iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 7h

Today's four random pieces of palaeoart: Karen Carr's Deinonychus and hypsilophodonts, Luis Rey's Amargasaurus, @emilyhiggs-art.bsky.social's Edmontosaurus, and Ely Kish's Stygimoloch!

Four tiny, yellow-green ornithopods drink from a pond in a flooded forest. Behind, a striped, scaly Deinonychus lurches out from the greenery behind. The smaller dinosaurs are framed by stark white and deep, earthy greenery, trapping them with the encroaching predator.

A trio of Amargasaurus with pink, fleshy nostrils and jet-black neck spines display in a sandy desert. A quartet of tiny, zebra-striped ornithopods enter the frame from the right, while a tiny yellow-headed theropod walks towards the viewer. Several prominent footprints are strewn about the sand.

A massive hadrosaur with a splotchy, lizard-like pattern of dappled brown, yellow, orange fading to a creamy white underside. It strides forth with imposing presence, mouth gaped as if letting forth a thunderous bellow. Its nose steams with moisture, and its eyes glow with white intensity. The deep, triangular tail is curved toward the viewer, partially filling the frame.

A sickly-thin, pin-headed pachycephalosaur with light green skin dappled with black speckles walks through a conifer forest, framed by trunks, ferns, and vines. Its long, stiff tail sports a dazzling zig-zag pattern that virtually disappears against the earthy forest floor behind it.

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 15h

Nicole is a leading expert on the issue of campus sexual violence. I am floored that USA Today would do this to her. I find this kind of journalistic behavior unethical and morally reprehensible, twisting an interview with a renowned advocate for survivors into a hit piece against a survivor.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 18h

Very happy to hear that the Maryland Dinosaur Park's discovery trail is now open! Congratulations to everyone there for *finally* making this happen. The sculptures by Tristan Crum look phenomenal—can't wait to see them in person in a couple weeks. Photos borrowed from JP Hodnett. #FossilFriday

Minimalist outdoor metal sculpture of a juvenile sauropod skeleton

Minimalist outdoor metal sculpture of a giant ankylosaur skeleton

Minimalist outdoor metal sculpture of a crocodile skeleton

Man stands under a metal nodosaur skeleton with a face mask and portable welder

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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 16h

If you are part of an academic society or a professor of any kind, public statements that you do not condone Drexel cutting off the academy of natural sciences from the public of Philadelphia is very important right now. We need your voices. Urgently.

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Kevin Sievers @diplotomodon.bsky.social · 19h

-Volunteer coordinator terminated -Full-time curators down from 11 to 5 -Social media channels being wiped -City Council hearings begin next week #savetheacademy

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 23h

I haven't posted anything for a while, so here's some new #paleoart for #FossilFriday: Cetiosaurus in a Middle Jurassic landscape. I've had to compose and execute this in just two days, so hopefully it looks OK! (All data for the plant recons comes from @palaeojules.bsky.social.) #dinosaur #sciart

A long-necked dinosaur walks along a shallow river surrounded by various Jurassic trees, ferns and shrubs. A small predatory dinosaur watches from the nearest riverbank.

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Tess Gallagher @tessasaurus.bsky.social · 23h

drexel wants you to think the academy closed because of declining attendance. And yet, they purposefully wanted to push themselves away from being the "dinosaur museum" in philadelphia, and cut programs like the live animal exhibits to appeal to adults......

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Mike Pingleton @somuchpingle.bsky.social · 22h

For #FrogFriday an Orinoco Lime Treefrog (Sphaenorhynchus lacteus) from NE Peru. They live in and around bodies of open, slow-moving water such as ponds, oxbows, and the quiet backwaters of rivers, blending in with the emergent vegetation. #herps #frogs #NaturePhotography 🌿

Side image of a green frog perched on a brown leaf, facing left and towards the camera on an angle. The frog's body and limbs are pale green, with a faint yellow stripe running from the eye to the groin. On the front of the face is a two-toned stripe running from eye to eye along the edge of the nose - the upper stripe is pale yellow, the lower is a rusty brown. The iris of the eye is gold and the dark pupil is horizontally elliptical.

