Milo Gaillard
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milogaillard2.bsky.social
Milo Gaillard
@milogaillard2.bsky.social
25/male/autistic/aspiring paleontologist. I also like animals, dinosaurs, video games, movies, and I work out.

Two wrongs don't make a right.
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
O’Connor, J. et al. 2025. A new small-bodied longipterygid (Aves: Enantiornithes) from the Aptian Jiufotang Formation preserving unusual gastroliths. Palaeontologia Electronica, 28(3):a56.
doi.org/10.26879/158...
Longipterygid enantiornithine Chromeornis
A new small-bodied longipterygid (Aves: Enantiornithes) from the Aptian Jiufotang Formation preserving unusual gastroliths
doi.org
December 6, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
It actually needs to be studied how 85 is treated like an event horizon score on Metacritic

One game could have an 87, another could have an 82. Only a five point difference. One is seen as a low end GOTY contender, the other is a “disappointment”
December 6, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Credit for this amazing meme goes to based @jgn-paleo.bsky.social
December 6, 2025 at 5:20 AM
#FossilFriday With the new Nanotyrannus paper out, I decide to dedicate a mini-thread to the Cleveland holotype skull (CMNH 7541), which has been found to belong to a mature individual, after all. 1/9
December 5, 2025 at 8:41 PM
👀
I know the year is almost over, but maybe you have some time left before the holidays to squeeze in one more Hell Creek Formation paper?

New paper on a discovery from the Hell Creek Formation of North Dakota from an international team of researchers drops next week. Watch this space...
a close up of a man wearing glasses and a tie
ALT: a close up of a man wearing glasses and a tie
media.tenor.com
December 5, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
Here's a nice 30 mins on #Spinosaurus that I recorded with @markwitton.bsky.social for the BBC Instant Genius Podcast.

open.spotify.com/episode/7hWf...

(Note it has a ton of ads at the start, talking begins after 3 minutes)
The real story behind Jurassic Park’s most controversial dinosaur
open.spotify.com
December 5, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Suck it Trump, you POS!
December 5, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
For #FossilFriday, my *secret project* that I've been dying to share with y'all is finally here!
🥁🥁🥁🥁
HUNTER!
Or, more specifically, Hunter the Dino-Digging Dog!
🧵
December 5, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
a second nanotyrannus paper has arrived, this one examining the hyoid histology of the n. lancensis holotype, authored by griffin et al. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A diminutive tyrannosaur lived alongside Tyrannosaurus rex
Whether Nanotyrannus lancensis represents a distinct taxon or an immature Tyrannosaurus rex is a decades-long controversy. The N. lancesis holotype is an isolated skull and ceratobranchials, but limb ...
www.science.org
December 4, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
Quickish Nanotyrannus lethaeus anatomy study.

Really cool to see two papers more or less back to back that very conclusively reestablish NanoT as a distinct taxon.
December 5, 2025 at 1:44 AM
I’ll admit, while I did find the Nano=young rex hypothesis to be questionable since last year and I’m admittedly somewhat baffled that was the scientific consensus for a long time, I can at least easily understand why the Nanotyrannus holotype was thought to be immature. 1/5
Very excited to share that our latest paper is out in Science! We show that the type specimen of Nanotyrannus—an isolated skull—is fully grown, showing that it is not a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex but a distinct species (1/12)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org
December 5, 2025 at 1:36 AM
I know, right? 😂
26 years of intense debate that boarded on blood feuds and this all could have been resolved if we just cut open the hyoids of CMNH 7541.....

Incredible work!
Very excited to share that our latest paper is out in Science! We show that the type specimen of Nanotyrannus—an isolated skull—is fully grown, showing that it is not a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex but a distinct species (1/12)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
December 5, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
Thanks to all our collaborators, the taggable ones are @ashpoust.bsky.social , @mfabbri.bsky.social , @rileysombathy.bsky.social ! Extra thanks to the Cleveland Museum, the Yale Peabody Museum, and the LA Natural History Museum for allowing crucial sampling of their specimens (12/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
Really nice work by @jgn-paleo.bsky.social & Zanno reached this same conclusion from independent lines of evidence/specimens just a few weeks ago. Our papers converge on the same conclusion, mutually bolstering each other (11/12)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nanotyrannus and Tyrannosaurus coexisted at the close of the Cretaceous - Nature
A well-preserved skeleton of a nearly mature tyrannosaur from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, USA supports the existence of a second Nanotyrannus species, Nanotyrannus lethaeus sp. nov., and vali...
www.nature.com
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
We have uploaded all high-resolution, whole-slide images in all light regimes onto Dryad, available for anyone to download, study, and compare (10/12)

doi.org/10.5061/drya...
Dryad | Data: Data for: A diminutive Tyrannosaur lived alongside <em>Tyrannosaurus rex</em>
doi.org
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
So the Nanotyrannus type specimen is full-size, or nearly so. We discuss more in the paper why we don’t find it likely that this is simple intraspecific variation in T. rex, sexual dimorphism, or a congenital dwarfism. The best explanation is that Nanotyrannus is distinct from Tyrannosaurus (9/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
This is especially apparent when we compare to a juvenile T. rex hyoid from the LACM. Despite being smaller in size, the Nano hyoid shows a close package of external growth marks that is the classic indicator of skeletal maturity (8/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
All that was left was to test the Nanotyrannus type specimen, the skull that formally defines the species Nanotyrannus lancensis. At the time, it was the general consensus that Nano was a juvenile T. rex, so we were surprised to find every indication of maturity in the hyoid (7/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
Then, we had to establish that it worked in extinct dinosaurs, especially large theropods. Running the size gamut from Coelophysis to Allosaurus to two definitive Tyrannosaurus individuals, we showed that hyoid microstructure works well! Not quite as precise as limbs, but it gets the job done (6/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
First, we had to establish that hyoid histology worked to gauge maturity in living relatives of dinosaurs of known growth stages. We showed that it did, in a growth series of Ostrich, Alligator, and even a Dwarf Caiman. Step one, done! (5/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
The Nano skull does have ‘hyoids’, tubular throat bones. During a visit to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, curator Caitlin Colleary and I wondered if these might also contain a record of growth, and allow us to directly test maturity in the name-bearing specimen (4/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
The best way to tell a dinosaur’s maturity is by looking at the bone microstructure (histology) of limb bones. However, the type specimen of Nanotyrannus is an isolated skull, so this method wasn’t viable. This difficulty resulted in the longest-running current debate in dinosaur paleontology (3/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Milo Gaillard
There has been a debate since the skull’s discovery in 1942: whether Nano was a small-bodied tyrannosaur that lived with Tyrannosaurus, or just a juvenile T. rex. This has major implications for how we understand T. rex growth and carnivores within last ecosystems to host non-bird dinosaurs (2/12)
December 4, 2025 at 7:02 PM