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Michael Deak

@slothfultyrant.bsky.social
183 followers 102 following 277 posts

Adjunct professor at Youngstown State University who specializes in theropod and sloth thermoregulation and integument. He/Him, all opinions are my own.

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Reposted by Michael Deak
Julio the Artist @lacerdajulio.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Foggy morning in Late Pleistocene Patagonia. #Art #SciArt #artbyjulio
A scene depicting the Patagonian scrubland in the early morning, dotted with araucarias and framed by foggy mountains in the background. A pair of Macrauchenia, four guanacos and a patagonian mara are seen among the grass. A Megatherium walks by further away and a crested caracara flies over the scene.
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Rebecca Dart @rebdart.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
A study in 2014 points to much of the ice-age megafauna having had diets high in nutrient rich flowering plants. Of course flowering plants need pollinators, Mason bees, bumblebees and leafcutter bees most likely provided those services. The large and small interconnected in a complex relationship.
A digital painting of yellow Arctic poppies, pink Arctic willow and white Mountain Avens flowers in the foreground. An out of focus mammoth is grazing screen right, you can only see its tusks and trunk. There is a snowy mountain in the background against a blue sky with clouds.
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Darren Naish @tetzoo.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Enormous thanks to @nataliajagielska.bsky.social for sending me these spectacular and beautiful tickets for a special showing of Prehistoric Planet Ice Age created by @somniosa.bsky.social - amazing, I am so grateful to both :)
Ticket style artwork showing Megaloceros and reindeer with PPIA logo above. Both tickets, front and back, held in human hand.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Beware he who speaks in Grok.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
"...alliances forged in deep time", " intricate tapestry of life's history". George R. R. Martin (and Colossal as a whole) should stick to writing fairy tales and fantasy.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
static.klipy.com
Shrek You Thought Wrong
ALT: Shrek You Thought Wrong
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Ville Sinkkonen @villesinkkonen.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
The evolution of the ‘third eye’ illuminates shifting amniote ecologies through the Late Paleozoic and Triassic royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org
The evolution of the ‘third eye’ illuminates shifting amniote ecologies through the Late Paleozoic and Triassic
Abstract. The pineal gland has strong ties to organismal physiology and behaviour, and in several ectothermic clades of tetrapods, it is associated with an
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
That said, they did suggest that scavenging would also produce the preference towards females given their abundance as a herd compared to solitary bulls.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
@widga.bsky.social thoughts?
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Thorsten @thorstobrand.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
The first set of the scenes I did with the Khaan models, imagining how life in the Djadochta desert might have looked like. #paleoart #b3d #sciart #dinosaur
A female and male Khaan in the desert. The male shows off his display feathers, the female runs off. For now...A jump in time. The female sits in the evening desert sun on a nest of eggs, looking into the distance. What is happening? The female takes a closer look to what is happening in one of the eggs.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
This man brought Stan and Steely Dan together. RIP.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
In other news: Foraminal widening indicating a spinal nerve tumor in the saber-tooth cat Smilodon fatalis from Rancho La Brea www.frontiersin.org/journals/vet...
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | Foraminal widening indicating a spinal nerve tumor in the saber-tooth cat Smilodon fatalis from Rancho La Brea
Tracing the health of extinct populations is important. Documenting this in deep time is challenging, but skeletal markers of disease can be preserved in fos...
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Reposted by Michael Deak
Jeanne Timmons @mostlymammoths.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
#FossilFriday Smilodon and gomphotheres by artist Karen Carr.
View from the enormous cave with a relatively small window at the top right, where two gomphotheres stand.  The focus of the artwork is a smilodon caught in the light from that window looking up at the other animals. 