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Darth Morgothis @davidgkowalski.bsky.social · 21h

Calling out a bunch of my academic contacts. The Academy of Sciences isn't the only institution under attack right now, as the University of Pennsylvania proceeds to undergo "retrenchment," with a severe gutting of their sciences. Please sign the petition to help them reconsider. c.org/xFJJgTtRcd

c.org

Sign the Petition

Prevent the retrenchment of faculty and staff at Commonwealth University of PA

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MU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Half-billion-year-old fossils rewrite the origin story of starfish Cambrian fossils illuminate the ambulacrarian common ancestor🧪 www.cell.com/current-biol... Yujingia fills a key gap in the early deuterostome fossil record, challenging the conventional worm-like, pharyngeal filter-feeder models

Fossils of Yujingia glutenotunica. Credit: Kaiyue He et al.

Artist's impression of Yujingia glutenotunica. Credit: Kaiyue He et al.

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Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Grant agreement signed! Advertising 4 new jobs (3 year contracts w/potential to extend +2 years) on ERC #CROCOLOCOEVO grant next week-- stay tuned for details. 2 postdocs 1 technician 1 research administrator who can do science communication Start date flexible but could be as soon as 1 November!

Picture of right hindlimbs and pelvis of Terrestrisuchus (long skinny legs) and Crocodylus (modern croc; beefy and stubby), from 3D computer models

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fab.ricious 🔜 @ Vienna ComicCon 2026! @artoffabricious.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Fairytale Morrison? Fairytale Morrison.

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Evan Johnson-Ransom @ejrpaleo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The skulls of #Spinosaurus, #Tyrannosaurus (FMNH PR 2081) and #Giganotosaurus. Three large theropods which have been integral to my thesis. Big thank you to Vitamin Imagination and Eric Duan for help with the Giga and T.rex models. #FossilFriday #Dinosaurs #Paleontology

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Emily Higgs Art @emilyhiggs-art.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Spinosaurus ~ 🐟🦄 . I’ve finally got around to colouring in my Spinosaurus mirabilis and Spinosaurus aegypticus! Decided to have a bit of fun with colours 💙 now onto details!

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Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Today's four random pieces of palaeoart: Margaret Colbert's Brontosaurus, Peter Snowball's Deinonychus, @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social's Spicomellus, and Maurice Wilson's Saltoposuchus!

A heavily built, tail-dragging Brontosaurus stands in a stooped posture, pelted by a heavy downpour and powerful wind. Ferns form a blanket over the ground beneath, and a single windblown tree sits beside it.

A scaly, reddish-brown Deinonychus leaps through the air with its right leg curled up in preparation to kick out with its sickle claw.

A blue-grey Spicomellus covered in light-toned spines stands in a beam of light, backed by a wall of ambiguous darkness. Extremely long, slightly recurved spines decorate its nape and shoulder, matched by long trailing spines at the base of the tail.

A striding, bipedal Saltoposuchus shown with theropod-like proportions. Its fat-padded tail sticks out behind it, counterbalancing the slightly upright-oriented body. Its short, stumpy arms end in tiny hooked claws, held out in front of it.

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aberrantologist @aberrantologist.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Doodles from a previous flocking #paleostream featuring Cephalaspis, Sclerocormus, Eoceras, and Prearcturus.

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Kieran 🦘🇨🇦 @hellbendermuseum.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Proud to present my lifesize T. rex head, affectionately named Hannibal. I created this myself from start to finish- digital sculpture, resin 3D printing, painting, etc. Huge thanks to my friend @rj-palmer.com for instrumental crits and redlines during the sculpting process.

Life-size t rex head model from front 3/4 view. I am also in frame

Life size t-rex model, from front and staring directly down the barrel of the camera

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Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Vitriol, anguish, and sorrow are powerful motivators to produce profound art. The problem is that our society is structured in such a way to deny me any time to express those feelings through my art. So my brain is just a whirling vortex of violent creative impulses building like a pressure cooker.

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What she said.

In a world where a widespread understanding of most science is a constant battle, the goal is often to communicate broad concepts, rather than gritty details. I feel success as a natural history educator if a person walks away understanding three things: first, the Earth is exceptionally old; second, evolution is real; and third, humans are new to this planet and our impact on it in this short time has been extraordinary. Everything else—such as the precise swimming speed of a mosasaur, the exact position of a clade on a phylogenetic tree...

...or the proper anatomical details of a theropod wrist—is in the grand scheme of public engagement, secondary.

