Fossils - Blog Posts
Some researchers think Carnotaurus used its arms to find mates and I think that’s a very cute thing they could’ve done. Have a happy Valentine’s Day everyone! ❤️🦖
The thought that dinosaurs and other prehistoric life forms were at one point truly alive and roaming the earth and just behaving no different from any other living thing today just makes me so happy.
I don't even know if happy is the right word, I just couldn't possibly describe the type of amazement I get from thinking about it, I can't put words to it.
Like, these were real living creatures, they aren't from fantasy or mythology.
They breathed and ate and slept and did all sorts of normal animal things, because they were normal! Not some bloodthirsty monsters, they just did what they had to to survive, just like modern day animals.
Looking at the fossils I have in my collection and really thinking about it just amazes me. My little fish, at one point, was swimming around in the water with all the other fish, except this was millions of years ago. It's a little piece of the past, frozen in time, letting people today have even just the smallest glimpse of things that happened so long ago that we'd otherwise have no idea about.
It just, amazes me that at one point, all these creatures that, by comparison to today's life, are so strange or creepy or alien or whatever were once just the norm. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary to see a huge beast of a reptile looming ominously in a forest, or a flying creature far more deadly looking than today's birds of prey soaring through the air, or just, whatever the hell was going on in the Cambrian period, and it was all normal.
I know I'm just repeating myself a lot but wow I just get all sorts of feelings when I think about this stuff
Fuck man the past is so cool
Oh how I desperately want to time travel not to change the past, but to just see the dinosaurs and watch the earth change and evolve over billions of years
was looking through my old rock collection and found something interesting
a complete and intact clam fossil that i had found in my backyard. i live in a completely landlocked state.
Hello, today is my birthday, and I would like to share a comic I made in the last year with you. It's called Broomistega and Thrinaxodon.
This comic was originally printed with yellow, fluorescent pink, light teal, and violet risograph inks. Physical copies are available in my shop.
‘Circuit Board Fossil Series’ (2012) Art: Peter McFarlane
sometimes i wake up and i remember that I LOVE DINOSAURS !!!!!! RAAAAGHHHH !!!!!!! anyways anyone else ever think about the kem kem beds. because i do.
kem kem beds save me. save me kem kem beds. the disproportionate split between large herbivores and megatheropods enamors me. what do you mean theres just only sauropods and no other large herbivores. what do you mean theres like 20 different large theropod species running around at the same time. why are there fish that damn BIG. what even are noasaurids. also spinosaurus is here.
kem kem group so fine kem kem group divine. my roman empire is thinking about how the ecosystem of the kem kem beds was so incredibly diverse that it allowed for all of these different VERY LARGE carnivores to coexist because they all occupied different niches in the environment. which just totally crumbles the stereotype of Big Theropod Deathmatch because uh yeah, sorry jw bros, we have proof of some of the largest theropods in history all living in the same place at the same time!!! successfully!!! animals do not just go around beefing and fighting one another 24/7, especially carnivores. carcharodontosaurus and spinosaurus are not fistfighting everytime they see one another. spinosaurus is busy sleeping like a log on the riverbank and carchar is just coming by to get a drink. carchar accidentally steps on spino's tail and the spino snaps at it but misses completely because its half asleep and stupid. carchar walks away. they are just animals !!! and every ecosystem is incredibly complex and i love that even though we only have fossils and rocks to go off of this fact is SO evident across the globe but kem kem beds is so special to me. in my heart. anyways very rough sketch to go along with this train of thought.
i miss you kem kem beds. sighs dreamily
Looking at photographs of the preserved nodosaur remains and crying. He looks like he is sleeping. 😭
I am losing my mind.
Update : I think it might be marble from the area, i know a lot of train stations in France like to use local rock to look more like its background.
