The Paleontology Thread

[JAGzilla]

Bold of them to put up a skeleton they'll have to completely rebuild every year.

[JAGzilla]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-GGGY8 ... umentaries

I just got done with this really great episode of PBS Nova from 1991, The Hunt For China's Dinosaurs. It has a ton of transitional Dinosaur Revolution charm, and is just a cool historical piece, recording the first paleontological expedition by western scientists into the Gobi Desert since Roy Chapman Andrews in the '20s. They made a lot of amazing finds, and it's kind of striking how straightforwardly scientific it is as a documentary. I watched the 2014 Nova episode about Spinosaurus and it was overdramatic dumbed-down junk by comparison. The old stop-motion and 2D animation used to bring the dinosaurs to life were so much more appealing and effectively utilized than typical TV CGI, too. I'm definitely going to dig into the other Nova dinosaur material from that era.

[Noble Saber]

Bold of them to put up a skeleton they'll have to completely rebuild every year.

Every fossil mount hanging up in a museum has something wrong with it, so I don't think the Field has to worry too much!

[JAGzilla]

Bold of them to put up a skeleton they'll have to completely rebuild every year.

Every fossil mount hanging up in a museum has something wrong with it, so I don't think the Field has to worry too much!

This is Spinosaurus we're talking about, though. It changes more often than the weather.

[Spirit Ghidorah 2010]

In their defense, it was Irritator that was struck with the bizarro hammer this time

[SoggyNoodles2016]

A newly discovered find seems to show the opposum sized Chinese mammal Repenomamus mid attack on a adult Psittacosaurus before the two were buried by a pyroclastic flow

[NSZ]

A newly discovered find seems to show the opposum sized Chinese mammal Repenomamus mid attack on a adult Psittacosaurus before the two were buried by a pyroclastic flow

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1U_eOVaMAQ ... name=small

Wow, what a dumb-ass mammal.

[SoggyNoodles2016]

Newly discovered Eocene whale Perucetus might beat the blue whale as largest animal of all time, at 25 meters and a upper weight estimate of 340 tons

[Gigantis]

Newly discovered Eocene whale Perucetus might beat the blue whale as largest animal of all time, at 20 meters and a upper weight estimate of 340 tons

I love how adorable they made this thing look.

[NSZ]

I'm not convinced that this isn't "merely" an individual of some pre-existing species that's been afflicted with some form of gigantism, tbh (I say "merely" as though that wouldn't be a significant find in and of itself).

An entire species of fat Blue Whale-sized pinheads living an unsustainable & impossible lifestyle in coastal shallows is really, really hard to buy.

[JAGzilla]

The mammal and dinosaur fossilized together is beyond incredible. One in a million. You can't ask for finds like that.

The whale... is probably an exaggerated estimate. Those are routine with newly discovered big prehistoric animals. Every one gets the same song and dance. "Oh boy, guys, this might be the new record!" And then it very rarely is.

[Dv-218]

The Perucetus remains and basis on classifying a new species are very much legit, the methodology however…not quite. The choice to purely use a Manatee as the model indicator due to the bone density while ignoring other Cetaceans (especially other known Pachycetine Basilosaurs like Aeticetus or Pachycetus) is baffling beyond belief, and in part why the estimates ended up being so overbloated.

While there is no official rebuttal yet a couple of people with a decent amount of GDI knowledge did their own estimates based on a model that’s more inferred from actual Pachycetine anatomy and ended up with a more expected result, somewhere around 70-75 tonnes I reckon. Which is still impressive given it would make it the largest Basilosaurid and second biggest known Cetacean, but definitely not the colossus the paper suggested lol.

Regarding the head, it’s still small proportionally as inferred from other members of Basilosauridae but doesn’t look as comical as in the overbloated model- similar to the likes of Pachycetus proportionally. Iirc there hasn’t been any skull material from Peru itself aside from one tiny jaw fragment uncovered yet so this is mostly just an inferred educated guess.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

An interesting video on the growing list of gigantic ichthyosaur specimens being discovered and how many of them are now theorized to have been active hunters.

[Gojira1604]

What is y'all's 6 favorite dinosaurs?

[NSZ]

What is y'all's 6 favorite dinosaurs?

1. T. rex
2. Maip macrothorax
3. Regaliceratops peterhewsi
4. Therizinosaurus cheloniforms
5. Deinocheirus mirificus
6. Siats meekerorum

[HeiseiGodzilla117]

What is y'all's 6 favorite dinosaurs?

1. Triceratops
2. T. Rex
3. Gigantoraptor
4. Hesperosaurus
5. Supersaurus
6. Microraptor

[Eel221]

What is y'all's 6 favorite dinosaurs?

Dilophosaurus, scelidosaurus, plateosaurus, spinosaurus, barosaurus, therizinosaurus

[JAGzilla]

In no particular order...

Tyrannosaurus
Stegosaurus
Kosmoceratops
Edmontosaurus
Apatosaurus

[CamtheGodzillafan]

What is y'all's 6 favorite dinosaurs?

1: Spinosaurus
2: T Rex
3: Utahraptor
4: Giganotosaurus
5: Majungasaurus
6: Carnotaurus

[ShinGojira14]

What is y'all's 6 favorite dinosaurs?

1. Allosaurus sp.
2. Ankylosaurus magniventris
3. Euoplocephalus tutus
4. Tyrannosaurus rex
5. Daspletosaurus torosus, horneri, wilsoni
6. Triceratops prorsus, horridus