There's a new dinosaur (model) at the Museum! Meet Microraptor gui. Since 2005, Museum Preparator Jason Brougham worked with Mark Norell, inaugural Macaulay Curator in the Museum’s Division of Paleontology, on modeling this amazing animal.
Visited the original carved skull for Haddy, #Hadrosaurus foulkii, at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly yesterday! #Leidyiswatching #dinosaur
🌎In celebration of #EarthDay, watch this video by the Museum's Science Visualization team to learn how animals and plants work together to store carbon and stabilize our climate.
But I think this perspective is incongruous with the DNA evidence, which suggests late Pleistocene M. columbi are descended from M. trogontherii, and not the endemic descendants of an M. meridionalis-like ancestor. palaeo-electronica.org/content/curr...
I will acknowledge the alternative perspective put forth by Spencer Lucas and co. that there are North American M. meridionalis specimens, and that we should recognize an early Pleistocene M. imperator as distinct from M. columbi. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Adrian lister’s work has shown that the appearance of low plate count and wide spacing, reminiscent of earlier Eurasian mammoth species like M. meridionalis or M. rumanus, can appear at advanced wear stages in Columbian mammoth molars. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Definitely a mammoth, a very worn lower third molar. The low plate count (9+) is probably due to an advanced state of wear.
It’s ID day at the AMNH! @lilyduerr.bsky.social and I are representing vert paleo this year.
A pair of white dinosaur skeleton casts in red matrix with long curved necks. These are Khaan mckennaii, named for both the Mongolian term for ruler and for former AMNH curator Malcolm McKenna
A long low skull with recurved blade-like teeth belonging to Velociraptor, accompanied by a reconstruction of this bird like dinosaur showing a covering of feathers on its body Velociraptor mongoliensis skull DINosAuR Lived 80 million years ago | Collected at the Flaming Cliffs, 1995 Museum scientists discovered the first known Velociraptor fossil in the Gobi in 1923. These relatively small, carnivorous dinosaurs used their wickedly sharp claws and teeth to capture prey such as mammals, lizards and young dinosaurs. 3D print of Institute of Geology, Mongolia IGM 100/982 AMNH FARB 34118 ZHAO Chuang/PNSO pl
The nest of a small troodontid theropod with eggs and the skeleton of a hatchling • Byronosaurus jaffei nest and hatchling oUR Lived 80 million years ago | Collected at Ukhaa Tolgod, 1995 The eggs and tiny, just-hatched standing on end, indicating they dinosaur in this nest belong to a type were deliberately positioned, and of small, feathered dinosaur called a a fully grown tooth found in one troodontid. The nest offers evidence of the already hatched eggs suggests
A cast specimen of a baby Protoceratops Protoceratops andrewsi DINOSAUR Lived 80 million years ago | Collected at Ukhaa Tolgod, 1997 Protoceratops were sheep-sized, plant-eating dinosaurs. This fossil is a baby-it does not yet have any fancy frills or horns on its skull. Those grew in as Protoceratops entered adulthood, when they may have been used for protection, to attract a mate or in fights for dominance. 3D print of Institute of Geology, Mongolia IGM 100/10020 AMNH FARB 34117
#FossilFriday some casts of the incredible dinosaur fossils from the Gobi Desert in the AMNH’s new ‘Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs’ exhibit honoring our late curator Dr. Mark Norell, and his decades of work in the Gobi with Dr. Mike Novacek and many more.
Brontosaurus excelsus (my mother for scale)
Old Stegosaurus mount
Old mastodon mount
Old Megacerops mount
It is! Last time I was there was back in 2018 when I was visiting colleges. My how things have changed.
Megacerops coloradensis mounted skeleton
Mammut americanum mounted skeleton
Barbourofelis skeleton in lateral view
Up close on the Barbourofelis
#fossilfriday and some Cenozoic highlights from the YPM. I can’t believe only here and FLMNH have mounted Barbourofelis specimens! Such a cool critter.
Brontosaurus excelsus holotype specimen
Tylosaurus on hot pursuit of Archelon
Limnoscelis mounted skeleton.
