You can (wrongly) try to downplay its ability to hunt, but there's just no way you can downplay the ability of an 8 ton, 1.5 m skulled, bone-crushing, serrated-toothed, bull-necked beast, with some of the largest leg muscles in the entire animal kingdom and some nasty foot claws, to tussle.
This is something I realized some time ago, but held off on saying.
As much as Jack Horner tried to poo-poo T. rex's predatory abilities, I think even he knew in the back of his head that he could never do the same with its fighting abilities, which is the other major portion of its appeal.
juvenile proboscideans and toxodonts) as well.
There’s just no reason to think Smilodon would specialize on camels in particular. There was plenty of other prey with relatively slender necks that it could feasibly kill like equids, cervids, macraucheniids, maybe even Megalonyx. Relatively thick-necked but smaller animals (tapirs, peccaries—
No it’s just that last week or so a bunch of Spanish speakers argued with me on this point. Was absolutely stupid, really.
As in, 3D printing? Stupid question I know, I just wanted to be sure.
That gorgonopsid mount is interesting in that it shows the laterally compressed, pointed claws the group is actually known to have had
I actually agree with one core point it makes (on Smilodon's gape limitations). So I don't find it as egregious as the "small prey specialist theropod" video, which just straight up pmo. That said, claiming Smilodon to be a camelid specialist is too much of a stretch to me.
Oddly the second time this year I find a YouTube video claiming to have a new, paradigm-busting idea on what some popular prehistoric predator hunted.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY37...
😶
I've been considering collecting these. Seeing what I can do with what I've found available online.
In a giant marine apex predator kind of mood.
Livyatan vs megalodon piece by Darko Lončar. Mosasaurus photo is mine.
I'm hoping to go back to dig at this quarry for the rest of the summer on my days off from work. Any fossil I find I consider an honor (although, it would be REALLY cool if I found something from a vertebrate lol).
What this means is that the formation documents the K-Pg event in between. You could find mosasaurs, even washed-up dinosaurs, at the bottom of this formation, and above them all sorts of marine animals that survived the extinction.
(Art by @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social)
Original image source: https://eps.rutgers.edu/rutgers-core-repository/nj-coastal-plain/hornerstown-formation
The formation I got to dig in and collect fossils from at the Edelman yesterday was the Hornerstown Formation, specifically the upper part. This formation dates from the very end of the Cretaceous to the first age of the Cenozoic, the Danian.
Paleoenvironmental and behavioral insights into firewood selection by early Middle Pleistocene hominins
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
May or may not, depends on the call the research team makes
There’s an alternate universe where Miocene Prehistoric Planet exists, and at least one confidently wrong chud is like “nyeh the megalodon model is wrong bcuz it didn’t look like a scaled up great white”.
(Photo by Kristen Grace)
The pins I got because they are unique to this museum and because they are of species actually featured at the museum. Plushies I got because I lowkey like pairing T. rex with Spinosaurus.
Ok update: I ended up getting both of them, although I want to collect pins for all species eventually. Cool thing is I can also get more pins for other things I can attach them to.
Oh and I also found a few fossils.
Really debating whether I should get pins or plushes
I wonder if the people who actually support MGP’s sea lion shit are left or right. Wouldn’t surprise me either way.
Good morning! Whether you choose to eat waffles, pancakes, or eggs, have a better morning than she did.
This is a very interesting small Jurassic diorama from the Royal Ontario Museum. Obviously very old, but I find it oddly intriguing, from what's actually happening to the colors/textures/lighting.
Photo by Keith Schengili-Roberts
But they’re not the best solution, that’s the point
The culls began in 2008. The fact that we still have short-sighted fools like MGP with a hate boner for sea lions is quite telling about their efficacy: that is to say, there’s not much of it to speak of.
Because the sea lions (not seals) are not the root of the issue. It’s the dams, the intensive fishing and consumer demand, and climate change that are the issue. Dismantling a dam already makes fish like salmon rapidly repopulate the area, and if you can’t do that, there are ways to allow fish to—
necessarily has to be, even if that would be a cool avenue (e.g. Raditz and Nappa getting a chance to live normal lives).