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Gwen Pearson @bug-gwen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Massive new review paper out on the causes of insect population declines. It's not great news, BUT if we pay attention, we can still turn things around. 🧪🦋 academic.oup.com/aesa/advance...

academic.oup.com

Drivers of insect decline: direct, indirect, and combined pressures

Abstract. Reductions in insect biodiversity are widely documented and result from numerous pressures that operate from local to global scales. Identifying

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Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

" In contrast to body fossil patterns, most mass extinctions, including the end-Permian event, are weakly expressed in the bioerosional ichnogenus record, whereas the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary shows the most pronounced decline." K-Pg event was *bad* bad.

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PacBirds @pacbirds.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A bright yellow Wilson’s warbler for the #vivid theme of #BirdOfTheDay #birds #nature #photography #ECK

A Wilson’s warbler, bright yellow, with olive back and wings and black cap, walks along a branch, with yellow out-of-focus dead grass in the background.

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Dr. Brendan Anderson @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

So in what is unfortunately now an ~annual~ reminder - the Paleontological Research Institution is not presently affiliated with Cornell and was never a part of Cornell. Some PRI folks have taught students at Cornell, but donating to PRI supports Research and Education, and doesn't support Cornell

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Crystal Palace Dinos @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

We found this fantastic old colour shot, possibly taken at some point between the end of the 1960s to mid-1970s. Zoom in for the interesting eye paint of the iguanodon, and a pretty mucky megalosaurus - which may have been just about to enter its "red paint" phase.. www.flickr.com/photos/found...

Colour scanned photo. view from the path overlooking the dino end of the Secondary Island

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Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think diving into a pool filled with tiny plastic dinosaurs would probably fix everything wrong with my life. Just a thought.

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Fossillocator @fossillocator.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yay! My missing box of old fossil fish arrived! Among the pieces: 1) a cute Pterichthyodes from the Devonian of Scotland, with Wards label! 2) Americaspis from the Silurian of Pennsylvania 3) cute Coccosteus from the Devonian of Scotland 4) a different Pterichthyodes from Scotland

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Alberta Claw @albertonykus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Reevaluation of the theropod dinosaur Geminiraptor: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... Once thought to be a troodontid, now reclassified as a second species of the therizinosaur Falcarius. (Skull of F. utahensis for comparison in [A].) 🪶🧪 (📷 @freewillie643.bsky.social et al.)

Digital models of the skull bones of two closely related omnivorous dinosaurs.

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Center for Biological Diversity @biologicaldiversity.org · 30/09/2026

A WIN! We’ve just learned that Colorado Parks and Wildlife is suspending the practice of killing wolves for conflict with wildlife. This provides some much-needed safety for Colorado’s small and recovering wolf population.

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Maggie Astor @maggieastor.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The 988 suicide prevention hotline's Press 3 option — which provides specialized services to LGBTQ callers — has been restored more than a year after the Trump administration shut it down. Confirmed by HHS and the office of Senator Tammy Baldwin, who led on legislation that forced its restoration

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Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Are feeds broken for anyone else today?

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Xavier A. Jenkins @semifossorial.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Out today: We show that Westlothiana lizziae or "Lizzie," described 35 years ago as the world's oldest reptile - is not a stem amniote at all, but a stem tetrapod. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The part and counterpart of the holotype specimen of Westlothiana.

Paleoartistic reconstruct of Westlothiana by Jacob Schick based on our new data

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Jay @kakapojay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This is something that I have been long fascinated with - behavioural chaos is so prevalent in the natural world and we don't discuss it nearly enough in the context of animal ethology, and *especially* animal paleoethology. Really good article worth a read!

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Prof. Jeff Ollerton @jeffollerton.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Want to conserve #birds, #mammals and other vertebrates? Then don’t forget their #insects. Our new Nature Reviews Biodiversity paper explores the many ways vertebrates depend on insects — for food, shelter, protection and much more. I’ve written about it here: jeffollerton.co.uk/2026/09/30/w...

jeffollerton.co.uk

Want to conserve birds and mammals? Then conserve their insects – our new paper in Nature Reviews Biodiversity sets out the details

It’s sometimes easy to forget quite how much of the living world depends upon insects. That might seem an odd thing for someone who has spent much of his career studying insects and their relations…

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Riley Black 🏳️‍⚧️ 🦕 @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Fossils found in the Gobi Desert solve a mammalian mystery, introducing us to Cretaceous shrew rabbits that hopped through the same desert where Velociraptor lived. My latest newsletter for my premium subscribers! 🧪

buttondown.com

Ancient Mammal Skull Solves a Fossil Mystery

Imagine a little shrew rabbit, hopping away from Velociraptor.

