#RepostYourArt Day 6: Bird

I've made a few avian cranial kinesis models! Most birds don't actually have a "joint" where the top beak and skull meet, but instead a flexible piece of bone. We don't usually think of bones as flexible, but they can be!

#SciComm #SciArt

I had a really good night tonight at work. The museum I’m at has a traveling SUE exhibit and I was able to work in the tonight as a special add-on tour guide. Altogether this meant I spent 5 extra hours getting to chat with folks about SUE, dinosaurs, ecology, and evolution. Pretty great time…

IMAGE OF SNOWCOVERED MOUNTAINS AND VALLEY AS BISON GRAZE WITH TEXT FROM QUOTE "Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?” -Rachel Carson

#InspirationalIntermission #2026MMM

Age of reptiles scene depicting theropod falling off cliff into water and being approached by massive shadow

Age of reptiles scene depicting theropod about to be swallowed by massive ichthyosaur as two other members of its pack look on

I don’t know off any real fossils but there is that one scene from ‘Tribal Warfare’ from Age of Reptiles…

Forever sad that this post was never followed up. Far better researchers than I have never turned up anything even remotely related to it, so I've got to conclude it was either misremembered or outright false. I'm excited to see what Reeves et al. will publish though on orca/elasmobranch relations.

Mega-toothed shark biting the face of prehistoric sperm whale. Art by Bran Artworks

I appreciate (intentional or not) that the bite pattern mimics real world patterns of shark on cetacean predation, both modern (large bite from below) and fossil (biting the face). Art by @branartworks.bsky.social

Pt. 2

A year (2025) in books. Happy to discuss and share!

I also found it odd that the author mentions in another article the lack of placental predators was the reason that terrestrial reptilian predators like Megalania and Quinkana persisted as far as they did

Functional ecological convergence between the thylacine and small prey-focused canids - BMC Ecology and Evolution Background Morphological convergence is a fundamental aspect of evolution, allowing for inference of the biology and ecology of extinct species by comparison with the form and function of living species as analogues. The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), the iconic recently extinct marsupial, is considered a classic example of convergent evolution with the distantly related placental wolf or dog, though almost nothing is actually known regarding its ecology. This lack of data leads to questions regarding the degree of convergence with, and the similarity of, the functional ecology of the thylacine and the wolf/dog. Here, we examined the cranium of the thylacine using 3D geometric morphometrics and two quantitative tests of convergence to more precisely determine convergent analogues, within a phylogenetically informed dataset of 56 comparative species across 12 families of marsupial and placental faunivorous mammals. Using this dataset, we investigated patterns of correlation between cranial shape and diet, phylogeny, and relative prey size across these terrestrial faunivores. Results We find a correlation between cranial, facial, and neurocranial shape and the ratio of prey-to-predator body mass, though neurocranial shape may not correlate with prey size within marsupials. The thylacine was found to group with predators that routinely take prey smaller than 45% of their own body mass, not with predators that take subequal-sized or larger prey. Both convergence tests find significant levels of convergence between the thylacine and the African jackals and South American ‘foxes’, with lesser support for the coyote and red fox. We find little support for convergence between the thylacine and the wolf or dog. Conclusions Our study finds little support for a wolf/dog-like functional ecology in the thylacine, with it instead being most similar to mid-sized canids such as African jackals and South American ‘foxes’ that mainly take prey less than half their size. This work suggests that concepts of convergence should extend beyond superficial similarity, and broader comparisons can lead to false interpretations of functional ecology. The thylacine was a predator of small to mid-sized prey, not a big-game specialist like the placental wolf.

My final paper out of my PhD was published 5 years ago:
bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Let's take a 🧪🧵 look back at convergent #evolution using the #thylacine and canid #mammals

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What museum did you end up visiting?

Three books on a brown background. From left to right are Dr. Mark Witton’s “Pterosaurs”, Drs. Darren Naish & Paul Barrett’s “Dinosaurs: How they lived and evolved”, and Dr. Darren Naish’s “Ancient Sea Reptiles”.

