some good news: H.R. 1897, the awful bill attacking the Endangered Species Act, has been pulled from a vote and FAILED

After finally solving my laptop battery problem, I’ve now learned my son’s laptop is doing the exact same thing. I am so sick of buying laptop batteries.

A Razorbill in front of a blue sky, looking down This is a seabird with a black head, a white belly and dark eyes. Its black bill is curved, with a white stripe across the tip. A thin white stripe connects its eyes and bill.

A Thorny Devil directly facing the camera. This is a very spiky lizard with a camouflage pattern of brown, orange and tan scales.

A landscape photo of the Painted Hills in Oregon. The namesake hills are yellow in color, with contrasting bands of reddish and dark brown rock

A massive flock of American coots packed tightly together. These are small, plump black birds with short white bills

Happy Earth Day to my favorite planet for four and a half billion years and counting

Homotherium beloved

I did the thumbnail for this awesome speculative evolution video about plants, an often overlooked part of worldbuilding!

In honor of Earth Day: a thread of environmental wins

New paper out today in @thepalass.bsky.social : onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Co-led with @palaeofil.bsky.social , w/ Federico Fanti & Miguel Moreno-Azanza.

Using the largest data matrix yet, we name a new sail-backed clade (Ouranosauria) & reassess Iguanodon taxonomy. 🎨Davide Bonadonna

An early burst of skeletal evolution at the origin of dinosaurs Abstract. Over 230 million years of Earth’s history, dinosaurs became a major terrestrial animal clade and produced one of the most species-rich living tet

Chase Doran Brownstein & Christopher Thomas Griffin (2026)
An early burst of skeletal evolution at the origin of dinosaurs
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 293(2069): 20260102 .
doi: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Zoologist and author Desmond Morris dies aged 98 Morris, who was also a surrealist painter and broadcaster, was best known for his 1967 book The Naked Ape.

Zoologist and author Desmond Morris dies aged 98
www.bbc.com/news/article...

I do not use and will never use generative AI to make my plushie patterns or artwork.
I enjoy the process too much and learn so much about each animal I make when drawing them, I will never let a machine take away this joy from me.

The great irony of his scavenger hypothesis was that, in doing so, he actually spent a lot of time hyping up T.rex as a big, burly badass that could take whatever it wanted.

Which admittedly creates something of a problem for his main point.

Multiproxy analysis of the extinct moa genus Euryapteryx reveals new phylogenetic structure and disparity with morphometrics Abstract. The species diversity in the family Emeidae of the extinct New Zealand moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) remains problematic and unresolved because so

Multiproxy analysis of the extinct moa genus Euryapteryx reveals new phylogenetic structure and disparity with morphometrics academic.oup.com/biolinnean/a...

CAM photosynthesis may have conferred an advantage during the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🦖⚖️ Major dinosaur repatriation news: Irritator is finally going home!

After years of tireless work by @alinemghilardi.bsky.social and colleagues, #IrritatorBelongstoBR is finally becoming reality. This is a milestone for decolonising palaeontology; thread to follow very soon!

Really excited to see this paper, which is basically the long-form explanation of everything we put into the animated mural in the Chicago Archaeopteryx display.

A chunky Triceratops with a striking red, yellow, and black frill charges at the viewer, kicking up clouds of dust.

A speckled black and cream Iguanodon stands erect in a lush forest clearing.

A pair of Tsintaosaurus with unicorn-like crests supporting inflatable nasal sacs. They charge across a dusty landscape below a clear sky.

A red-headed Utahraptor with a stocky, muscular build launches itself at a spiny-backed sauropod, ripping into its flank with its clawed feet.

Today’s four random pieces of palaeoart:

Luis Rey’s Triceratops, Maurice Wilson’s Iguanodon, Dmitry Bogdanov’s Tsintaosaurus, and John Bindon’s Utahraptor and sauropod.

