Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #paleontology

Most recents (24)

1/How did #megaherbivores come into existence? How did they evolve into multitonne sizes? Today we present our results @ScienceMagazine
[science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…]

#macroevolution #brontotheres #paleontology #paleobiology

Here is a 🧵 on our new paper 📄 [1 of 18] Image
2/ The emergence of large animals is a recurrent feature in #evolution. Traditionally, this pattern has been understood as the natural outcome of an almost-universal adaptive advantage of being larger. This notion is generally known as ‘Cope’s rule’.
3/ The mechanism is expected to produce definitive and gradual trends towards large sizes by means of natural selection. Image
Read 18 tweets
🚨🚨 IT'S OUT! Two new Jurassic lizards known from exceptional skulls and braincases refine our understanding of the early evolution of squamates!!! #paleontology #evolution #Science
nature.com/articles/s4146…
In this paper, we describe two new lizards from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation. Presenting Eoscincus ornatus, the ornate dawn skink (left), and Microteras borealis (right), the little monster from the north! ImageImage
These new lizards fill a critical gap in our understanding of squamates when they were just starting to diversify! The Triassic-Jurassic indeed does preserve squamates, but they are usually pretty crushed, which limits their informativeness... Image
Read 8 tweets
Dreadnoughtus!!! 🦕

I like sauropods (long-necked dinosaurs) in general, as these Mesozoic puzzles 🧩 pushed evolutionary innovation to the extreme, & even the simplest aspects of their biology are confounding, oft-debated subjects. A thread 🧵 highlighting few of those.

(1/n)
Dreadnoughtus schrani was discovered (2014) in southern Patagonia, Argentina 🇦🇷 and is thought to be the largest 🏆 terrestrial animal to have ever walked the planet (i.e., it possesses the greatest mass of any land animal that can be calculated 🧮 with...

(2/n)
...reasonable certainty). This colossal sauropod flourished during the Late Cretaceous Epoch (100.5 million to 66 million years ago). It was about 26 m (85 feet) long 📏 and may have weighed about 59 metric tons ⚖️ (image source: Wikimedia Commons) -...

(3/n)
Read 42 tweets
Happy #MosasaurMonday!
Last week, #Thalassotitan was making news for exemplifying what mosasaurs did best: killing anything & everything that lived alongside them! 🦎🔪
A 🧵 of fossil evidence for murder by mosasaur jaws...
🎨 @MarkWitton
#paleontology #scicomm #fossils Image
First, let's talk about the new kid on the taxonomic block: Thalassotitan! It belongs to a group of mosasaurs called Prognathodontini, all bruisers with insanely powerful jaws & massive, serrated conical teeth - NOT adaptations for making friends!
🎨@AndreyAtuchin Image
Next, there is *abundant* evidence of facial biting among mosasaurs. Several Thalassotitan fossils possess bite marks, but perhaps the best example in any mosasaur is this 0.8m long Tylosaurus skull @FHSU_Paleo that is covered in deep gouges, while also having a broken neck. ImageImageImageImage
Read 6 tweets
Los cambios sucedidos durante el #Paleozoico tardío también quedaron registrados en nuestro actual continente sudamericano que, por aquel entonces, se ubicaba en el extremo occidental de #Gondwana🌎🌎 ImageImage
A medida que esta región se alejaba del polo sur los mantos de hielo comenzaron a derretirse🧊. El agua generada por el deshielo inundó las tierras más bajas, originando lagos o provocando el avance del mar sobre las regiones costeras🌊.
Durante este período, el sector atlántico de #AméricadelSur también fue cubierto por el mar cuando se inundaron los sectores más bajos del centro de #Argentina🇦🇷, y pequeñas regiones de Patagonia e Islas Malvinas.
Read 7 tweets
¿Cómo lucía la Tierra durante el Paleozoico superior?🤔🌎

Hacia finales del #Paleozoico, la distribución de las tierras emergidas era muy diferente a la que vemos hoy. ImageImage
Durante el #Carbonífero, los territorios que hoy conocemos como #AméricadelSur, #África, #Antártida, #Australia e #India formaban un único megacontinente llamado #Gondwana, ubicado en torno al polo sur.
¡Las evidencias que señalan la presencia de grandes masas de hielo en estas regiones son visibles aún en la actualidad!🤯

Hacia fines del #Pérmico, el desplazamiento de las placas continentales dio lugar a la formación de una única gran masa de tierra: el supercontinente #Pangea
Read 7 tweets
Is Tyrannosaurus rex the one true king of the Cretaceous? Our new paper reviews the evidence🧵
link.springer.com/article/10.100…

#paleontology #dinosaur #fossil #scicomm #museum #AcademicTwitter
(art by @MarkWitton, who graciously gave us permission to use his work for this project)

1/16
In March, a team of researchers published a provocative new idea: Tyrannosaurus rex, the most famous dinosaur, wasn't one dinosaur at all, but three separate species that were so similar all prior researchers had missed their differences.
link.springer.com/article/10.100…

2/16
The two new species were named Tyrannosaurus imperator (the tyrant lizard emperor*) and Tyrannosaurus regina (the tyrant lizard queen).