New Sphenosuchian crocodylomorph species.
#fossilfriday got to visit the Updated YPM for the first time this week with my gf. Here are a few of the highlights from the Paleozoic and Mesozoic.
Reconstructed skeleton in front view of Hadrosaurus, with its head turned towards its left.
#FossilFriday Hadrosaurus foulkii skeleton at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia
Lystrosaurus embryo!
Benoit J, Fernandez V, Botha J (2026) The first non-mammalian synapsid embryo from the Triassic of South Africa. PLoS One 21(4): e0345016. doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Um novo espécime de turiassauro (Dinosauria, Eusauropoda) do Jurássico Médio da Índia www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
One more!
I can’t say what I’ve heard from my colleagues who are still there is especially encouraging… but I hope that more words of support can stress to Drexel (or anyone else) why the Academy is an asset to Drexel and to the entire city of Philadelphia.
One of my graduation pictures from Drexel where I am posed holding one of the fossils of a new species of lobe finned fish that I described while an undergraduate there.
Me in my graduation regalia posed with a pair of cast skulls, a Tyrannosaurus rex (Stan) and Triceratops horridus
Me with a cast of the Panthera atrox holotype specimen posed outside the academy mimicking the statue of Joseph Leidy
I worked there full time after my time as an undergrad before I moved to New York to pursue my PhD. The 6 years I spent with the academy were instrumental in developing me into the scientist I am today. To see this institution lose support, or even close completely would be a tragedy.
Picture of me as a volunteer in 2018 holding a cast skull of a Pteranodon in the prep lab
Me talking to a group of kids about dinosaurs
The vertebrate paleontology lab in 2022 including left to right: Adam Eliezer (now a PhD student at Carleton University) Grace Goetchus, Ted Daeschler, me, and Ned Gilmore
Me teaching some summer camp students about mammals from the white river badlands
I grew up going to the academy. When I was in high-school I started volunteering in their fossil prep lab, my first museum volunteer position. I attended Drexel as an undergrad because of its relationship with the academy and would work there for parts of all three of my co-op internships.
The Academy of Natural Sciences, the oldest Natural History Museum in North America, has been in financial trouble for some time. Recently they’ve laid off a lot of the staff and reduced their operating hours to just three days a week. www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/a...
I’m happy to see some other paleos noticing this petition to raise awareness about the plight of the academy of natural sciences that some other Drexel BEES students and alumni have shared: www.change.org/p/the-academ...
The Academy of Natural Sciences (
@acadnatsci), the oldest & 1st nat. hist. museum in North America, is under threat! Sign petition at bit.ly/save-academy to tell president of @drexeluniv to fund one of the most important educational & research institutions in the world! @geosociety.bsky.social
Decoupled phenotypic constraints framed by respiratory adaptation in the rise of land vertebrates | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
D. Stefanelli, M. Marino, B. Mecozzi, R. Sardella, A. Zazzera, and M.P. Ferretti (2026)
Reassessing diagnostic postcranial traits in Pleistocene elephants: evidence from Palaeoloxodon antiquus and Mammuthus in Italy
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 71(1): 155-171
www.app.pan.pl/article/item...
Anatomy of a perinatal woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) from Niederweningen (Late Pleistocene), Switzerland sjp.pensoft.net/articles.php...
When I was an undergrad at Drexel I thought exactly this! Stable isotopes at least.
black and white photo of old museum display with four cow-sized sloths surrounding a fake tree. There are some mammoth skeletons in the background
Saturday with the boys
Vector illustration of Pristinailurus bristoli, a close relative of the living red panda from early Pliocene Tennessee, climbing on a large tree branch looking at the viewer. This animal looks much like its living cousin, with a darker reddish coat and white stripes along its tail and white spots on its cheeks, ears and around its eyes
#Marchofthemammals2026 day 26: Our final animal for this year, Pristinailurus bristoli, the mighty Tennessee panda
As always, stay tuned for out wrap up later this week!
#paleoart #sciart
