This dinosaur - so far known from four extremely unusual, anatomically interesting vertebrae (two of them shown here) - was discovered by three different collectors, our work on describing them was led by University of Southampton PhD student @palaeoguy12 ... #FossilFriday
It was obvious from the start that this was (1) a theropod (or predatory dinosaur), (2) a new species and genus, and (3) interesting in being highly pneumatic (that is, it has loads of air-filled cavities and openings: you can see those features in these photos)... #dinosaurs
We described the bones in detail (Chris is very good at this), checked it with everything applicable to be sure it was new, & thought about new names. We considered several but went for Vectaerovenator inopinatus Barker et al., 2020, 'unexpected Isle of Wight air-filled hunter'..
Why 'unexpected'? Most #IsleofWight#dinosaurs are from the Wealden. Vectaerovenator is from a younger marine rock called the Greensand Group, and is from a location that hardly ever yields dinosaurs. And there are very few good European dinosaur remains of its age (Late Aptian).
It's therefore a really interesting addition to the European, and global, dinosaur fauna ... even though it's so fragmentary. What sort of theropod is Vectaerovenator? Many features show that it's a tetanuran theropod: a megalosaur, allosaur or tyrannosaur-type animal...
We coded it for a phylogenetic analysis and were surprised to see it emerge as a tyrannosauroid. We're not confident that this is right, however, and other tests of the data find it to jump around in the tree. We need more anatomical information before it's better 'pinned down'..
I've written about this research here at #TetZoo .... tetzoo.com/blog/2020/8/15… Go here for appropriate links, references and more on this story. Remember again that the paper is OPEN ACCESS, so go collect a copy for yourself :) And...
This project is an excellent example of the collaborations that happen when fossil finders, researchers and museums work together. Thanks to finders Paul Farrell, James Lockyer & Robin Ward, to Dinosaur Isle Museum, and to the @EvoPalaeoLab team, @ClarkinBoneBiol and others :)
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Once again it's time to embark on a #PrehistoricPlanet megathread, this time looking at episode 2 of season 2: Badlands. The first thing to note before we get started is that I screwed up in the previous thread, since I said there that Swamps was episode 2...
Nope, Badlands is episode 2 and Swamps is episode 3. Sorry! The Swamps megathread is here, by the way ...
Anyway…
#PrehistoricPlanet is streaming now on #AppleTV and represents a highly successful collaboration between #AppleTV and #BBCStudios. A massive team of hundreds of people worked together to bring #PrehistoricPlanet to the screen...
Yes, it's time another #TetZoocryptomegathread. In previous megathreads, I've covered several #LochNessMonster photos, including Hugh Gray's from 1933, Peter O'Connor's of 1960, and the Shiels 'muppet' of 1977. Time for another one!
Yes, you've heard of the #LochNessMonster, but maybe you don't know that a key piece of evidence long used to support its reality was a grainy bit of cine film, taken in 1960 by an aeronautical engineer from Reading in southern England…
This thread might be the longest and most complex so far, so hold tight. As ever, remember that I cover both sceptical and 'pro-monster' takes on the case concerned. The case I'm referring to concerns Tim Dinsdale's Foyers Bay footage of April 1960...
For something like four decades, Dr Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina has been arguing that everyone is wrong about #dinosaurs. His newest book is Romancing the Birds and Dinosaurs: Forays in Postmodern Paleontology. Here's a quick thread on its contents... 1/n
The book - RTBAD from hereon - is not an instruction manual for palaeozoophiles (art by @Book_Rat), nor does it include homage or reference to the 1984 movie Romancing the Stone. Rather, it’s composed of 23 essays on the state of dinosaur science as Feduccia sees it today... 2/n
@Book_Rat Early parts of RTBAD express Feduccia's disapproval of the power-hungry, juvenile popularists of our age. Some "have Twitter accounts with large followers [sic], dealing with everything from paleontological discoveries to sports and politics!" I'm among this awful lot ... 3/n
Welcome to a somewhat overdue (mega)thread devoted to the @AppleTV / @bbcstudios series #PrehistoricPlanet season 2 (#prehistoricplanet2 if you will), streaming NOW, and specifically to the first episode: ISLANDS...
Islands is one of my favourite episodes of #PrehistoricPlanet2. We knew early on that we’d cover stories relevant to the Late Cretaceous island faunas of Romania and Madagascar (since both places have revealed numerous amazing Late Cretaceous island-dwelling animals), but…
... what else could we show? The producer for this episode – Paul Stewart – worked really hard to find appropriate stories, and succeeded in focusing on amazing animals doing interesting things…
If you're interested in science you're familiar with Piltdown man, formally named Eoanthropus dawsoni in 1912 but shown to be hoaxed in 1953. What you may not be familiar with is the DUALIST CONTENTION, and here's a thread on it...
Yes, the one thing that every single person who’s heard of Piltdown man knows is that it was eventually determined to be a hoax. What’s discussed less frequently is that early 20th century views on Piltdown man were -far more complex- than popularly portrayed...
Acceptance of Eoanthropus as a valid proto-human (as per the Margaret Flinsch illustration here) might have been the 'mainstream' view that made it into textbooks and encyclopedias, but it certainly wasn’t the only one, nor was this acceptance wholesale or uncontroversial...