In memoriam: Hans-Dieter Sues (1956–2026) Published in Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology (Ahead of Print, 2026)

My obituary of the highly accomplished and brilliant Professor Hans-Dieter Sues (1956-2026) is now online, let me know if you want a pdf... www.tandfonline.com/eprint/NICGG...

Work in progress Kunbarrasaurus skull.

Work in progress Kunbarrasaurus skull.

Next skull project well underway. Work in progress of the weird thyreophoran Kunbarrasaurus.
#sciart #paleoart

Doodles from last last Friday's flocking #paleostream featuring Brachiosaurus, Centrosaurus, Rauisuchus, and Muttaburrasaurus.

Federal Judge Vacates Kennedy Declaration, Permanently Blocks Trump's Trans Youth Care Hospital Threats The judgment overturns the Kennedy Declaration which has been used to force 40 hospitals to drop trans youth care.

Federal Judge Vacates Kennedy Declaration, Permanently Blocks Trump's Trans Youth Care Hospital Threats • The judgment overturns the Kennedy Declaration which has been used to force 40 hospitals to drop trans youth care.

One of the most famous mosasaurs, Tylosaurus proriger, submerges after taking a breath. It is dark above and light below, as tentatively suggested by some palaeocolour data. The challenges of interpreting scaly reptile palaeocolour, and the tiny scraps of colour data we have for this animal, preclude much confidence in chromatic interpretations of this species, however. Also, if you stare at this long enough, you'll see a few sharks. No foolin'.

Been thinking marine-reptiley thoughts today. Here's one of my latest #paleoart efforts along that line: Tylosaurus proriger. The colour is based on fossil colour data, although it's far from certain that this animal was black and countershaded.

Print link: www.markwitton.co.uk/product-page...

The Hell Creek Formation Is North America's Legendary Boneyard. See the Top Five Discoveries Found in the Iconic Fossil Bed From preserved plants to T. rex, the material found in these Late Cretaceous rocks has resulted in countless breakthroughs for paleontologists

Smithsonian Magazine asked me to highlight five Hell Creek Formation discoveries that changed what we know about the last days of the dinosaurs. I was happy to include @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social's Infernodrakon in the short list.

Hope the healing process is quick, glad you’re both (basically) okay!

A black-faced ibis standing in the shade on a rocky cliff

A Black-faced Ibis on a rocky cliff
#birds

Philip Hood original art from Dougal Dixon's The New Dinosaurs and After Man, in frames.

Yup, the originals. Now to get them on the gallery wall.

Still from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table stand before Camelot. He turns and tells them “On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.”

PAPER ACCEPTED! We got some words about a fragmentary but interesting little guy. Image dubiously related @skyemcdavid.com

Skull diagram of Paraentelodon intermedium in various orthographic angles. Different angles going clockwise starting top left: Anterior, posterior, dorsal, left lateral, ventral, left diagonal with mouth closed, left diagonal with mouth open.

Paraentelodon intermedium skull diagram.

#sciart #paleoart #paleontology

Newest #watercolor is Gonshuilong! Colors loosely inspired by the Sailfin Dragon (lizard) which I used to work with when I was a zookeeper. #paleoart 🦕🎨

A poster-like collage of 13 bird illustrations from my book on Cape Cod nature and wildlife.

A collage of my bird illustrations from my book "A Field Guide to Cape Cod," Yale Univ. Press, a.co/d/gnK4EtZ
🧪🌿🌎🪶🐡 #wildlife #scicomm #sciviz #wildlifeart #illustration #scientificillustration #natureart #visualscicomm #sciviz #scicomm #birds #songbirds #birdart #CapeCod

Riverbank diorama scene behind a rail with fighting pachycephalosaurs and Triceratops skull

Close up of colorful pachycephalosaur models

Close up of background mural, featuring green and brown ornithomimid in the forest

Bearded fella sitting on ornithomimid’s back

Afaik DMNS is only museum rad enough to include Cretaceous Cannabis in their Hell Creek diorama.

(There’s also a little gnome riding an ornithomimid, presumably unrelated)