From Karen Carr's website: DPA Saber-Tooth Cat Diptych
Discovery Park of America
© Karen Carr.
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Ville Sinkkonen @villesinkkonen.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
End cretaceus hell
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
To quote a recent episode of Terrible Lizards: Tim Haines: "Have you seen what AI does now?...I'm sure Dave you've seen it, it's beautiful work being done by just individuals with cleaning at home, and I'm thinking...." @davehone.bsky.social: "I've some absolutely abysmal stuff."
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Reposted by Michael Deak
Krista Koeller @kristalerista.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Thinkin about lizard belly buttons. Baby lizards connect to their yolk sacs through a tube like baby humans connect to a placenta. Unlike humans, the mark where the tube used to be isn’t permanent and will disappear by adulthood. 📷Northern Exotics
A baby bearded dragon on its side showing its belly to the camera. On its lower belly, it has a little round notch.
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Fossillocator @fossillocator.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Fossil science geeks: my buddy Tom Kaye just published a paper about using laser induced fluorescence to figure out the trace elements in fossils. So now analysis can be done without destructive testing! Link to paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Summary of the laser elemental analysis Regular and laser UV pic of fossil bone, along with what trace elements illuminate
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Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
A lovely moment for your Monday: mud-rolling Javan rhino: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGf3...
youtube.com
Rare Javan Rhino Rolling in the Mud
YouTube video by IntlRhinoFoundation
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SaurianCYH @sauriancyh.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Hațeg island
Path of Titans screenshot, showing a sauropod Apatosaurus being chased by a Hatzegopteryx, opening its mouth wide to grab the little dinosaur.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Our ground sloth paper made it into a @pbseons.bsky.social video!!!!! youtu.be/Cjrt7qlGhl8?...
youtu.be
Why Humanity Has Amnesia About Giant Sloths
YouTube video by PBS Eons
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
More support for ancient archosaurs possessing lips! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Inferred presence of extraoral tissues in Triassic archosauromorphs and the evolutionary implications for the clade Sauropsida
Recent work has suggested that the presence of extraoral soft tissues (‘lips’), in the form of labial scales in theropod dinosaurs, could be inferred based on: anteroposteriorly distributed foramina ....
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
*non-tyrannosaurid eutyrannosaur.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
It's that time again! #Spinosaurus www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Yutyrannus talked dumb and got the thumb.
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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Happy Birthday Mary Anning 🦑 A pioneer. Without formal education. From working class background. Becoming breadwinner at a young age. Reshaped how we see the world. Now, globally recognised as the lady that started it all. Thank you, Mary, you're an inspiration.
First pages of China Science magazine on Anning Anning opening book on pterosaur Dimorphodon
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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Drivers and mechanisms of convergent forelimb reduction in non-avian theropod dinosaurs royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Drivers and mechanisms of convergent forelimb reduction in non-avian theropod dinosaurs
Abstract. Forelimb reduction has been observed in numerous and disparate non-avian theropod dinosaurs, resulting in the hypothesis that reduced forelimbs e
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Karen Poole @renpoole.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Commencement speakers praising AI and getting booed is becoming a genre, and I’m here for it.
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Tori Herridge @toriherridge.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
The most thoughtful piece on this that I have read so far
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
From the creators of the liar wolves comes Colossal's "I can't believe it's not egg".
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Ville Sinkkonen @villesinkkonen.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Woollies
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Amber Bellomio @digitalduck.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
My new short film Jurassic Ward is out!! I had a lot of fun working on this, I hope y’all have as much fun watching it as I did making it!
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Jeanne Timmons @mostlymammoths.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
"...if you can eat grass you can handle almost any other type of vegetation. This opened a variety of habitats to #mammoths, & so we find their fossils in almost every #Pleistocene habitat in southern California..."🦣 - Dr. Alton Dooley Jr life-from-a-certain-point-of-view.ghost.io/mammoths-in-...
life-from-a-certain-point-of-view.ghost.io
Mammoths in the Desert
Western Science Center serves as a fossil repository for several state and federal agencies, including the National Park Service. Related to that responsibility, a couple of times a year we send a tea...
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Happy centennial to the legendary Sir David Attenborough. Out of my favorite Attenborough moments, this one is in the top three easily. It never gets old seeing the superb lyrebird pulling off these vocalizations! www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB7...
youtube.com
Attenborough: the amazing Lyre Bird sings like a chainsaw! Now in high quality | BBC Earth
YouTube video by BBC Earth
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Axel Sauro @axelsauro.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Ah yes, a beaked proboscidean, why not. Truly the animal of all times.
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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Really lovely mid-2000s Chinese palaeoart pieces
Art: xiao-lian zeng & lin leng llou

Confuciusornis pair Boluochia, Art: Xiao-lian ZengLiaoxiornis delicates Art: Anderson Yang
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Izzy @riverraptor12.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
New Art! "Firecracker" Nanotyrannus lethaeus. #paleoart #prehistory #prehistoricplanet #dinosaur #dinosaurart #sciart #tyrannosaur #nanotyrannus #art
A nanotyrannus spins around mid sprint. It has mottled grey skin and bright orange feathers. The background is forested with dense underbrush.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Note that I said T. rex (the animal), not T. Rex (the band).
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
The real T. rex was way cooler than anything Hollywood could dream up.
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Deming Yang @demingyang.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
The KSL also reported on our recent work published in @commsbio.bsky.social and what Misha can teach us about forensics and paleoecology: kslnewsradio.com/utah/misha-h... Our original paper: www.nature.com/articles/s42...
nature.com
Strontium isotope mapping of elephant enamel supports an integrated microsampling-modeling workflow to reconstruct herbivore migrations - Communications Biology
Comparisons of 87Sr/86Sr data from the tusk and molar enamel of a zoo elephant suggest that a microsampling-modeling workflow is the best practice strategy for geospatial reconstructions of seasonal m...
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Literally Miguel 🇻🇪 @literallymiguel.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Otodus megalodon #paleoart commission!! (definitely not a generalized ginormous lamniform) i love how silly sharks look
per @cascoclauda.bsky.social's words: "they always look like they have never experienced a thought"
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
My suggestion would be to do some comparative taphonomy akin to what Gierliński did back in 1997 with the Massachusetts resting trace.
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Albluu @albluu.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Life-sized Microraptor! Done with alcohol markers
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Easy.
media.tenor.com
a wooden outhouse with a c on the door
ALT: a wooden outhouse with a c on the door
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Esther van Hulsen wildlife art @esthervanhulsen.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Who’s a good boy? Bear sized carnivore Inostrancevia is showing its impressive teeth. They lived some 250 million years ago, and were the apex predators of their time. This illustration was made for an upcoming new book. More will follow soon! #SciArt #paleoart #gorgonops #animalart #animaldrawing
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
It has come to my attention that walking with composer Benjamin Barlett has passed away. His music paired with spectacular visuals captivated a generation of paleo enthusiasts. May he rest in peace.
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Michael Deak @slothfultyrant.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Enjoying the read thus far, but I have a minor gripe: As much as Brusatte loves bringing up T. rex and other tyrannosaurs, they are never explicitly called coelurosaurs alongside compsognathids, dromaeosaurids, troodontids, ect.
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BranArtworks|🐳🐬🦭🎨 @branartworks.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Mesonyx #paleoart #mesonychia
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