*Imperator is actually Latin for "commander", but was a title given to the Roman emperors, and became the origin of our word "emperor"

3/16
Read 16 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 02/11/2022 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/dai…
Misinformation Is Everywhere, Especially About Past Information - Bloomberg
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
#misinformation, #history
Why Smuggled Fossils Are Hurting Paleontology | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
smithsonianmag.com/science-nature…
#SmuggledFossils, #paleontology, #ParachuteScience, #HeritageLaws
Read 20 tweets
Attacks or accidents? A thread for #FossilFriday!
Several hadrosaurs have been found with serious, oval shaped injuries to the tall spines along the tops of their tail. Some paleontologists have suggested that these are from unsuccessful attacks by tyrannosaurs. But are they?1/11
The two best specimens are a Brachylophosaurus (JRF1002) and an Edmontosaurus (DMNH1493) with strikingly similar injuries. In both cases the bones had begun healing after the injury occurred, so while these may have contributed to the animals deaths they likely weren't the cause.
Both genera were predated on by large tyrannosaurs, so it's possible that these were bite marks from attacks that ended with the hadrosaur managing to escape. Indeed, the shape and size would be roughly congruent with a bite mark from the local tyrannosaur genera.
Read 13 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 01/22/2022 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2022/01/22/dai…
Trump Backs Boosters. Clearly, Someone Did the Math for Him. | by Donald G. McNeil Jr. | Jan, 2022 | Medium

donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/trump-backs-bo…

#PartisanPolitics, #VaccinationBoosters, #PoliticalEndorsement, #SwingStates
The Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic — SFI Press

sfipress.org/books/the-comp…

#ComplexityScience, #BookReview, #SantaFeInstitute, #COVID19, #SocialCommentary
Read 20 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 01/13/2022 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2022/01/13/dai…
Inside the multibillion-dollar, Silicon Valley-backed effort to reimagine how the world funds (and conducts) science – Endpoints News

endpts.com/inside-the-mul…

#ScientificResearch, #ResearchFunding, #FundingFlows
Read 17 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 12/31/2021 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2021/12/31/dai…
How to Create a Health Care Crisis ⋆ Brownstone Institute

brownstone.org/articles/how-t…

#PublicHealth, #HealthCareSystem, #PandemicResponse
The Risk of Vaccinated COVID Transmission Is Not Low - Scientific American

scientificamerican.com/article/the-ri…

#COVID19, #transmissibility, #vaccinations, #InfectionRisk
Read 15 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 12/29/2021 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2021/12/29/dai…
Someone in my home has COVID. How do we isolate safely? - Clean Air Crew

cleanaircrew.org/someone-in-my-…

#COVID19, #IsolationAtHome, #TransmissionRisk, #HouseholdMembers
Differences Between a Secular and a Religious Upbringing

dailysignal.com/2021/12/14/dif…

#SecularUpbringing, #ReligiousUpbringing, #ValueSystems, #differences
Read 15 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 12/22/2021 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/dai…
The Corn of the Future Is Hundreds of Years Old and Makes Its Own Mucus

smithsonianmag.com/science-nature…

#CornVarieties, #PlantBreeding, #bacteria, #NaturalFertilizer, #mucus
The Second Great Age of Political Correctness

reason.com/2021/12/13/the…

#PoliticalCorrectness
Read 20 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 12/20/2021 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2021/12/20/dai…
Intranasal priming induces local lung-resident B cell populations that secrete protective mucosal antiviral IgA

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

#ImmunoGlobulinA, #AntiviralImmunity, #RespiratorySystem, #VaccineEfficacy, #ResearchReport
Bizarre tail weaponry in a transitional ankylosaur from subantarctic Chile | Nature Portfolio Ecology & Evolution Community

ecoevocommunity.nature.com/posts/bizarre-…

#paleontology, #ChileanPatagonia, #FossilDiscovery, #ankylosaur, #PublicationBackground
Read 20 tweets
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 12/15/2021 greeneracresvaluenetwork.wordpress.com/2021/12/15/dai…
Well-Structured German Study Shows No Deaths among Healthy German Kids Ages 5 to 11 ⋆ Brownstone Institute

brownstone.org/articles/well-…

#MedicalStudy, #germany, #COVID19, #mortality, #children, #SchoolClosures
Fast superhighway through the Solar System discovered - Big Think

bigthink.com/hard-science/f…

#ArchesOfChaos, #SpaceTravel, #SolarSystem, ScientificDiscovery
Read 20 tweets

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