids, suggesting that its evolution was probably complex across the clade: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Introducing Nagatitan, a new, large-bodied titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Thailand, with our paper led by @es-ucl.bsky.social PhD student Perth Sethapanichsakul: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

New #paleoart of the Welsh theropod Dracoraptor hanigani, restored with appropriately neotheropodan features. UK marine sediments have a glut of small Jurassic theropods, with Dracoraptor one of the best-known. #sciart Like this image? You can own a copy! www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

A small predatory dinosaur emerges from the darkness of a Welsh cave into the bright sunlight of a beach. Waves crash over dark rocks, and the sand is bleached almost white by the sun. A solitary cloud occurs in the deep, blue sky.

It's all fantasy, of course. The weather in Wales is never this good.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Heres a #fossilfriday timeline cleanse, the upper jaw and teeth of tiny Dorset dinosaur Echinodon

A ~4 cm stone block with a small black maxilla containing 6 small diamond shaped teeth

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

If you are a pensioner there's a huge list of documents that are acceptable (I.O.U notes, name scribbled on packet of Werther's originals, essay about the good old days) but for young people those two are probably your only options

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Just voted! Reminder for young people that you need either a driving license or a passport as photo ID in order to vote

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Dr Craig R McClain @drcraigmc.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I know everyone wants there to be a Giant Cretaceous Octopus but after looking at methods and tables, I really don't think this is a reality.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

This is a very cool specimen, congrats to the authors! Will be adding it to my PhD dataset ASAP

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

If the next CGI dinosaur documentary doesn't feature a Coelophysis stomping on a Ptychotherates skull while the narrator talks about the rise of the theropod dynasty and the death of the Herrerasaurians what is the point

Text from article, key sentence "we deduce that the skull had been partially disarticulated prior to fossilization and may have been trampled"

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I get a lot of licensing requests for my 2012 #paleoart of (what might be) the oldest known dinosaur, Nyasasaurus. 2012 was a professional lifetime ago, so I've prepared a nicer version for new clients. Nyasasaurus is so poorly known that you could take a recon. in several directions. #sciart

From 2026: the dinosaur-like reptile Nyasasaurus sprints after a tiny beaked reptile, a rhynchosaur, in Triassic Tanzania. Trees, living and dead, erupt from shallow banks surrounding a shallow stream, across which Nyasasaurus has splashed.

My old 2012 take on Nyasasaurs, produced in association with Sterling Nesbitt and Paul Barrett. Here, Nyasasaurus examines the remains of an uprooted cycad, while rhynchosaurs munch foliage in the distance. I'd been producing palaeoart semi-professionally for a few years when I created this, but drawing was still a side gig. It wasn't long after I made this image that I began taking my art more seriously, investing in better equipment and leaning more into it as a career.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Ah, I forget I have a skewed frame of reference for early! Coelophysis definitely beats it and the other two sauropodomorphs might once all of their historic taxonomic messes are ironed out.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Also has earliest (or one of the earliest) evidence for social behaviour in Sauropodomorphs

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Macrocollum is probably in the running for the most completely known early dinosaur. Exciting that all three osteologies (Cranial, Axial, Appendicular) out! Massive congrats to the authors

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Pigeon proposing the novel "perch for sunbathing" hypothesis of Diplodocus tail function

A pigeon perches on the tail of Fern the diplodocus

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Under that model it didn't make sense to include pterosaurs within Dinosauria as they are so anatomically and morphologically distinct.

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

On a serious note the idea of "Dinosaurs" as a monophyletic group ( a clade) is relatively recent, for most of the 20th century they were considered separate groups of thecodonts that independently acquired the "dinosaur" bauplan

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Pterosaurs shouldn't be dinosaurs because we should keep a taxonomic firewall between them and self respecting ornithodirans...

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Specifically Raath argued that Syntarsus could have used feathers to insulate itself from extreme heat, like ostriches do today. So the vaguely emu-like feathers on the model are probably based directly on his thesis

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Raath was keenly aware of various bird-like features of Syntarsus including speculating about feathers in the 70s so arguably the meme was just reflecting up to date science!

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Chunks of the Charmouth Liassic sea bed for #fossilfriday. Crammed full of ammonites and bivalves, slowly being reclaimed by the sea

A pile of grey rocks packed with ammonites and bivalves

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Jeremy Lockwood @valdosaurus.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Slabs showing ripples and tracks of the chirotherium (hand beast) in mid Triassic sandstone from Burton upon Trent in the Midlands. Sadly these have been lost but you can see how they got their name. #FossilFriday

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

* there's a joke about British dentistry in there somewhere

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Jack Lovegrove @jackl0vegr0ve.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Timeline cleanse from a certain celebrity theropod for #fossilfriday here's a skull of Dimorphodon macronxy. Like most early pterosaurs it has an impressive array of strangely proportioned teeth*, while classically reconstructed as puffin like these teeth suggest it wasn't a specialist piscivore

Skull of NHMUK PVR 41212, a specimen of Dimorphodon. The nostril opening is visible as are sharp black teeth of various sizes

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Riley Black 🏳️‍⚧️ 🦖 @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

If the paleo community is going to be serious about Horner’s connection to Epstein, we also have to be serious about Myhrvold’s, because guess who contributed photos of animals mating to Epstein’s birthday book and has been appearing in new paleo papers this year - including the new Spinosaurus.

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Former Microsoft executive’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein comes under scrutiny

Seattle Times business reporter Alex Halverson has written about connections between Epstein and former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold.

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

A new species of Spinosaurus is cool & all that but what I’d really love to see Sereno describe is that Kayenta heterodontosaurid species first mentioned in a paper 41 years ago.

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