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Laura Kelley @lauraakelley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We used virtual mates and genetic algorithms to ask swordtail fish to design their ideal mate. Males all liked larger females but females did not share a clear preference for male appearance. Led by @kathrynbullough.bsky.social @grahancock.bsky.social in @royalsocietypublishing.org shorturl.at/rCeR2

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Sophie Boerman @crocsophie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🌊🐊 Were some of the earliest crocodylians venturing into the sea? 🦴 For our new paper in Palaeontology, we CT-scanned three skulls of “thoracosaurs” and found clues for a shallow-marine lifestyle in these enigmatic critters. ➡ doi.org/10.1111/pala... ️📖

A thoracosaur crocodylian hunting for fish in a colorful, biodiverse lagoonal ecosystem

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Sophie M. @sophiesaurus98.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Today's four random pieces of palaeoart: Bernard Long's Andrewsarchus, Brian Franczak's Nanotyrannus, Dmitry Bogdanov's Edaphosaurus, and Steve Kirk's Apatosaurus!

A long, low-slung, wolf-like Andrewsarchus with a coat resembling a red fox. It trots across a rocky hill carrying a bone in its toothy jaws.

A pair of gracile, small tyrannosaurs stand in a tangled forest. One looks in the direction of the viewer, while the other looks off at something out of view. One has a pattern composed of chocolate brown and creamy white, while the other complements this with a blue throat, yellow brow, and black-streaked head.

A green Edaphosaurus with a bright red sail rests atop an outcrop in a steamy swamp. A forest of enormous horsetails forms a backdrop.

A hefty, blue-grey Apatosaurus walks through a sandy clearing in a cycad forest. Its broad neck sweeps to its left, taking notice of some low-lying greenery. Its whip-like tail flicks behind it, moving in sinuous curls.

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Rhi, drawer of Things @idrawsdinosaurs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#Abditosaurus, a #sauropod #dinosaur described in 2022 from the most complete European titanosaur skeleton found so far. Its name, meaning "forgotten reptile", references the fact that its remains were partially excavated in the 1950s before being left for decades when funding was lost.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Qingshan Lake Water Forest in Lin'an District, Hangzhou is a viral attraction sometimes called "Matcha Lake" for the emerald green duckweed (subfamily Lemnoideae). These black swans (Cygnus atratus) & their cygnets are enjoying a nutritious buffet of aquatic plants. Let's learn about duckweed.

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Ausarchosaur @ausarchosaur.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This review suggests that large prey may be energetically viable for forest leopards, as they face direct competition for small prey from African golden cats and humans for medium-sized prey.

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Natee (they/them) @himmapaan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Beaky Camarasaurus. preprints.arphahub.com/articles.php... @dennish.bsky.social @fabiomanucci.bsky.social

Brown pencil sketch of the head of Camarasaurus, with a keratinous beak-like covering on the front of its snout, as proposed by the latest study.

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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Adam Rytel (2026) Tanystropheus still conspicuous—an osteological redescription of the first tanystropheid Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 71(3): 1-74 doi:10.4202/app.01314.2025 www.app.pan.pl/article/item...

app.pan.pl

<em>Tanystropheus</em> still conspicuous—an osteological redescription of the first tanystropheid - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

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Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

New exhibit at UMMNH. Come for the eurypterids, stay for the ostracoderms.

Image of a museum display featuring a large model of an aquatic arthropod.

Close-up of part of museum display featuring casts and models of jawless fishes.

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Tess Gallagher @tessasaurus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Looks like the SVP abstracts have been posted, and are password protected! Wooohoo! Y'all are already aware that I submitted an abstract with @ndgspaleo.bsky.social for a talk. Hope people are excited to learn more about a specific, duck-billed dino November 12, 9:15 am

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Pascal Abel @abel-paleo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Loooong boi. Tanystropheus at Urweltmuseum Oberfranken (Bayreuth). #paleontology #paleobio #fossils #Triassic #Paläontologie

Skeleton cast of the long-necked Triassic reptile Tanystropheus hanging from the ceiling in a black-walled room, surrounded by other museum pieces.

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