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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

@restingdinoface.bsky.social

24K followers 4.4K following 36K posts

Bronto-queen, big cat, best-selling and award-winning author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, When the Earth Was Green, and Tyrant Lizard Queen (2026). 🔞 she/they/it. Skreeonk. http://rileyblack.net

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · Sep 6

Tyrant Lizard Queen will be stomping your way next year, so it’s a good time to get into When the Earth Was Green if you haven’t already. 🌱

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance

Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest Romance

bookshop.org

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 19m

She decided to be baby the moment we met and had reminded me every day since

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 20m

Exactly. I love when I put on anything with a heel that takes me over six feet and Splash just looks up at me murmuring “Tall girlfriend.”

Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 31m

She negotiates very well.

Strata the torbie cat cuddled on Riley’s legs, on tv is the MST3K episode Parts: The Clonus Horror

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 39m

I feel like my career is repeatedly wondering “What if a creature…”

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Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Ville Sinkkonen @villesinkkonen.bsky.social · 2h

Vetulicolian studies. Cambrian weirdos #sciart

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Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Lina Svärd 🐻 Commissions open! @softlywool.bsky.social · 1d

Day ten of 31 Days of Fungi 🍄
This is Pig's Ear 🐷

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Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · 23h

"...regional extinction rate of between 75 and 84% for squamates in the Western Interior of North America and suggests this group was more severely impacted across the K/Pg boundary than other small-bodied vertebrates."
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology

Diversity of North American squamates across the K/Pg boundary.

Late Cretaceous squamates from DMNH Loc.3648 (a–aa) and early Palaeocene squamates from DMNH Loc.2560 (bb–dd).

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Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Georgina Kiersten @ingloriousgigi.bsky.social · 1h

Speaking of romance, I love the trope of a couple just dancing in the living room or kitchen for no reason. That always hits me in the feels.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 1h

Even better is

“Hey you’re short.”

“Really? Thanks! I could be shorter…”

Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 1h

I love when someone short enjoys being told “Hey you’re short” and you can make their afternoon just by saying so.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 1h

Ahhh this is killer!

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Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

HARPY @vampireharpy.bsky.social · 1h

oh shit i got dunk'd on

photo of op in a mirror showing off the tattoo more

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 1h

I have friends who want to attend and “see what it’s really like,” and I get the impulse. But cons, especially, are places where we owe no one explanations and don’t deserve the anthropological analysis. Come if you’re curious, for sure, but not to treat it like an actual zoo.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 2h

I hope the shirts fail and we can focus on making stuff - the freakier the better - for our own community. I want people to know enough to leave us to our thing but still keep the scene as a bit opaque, something to choose and be chosen back by rather than a place of normie tourism.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 3h

Strata rarely ever shows her belly. When she does, it’s when she feels I haven’t been responding to her bids quickly enough and she *really* wants some attention. She never leaves me to wonder what she wants.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 3h

The answer was belly.

Strata the torbie cat on her side, showing her belly, being pet by Riley

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 3h

Hm, what could she possibly want?

Strata the torbie cat on her side, showing her belly, thumping her tail.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 4h

🎧 “And if it makes you feel alive
Well, then I'm happy I provide
And when you see me on the floor
It's just a part of my show, show, show, show, show”

TURNSTILE - BLACKOUT [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

YouTube video by Turnstile

youtu.be

Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 4h

I’ve been writing for the magazine for my whole career and I really appreciate the swings they let me take. How often I’m like “Hey, sharks with weird mouths” and they respond fuck yeah Riley do it.

Expect something on fossil camels soon.

Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Jessica Elena @byjessicaelena.bsky.social · 15h

He promises to not steal what he sells you back!!
#art #illustration #peachtober

A digital drawing of a seagull character working in a stand selling french fries. There are frie shaped lamps, ketchup, napkins, and the seagull is standing with his wings outstretched looking happy. On the sign above the stand it says "we love fries" followed by a heart.

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Reposted by Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️

Emil L’Amour @vireosy.bsky.social · 5h

zebra shark, adult and juvenile

(Swim On 9, 2023) #art #sciart 🎨🦑🦈

$Illustration of a juvenile and adult zebra shark swimming near the ocean floor. Sunlight streams through the water, light refracting onto the sand and backs of each shark. The adult swims below in a gentle curve while the juvenile swims overhead, demonstrating the black and white stripes that earned this shark its name.$

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 4h

There are no carnivorous plants big enough to eat you, and there’s a good reason for that. Check out this piece I wrote for Smithsonian Magazine to learn why. 🌱

Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 1d

It's part of why I wrote this piece, dipping into some of the pop culture aspects to highlight why carnivorous plants grow where they do. Amazing plants.