I couldn't find online which rock it is, but i found the architect and his firm's website so that's cool. It's just going to be one of those things where in a few years i'll take one glance at those pictures and immediatly identify it like " what a dumbass i was those years ago"
But i really wanted to find info online of it's age and origin but :(
Maybe it's the pill for motionsickness (which makes me sleepy and completely high), maybe it's the fact i've had a fever for 3 days or maybe it's because i slept 5h in the last few days but oh boy the floor at my train station is freaking cool i need to know more
It looks like it's loads of bivalves but i'm really bad at identifying even when i'm not tripping
new crystal setups😸
on skibidi😎
Possibly the least contentious thing I could draw lol! I don't have the shade range nor skill to make it look properly submerged so please employ a bit of imagination xp
@1dinodaily
fun fact, did you know that sharks existed before the North Star even formed? they also existed before TREES!
i love sharks
A giant #ammonite from millions of years ago. One of New Zealand’s largest fossils is on permanent display in Te Papa.
gocmnh
It’s Dunkleosteus, the Devonian Destroyer! This specimen was discovered right here in Cleveland.
Savage 10 metre fish of the Silurian and Devonian Heavily armoured piscine torpedoes with fierce teeth roamed the oceans in the early days of fishes, in fact the Devonian era is called the age of fishes by palaeontologists as they had a huge burst of speciation and diversified to fill most marine ecological niches during this time. The now extinct (fortunately) class known as placodermi (plate skin in Greek) was the apex predator of these long gone waters, and thrived from 438 to 358 million years ago, dying out at the end Devonian mass extinction (one of the lesser ones).
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RECORD BREAKERS
Life on earth, as magnificent and versatile as it is, is seemingly tame compared to the weird and wonderful creatures that once existed. All categories of life have reached unimaginable sizes, here are just a selection of prehistoric record breakers!
MEGALODON The biggest shark known to have existed, ruling over the oceans as recently as up to a million years ago. A length of almost 20 metres and weighing in at an estimated 48 tonnes, Megalodon could deliver a crucifying bite of up to 110,000N. It is no surprise that the Megalodon was dubbed the “whale killing shark”.
MEGATHERIUM Our early ancestors would have been quite familiar with Megatherium as they existed up to 8000 years ago, they were in fact the largest sloths to have existed. Sloths have a reputation as being lazy, slow and docile, but Megatherium was a 6 metre long, 4 tonne monster with a killer instinct and knife-like claws. Megatherium’s discovery came before that of the dinosaurs. Skeletons of these prehistoric beasts were a delight to the Victorian public and paved the way for the science of palaeontology.
ARCHELON Literally meaning “large turtle”, Archelon certainly was just that. Existing during the cretaceous, the time of the dinosaurs, Archelon could reach 4.5 metres long and may have lived to over 100 years old. Archelon could not compete with other cretaceous beings in speed and agility, but its blade-like beak was able to slice through flesh and crush though the toughest ammonite shells. Unfortunately Archelon appears to have been a popular snack for other marine dwellers, skeletons are frequently missing flippers or heads and covered in slashes.
TITANOBOA When the dinosaurs reign ended, a new era saw the rise of new super-predators, one was Titanoboa, the largest snake ever with a body up to 13 metres long, standing a metre off the ground and weighing up to 2500 pounds. Titanoboa was 30% longer than even todays largest species. Scientists believe this humongous snake hunted like its modern relatives, the boa constrictors, by winding around prey and suffocating them.
IRISH ELK Owner of the largest antlers of any animal, up to 3 metres wide, the Irish Elk gets its name from its frequent discoveries in Irish peat bogs. Existing up to 10,000 years ago, these would have been a common sight in grasslands for our ancestors. Many fossils indicate the animals died of starvation which is why the antlers are thought to have been part of elaborate mating contests between males, often resulting in one being fatally injured and unable to feed itself.
DEINOTHERIUM A distant relative of the elephants and mammoths, Deinotherium was more sinister, its name translates to “terrible beast”, they would have most likely caused trouble for our ancient ancestors around 1.5 million years ago. Deinotherium is actually considered to be the second largest land mammal of all time, behind Paraceratherium and is iconic in appearance due to its sharp, downward facing tusks.
