leftist publishers when you ask them about open access

an artistic depiction of the raptorial radiodont lyrarapax

a fossil and figure of the fossil of the holotype of lyrarapax

happy #fossilfriday! this is lyrarapax, a radiodont from middle cambrian china. incredibly, the holotype preserves details of the animal’s nervous system, indicating that their raptorial frontal appendages were protocerebral, as was its labum
(art by @ultraluther.bsky.social)

Oh lawd they are! I was happy and surprised to see almost everything is on display at Lima (could not get to the local museum at Ica)

that appeared surprisingly early in whale evolution. With an unusually dense axial skeleton, it paints a picture of a quite diverse array of early whales (Archaeocetes) coexisting in the Eocene oceans. (art by Jamie Bran) #FossilFriday

Partial vertebral column of Perucetus, displayed in the Natural History Museum of Lima, Peru

Several dorsal vertebrae of Perucetus, displayed in the Natural History Museum of Lima, Peru

Partial vertebral column of Perucetus, displayed in the Natural History Museum of Lima, Peru

This #FossilFriday I'm moving over from giant marine reptiles to mammals! Starting with one of the biggest of them all: Perucetus collosus!
First claimed to be potentially heavier than a blue whale, Perucetus had since been "downsized" drastically. It was nevertheless a mightily chonky beast >

Science is good. We should fund it.

Another reptile group from the Cretaceous seas of Colombia: the long necked elasmosaurs, Callawayasaurus and Leivanectes.
Unlike their heavier, shorter necked kin, elasmosaurs specialised in smaller prey, perhaps infiltrating schools of fish using their long necks. #FossilFriday

Ancient ivory from the straight tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus that roamed #IsleofWight about 100,000 years ago when still part of the mainland. #FossilFriday

NASA’s Artemis II Crew Eclipses Record for Farthest Human Spaceflight - NASA Four astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II test flight around the Moon made history at 12:56 p.m. CDT on Monday, traveling 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing

I have to admit - with so much bleak and vile things going on in the world right now (particularly here in the ME) this sudden glimpse of optimistic futurism is a pleasant reminder that humanity is not all bad. We can do good things! At least once in a while.
www.nasa.gov/news-release... via @NASA

i swear this gov is a TV show. the head of intelligence got hacked and used his real name for a porn account. the head of dept of war accidentally texted war plans to a journalist. and now former head of homeland security grappling with husband's secret cross-dressing double life in anti-LGBTQ admin

A fantastic little museum. Some more posts about it left!

Continuing with the Early Cretaceous seas of Colombia, the ecosystem's top predator: Monquirasaurus boyacensis, "El Fósil". One of the largest and most complete pliosaurs known, a separate museum had been built around this specimen, leaving it exposed but in situ #FossilFriday

Out today is our paper 'Genomic history of early dogs in Europe', in which we uncover the identity of the dogs that lived in Europe before agriculture—during the Paleolithic & Mesolithic periods: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... A thread ⬇️ (10)

@biouea.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social

For #WorldFrogDay, the best preserved Jurassic frog in ever found, Notobatrachus from the Middle Jurassic Argentina. Several well preserved species are known, and in 2024 scientists even described the first Jurassic tadpole, attributed to this species! #FossilFriday

Interesting point, but I think this difference can be explained by one key parameter: the newer interpretations of Spinosaurus, while surprising, maintain its reptilian look. Feathers, on any dinosaur, are at odds with the reptilian perception/prejudice through which the public views dinosaurs.

For more info about Kyhytysuka and Cretaceous ichthyosaurs, also check out the thread @ausarchosaur.bsky.social posted last week!

bsky.app/profile/ausa...

And Kyhytysuka wasn't alone: it shared the seas with another smaller ichthyosaur, Muiscasaurus. Other ichthyosaur species from the same formation are being studied right now, and will be described soon!

Fossil of an ichthyosaur (Kyhytysuka, y's pronounced like 'oo'), on display at Villa de Leyva, not far from the rocks it was found in

Another Colombian marine reptile: Kyhytysuka, a late surviving ichthyosaur from the early Cretaceous. It shows us that even right before their eventual demise, ichthyosaurs occupied top predator niches. #FossilFriday

Congratulations! I'm curious to know, what was the subject of your thesis?

Top of the food chains: an ecological network of the marine Paja Formation biota from the Early Cretaceous of Colombia reveals the highest trophic levels ever estimated Abstract. The Mesozoic Marine Revolution restructured the world’s ocean biodiversity into the complex marine ecosystems of today. This revolution began dur

Here's a paper about the Paja formation food web:
academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Apparently not. The Paja formation, where this species is found, is one of the most trophically complex ecosystems documented, including short- and long-necked plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs. Turtles diversified further in later ecosystems, alongside many other marine reptiles too

Assortment of fossil marine reptiles on display at the main hall of the Center for Paleontological Investigations, Villa de Leyva

P.S the Center for Paleontological Investigations, where this specimen is displayed, holds an impressive collection of fossils - and it is just one of three museums in the town of Villa de Leyva! A window into an early Cretaceous marine ecosystem

Fossil of a sea turtle, on display with head turning to the left.

Not the easiest #FossilFriday as war rears its head again here in the Middle east...
A throwback from quieter times: The oldest known sea turtle, Desmatochelys padillai from Colombia. Despite their ancient appearance, turtles returned to the seas at a much later date than many other reptile groups

Marsupials previously thought extinct for millennia discovered in New Guinea The chances of finding one mammal species thought to be lost was ‘almost zero’ and finding two is ‘unprecedented’, biologist Tim Flannery says

"Two charismatic marsupial species that had been thought extinct for 6,000 years are alive in rainforest in remote West Papua."

Oh yeah this is super cool as both the pygmy long-fingered possum and ring-tailed glider were previously only known from fossils 🤯🧪🐀
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Following with hopes of seeing a pipipi

Most likely not! Assuming a fitted table for both, tyrannosaurus's arm could exert more force than any human (The proximity to the mouth is another consideration)

a frontal view of the silurian fish megamastax; its mouth is very broad and turned upwards, it's eyes are wideset and tiny, and it just looks extremely silly

scientific figures don't often make me giggle but dear lord
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Old male Galápagos giant tortoise, which got very close

Male Jaguar in Bolivia, a few meters away from our vehicle. Truly mesmerizing

The elusive and hard to find Goeldi's monkey, perched on a tree in Bolivian amazonia.

The Andean cock-of-the-rock, one of the most flamboyant birds in the entire world

For #WorldWildlifeDay , some of the best wildlife encounters I was lucky enough to have last year. Of all the myriad troubles of the world, it is an honor and a privilege to share this planet with such a great diversity of life forms. And a reminder that we should do more to protect this diversity.

Just saw the incredibly sad news that Hans-Dieter Sues has passed away. Beyond his major contributions to paleontology, in all my interactions with him over the years, he was a stellar human being. He took great joy in life and in being a paleontologist. I learned so much from him.

Mounted skeleton of T. rex biting frill of prone Triceratops cast with one foot up on its flank. In a colorful museum display with a woman looking on in the corner.

This is still RCI’s masterpiece. Look how they captured the weight and power of an animal totally unlike anything any of us have seen alive, in a mixed-media sculpture made of steel and old rocks. #FossilFriday