Thanks to @nhm.org I’ve finally been able to complete an informal collection I’ve been working on for some time now. I’m very excited to crack into D:HTLaE. At a glance it’s a pleasingly sized book chock full of beautiful illustrations

A 3-D printed skull of a killer whale. In the foreground of the image is a wood plaque detailing information about the print including size (life size), print time (~54 days), and filament used (~25 pounds).

They’re incredible to see in person too! I’ve only had the opportunity to see one a few times. Luckily my current job lets me train to have access to a maker lab and I was able to do this as an off hours pet project.

Small magazine like book titled ‘Convergent Evolution’ by artist Kory Bing. Cover displays forelimbs of various species including: bear, human, cat, koala, and others.

Just received a copy of @korybing.bsky.social’s convergent evolution zine! Filled with beautiful illustrations and awesome facts!

Photo shows a killer whale skull 3-D printed in white filament, resting on the book Homology, Genetics, and Evolutionary Innovation. A rattlesnake cup is partly visible in the background.

Having a maker space at work is incredibly cool for a bunch of reasons, ranging from enhanced SciComm (my main job) to making fun little curiosity projects, like this scaled down orca skull. Credit for the model goes to Joseph Tyler on Morphosource!

I've never heard of that one before. Source?

The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions: Patterns, causes, ecological consequences and implications for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene | Cambridge Prisms: Extinction | Cambridge Core The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions: Patterns, causes, ecological consequences and implications for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene - Volume 2

The evidence for Homo sapiens playing the dominant role in the global #megafauna #extinctions constitutes one of the clearest, well-supported patterns in #ecology. See our 2024 review www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #paleobiology #archeology #hunting #ecosystem #Pleistocene #defaunation #rewilding

The thylacine, surrounded by a numbat, quoll, and Tasmanian devil: who is their closest living relative?

Something I often see & hear confusion around is what animal is the closest living relative to the #thylacine.

The usual suspects are things like the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, or the quolls.

Which of these is correct?
Let's take a look! (DeadSite Revisited)
#evolution #AusPalaeo 🧪🦊🧵

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@tetzoo.bsky.social more unusual foraging behaviors!

Your reminder that many of the muscles, nerves and bones you use to hear and talk with correspond to gill structures in fish. 🧪 #evolution #paleontology

A diagram cross section showing sea to mountain, values show reduction in nutrient cycling: by marine mammals 77% reduced, anadromous fish 96%, terrestrial herbivores 92%

One of the unseen consequences of megafauna extinctions and severe decline in wildlife abundance is the drastic reduction in global nutrient cycling. This diagram shows nutrient transport as a mere fraction of late Quaternary pre-extinction values.

We need wildlife.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A pile of books about various natural history topics. Titles include: How & Why Species Multiply, The Botany of Desire, The Inner Life of Animals, The Meadowlands, The Secret Network of Nature, Randomness in Evolution, The Process of Animal Domestication, God Enough, How Fast Did T. rex Run?, Imperfection, Animals in Translation, Flaws of Nature, Oak, The Ark and Beyond, Marine Pollution, Phylogenies in Ecology, The Fall of the Wild, Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation, Evolutionary Community Ecology, A Wilder Kingdom, Oak Origins, Time in Ecology, Before They Vanish, Alien Species in North America and Hawaii, and Food Webs.

Feels like the right time to introduce myself here! My name is David (he/him). I'm an informal educator based in New Jersey. I recently finished my Masters in Ecology and Evolution and I'd love to pursue a PhD in the same. I don't have any terribly recent selfies, so please accept my TBR pile!

Tetrapod Zoology The podcast of the famous blog by Darren Naish, with John Conway as the straight-man. Discussion of all things tetrapod and vertebrate palaeontology, and many things not.

Tetrapod Zoology is here .... tetzoo.com Recent articles include those on the last Tetrapod Zoology Convention (#TetZooCon), Japanese zoos, cordylid lizards and other squamates, the 'dogman' phenomenon, and the life and work of author and artist Richard Ellis.