ARCTODUS Known as the short faced bear, they were the biggest bears on record and one of the largest mammal carnivores to have existed. Whilst their skull was short, they were packed with piercing teeth that could deliver a bone crushing bite. Existing up to 11,000 years ago, out ancestors would have stayed well clear of this 900 kilogram predator, with slender limbs and knife-like claws, Arctodus was deadly.
SARCOSUCHUS One of the most infamous fossil discoveries in history, Sarcosuchus was the largest crocodile to walk the Earth up to 112 million years ago, this was a crocodile capable of killing dinosaurs. Sarcosuchus was twice as long as a saltwater crocodile, that’s 11-12 metres long and could reach over 8 tonnes. Its jaw was packed full of 66 teeth either side of its jaw and would have clamped down on prey that wandered too near.
ARGENTINOSAURUS One of the largest lifeforms that has ever stood on the Earth, Argentinosaurus could grow up to 30 metres long with its hind limbs standing 4.5 metres off the ground. They existed between 97-94 million years ago and at adulthood would have been virtually indestructible to predators. Its weight is estimated at a staggering 80-100 tonnes. There hasn’t been another land mammal on the same scale as Argentinosaurus since and it’s unlikely there ever will be.
SPINOSAURUS The largest discovered therapod ever, a group that includes Allosaurus and Tryrannosaurus. Spinosaurus remained an enigma to scientists for decades, the only discovered specimen was sadly destroyed during World War 2 and was not rediscovered until the 21st century. Spinosaurus is thought to have reached up to 16 metres long and weighed in around 12 tonnes, that is almost double the weight of a T-rex!
Fontainebleau forest in France
All these are post-organic material: a petrified bones and organs of giants.
The Ammonoids The Ammonoids are a subclass of cephalopods that inhabited the oceans from the Devonian some 416 million years ago until they went extinct some 65 million years ago. The species evolved and dispersed rapidly around the world and so are some of the best guide fossils for dating the strata in which they are found.
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Scene from an ancient sea floor, as if it happened yesterday, however, these are from Permian period (~299–251 million years ago). Some of these fossilized bivalve shells are still articulated, meaning, left and right shells are still closed together. This tells you that particular animal specimen was undisturbed since its death, until now. The hard rock that envelops these shells was once a soft sediment in which these molluscs lived.
South coast NSW, Australia
Fossilas: crinoid stems and stars including a 6 pointed pentacrites and a pyritised ammonte
Fossilas: crinoid stems and stars including a 6 pointed pentacrites and a pyritised ammonte
World’s Oldest Fossils Found in Greenland
Geologists recently found evidence of ancient life in Greenland which they think dates to 3.7 billion years ago. If their findings are confirmed, that would make the fossils the oldest evidence of life yet known. The great age of the fossils makes reconstructing the evolution of life from the chemicals naturally present on the early Earth more difficult. You see, the fossils are too old. It leaves little time for evolution to have occurred, and puts the process of life emerging and evolving close to a time when Earth was being bombarded by destructive asteroids.
It’s a tremendous Trilobite Tuesday!
When most of us think about trilobites, we imagine rather small creatures that inhabited the ancient seas. Indeed, most members of the more than 25,000 scientifically recognized trilobite species were less that three inches in length. Occasionally, however, paleontologists encounter a megafauna where, due to a variety of circumstances, the trilobite species were huge. One of these megafaunas can be found near the small Portuguese town of Arouca where the 450 million year-old Valongo formation produces prodigious numbers of exceptionally large Ordovician-age trilobites, such as this 41 cm Hungioides bohemicus. Other trilobite magafaunas appear sporadically around the globe, including Cambrian locations in Morocco and Devonian outcrops in Nevada.
Meet many more trilobites on the Museum website.
it was love at first sight, but yknow i'm looking at recreations based on my beloved's fossilized remains
the besties are laying next to each other