Richard Fallon
@richardfallon.bsky.social
Research Associate in Natural History Humanities at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge (https://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/staff/dr-richard-fallon). Author of "Contesting Earth's History", "Reimagining Dinosaurs", and more.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
Avid readers of The Sirenoid Ganoids by L. C. Miall waited decades to bind up their monograph. They knew that title page was coming. Never lose hope.
February 11, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Avid readers of The Sirenoid Ganoids by L. C. Miall waited decades to bind up their monograph. They knew that title page was coming. Never lose hope.
Can anybody kindly recommend me a nonfiction book for general-ish readers, if one exists, on hydrozoans? Historical or recent, either works.
February 12, 2026 at 8:05 AM
Can anybody kindly recommend me a nonfiction book for general-ish readers, if one exists, on hydrozoans? Historical or recent, either works.
Avid readers of The Sirenoid Ganoids by L. C. Miall waited decades to bind up their monograph. They knew that title page was coming. Never lose hope.
February 11, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Avid readers of The Sirenoid Ganoids by L. C. Miall waited decades to bind up their monograph. They knew that title page was coming. Never lose hope.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
New Vintage Dinosaur Art! And I'm happy to say that it's more Maurice Wilson from the 1950s, courtesy of reader Alexander Guridov. Wilson's art is remarkably well-observed and beautifully painted for the time, and I might get a bit gushing.
Vintage Dinosaur Art: Fossil Amphibians and Reptiles
Last month I reviewed A Guide to Earth History, our first foray into the world of Maurice Wilson’s illustrations in quite some time. At the end of said article, I asked readers (we still have…
chasmosaurs.com
February 11, 2026 at 12:24 PM
New Vintage Dinosaur Art! And I'm happy to say that it's more Maurice Wilson from the 1950s, courtesy of reader Alexander Guridov. Wilson's art is remarkably well-observed and beautifully painted for the time, and I might get a bit gushing.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
11 February 1765, London: birth of Elizabeth Knipe, later Mrs Cobbold, poet, writer & pioneer fossil collector from the Plio-Pleistocene Red Crag Formation of Suffolk. From 1813 to 1824 she sent over 40 fossils to James Sowerby for his Mineral Conchology, one of which he named Nucula Cobboldiae.
![Top left, portrait of Elizabeth Cobbold, her elbow on a table and her chin resting in her hand; bottom left, Nucula [now Acila] cobboldiae, a fossil bivalve illustrated by Sowerby; right, extracts from Sowerby's description of the species.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vcl75pfg74dsskrzvynq5rez/bafkreiceao6ik5mwz7gpwt32gdtsfmwvecn3qbdoyu4wuda5mqtvu4dpt4@jpeg)
February 11, 2026 at 12:25 PM
11 February 1765, London: birth of Elizabeth Knipe, later Mrs Cobbold, poet, writer & pioneer fossil collector from the Plio-Pleistocene Red Crag Formation of Suffolk. From 1813 to 1824 she sent over 40 fossils to James Sowerby for his Mineral Conchology, one of which he named Nucula Cobboldiae.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
Beowulf — Lynd Ward, 1939
February 10, 2026 at 12:49 PM
Beowulf — Lynd Ward, 1939
The scan is terrible too, and I suspect a better one will make poor megalo look even worse.
February 10, 2026 at 9:43 AM
The scan is terrible too, and I suspect a better one will make poor megalo look even worse.
It was serialised November 1913 to July 1914, and I'm guessing that's from June or July 1914. Various illustrators for that French edition and very erratic depictions of the prehistoric animals: www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Th...
The Lost World - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
www.arthur-conan-doyle.com
February 10, 2026 at 8:30 AM
It was serialised November 1913 to July 1914, and I'm guessing that's from June or July 1914. Various illustrators for that French edition and very erratic depictions of the prehistoric animals: www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Th...
I think if Professor Challenger had brought that thing back from the lost world I'd have asked if he had anything else in the crate.
February 10, 2026 at 8:26 AM
I think if Professor Challenger had brought that thing back from the lost world I'd have asked if he had anything else in the crate.
Yeah it's an unnecessarily broad-brush term that's become standard usage for some reason, no question
February 9, 2026 at 8:35 AM
Yeah it's an unnecessarily broad-brush term that's become standard usage for some reason, no question
Its about the British novel of ideas insofar as it developed in somewhat antagonistic relationship with modernist literary precepts, anyway.
February 9, 2026 at 8:21 AM
Its about the British novel of ideas insofar as it developed in somewhat antagonistic relationship with modernist literary precepts, anyway.
Lucky enough to find The British Novel of Ideas at a CUP sale on Friday. What a brilliant and much-needed book.
February 9, 2026 at 7:57 AM
Lucky enough to find The British Novel of Ideas at a CUP sale on Friday. What a brilliant and much-needed book.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
Friends, my final attempt to secure rights to this image for my book. It’s the installation “Towards a Glass Monument” at Old Quad, U of Melb, created by Tom Nicholson. I’ve tried contacting the uni, the artist, even his assistant. No one replied. Can anyone help?
www.unimelb.edu.au/old-quad/wha...
www.unimelb.edu.au/old-quad/wha...
Towards a glass monument
Towards a glass monument
www.unimelb.edu.au
February 7, 2026 at 5:51 PM
Friends, my final attempt to secure rights to this image for my book. It’s the installation “Towards a Glass Monument” at Old Quad, U of Melb, created by Tom Nicholson. I’ve tried contacting the uni, the artist, even his assistant. No one replied. Can anyone help?
www.unimelb.edu.au/old-quad/wha...
www.unimelb.edu.au/old-quad/wha...
Reposted by Richard Fallon
Big fan of this title page for EF Benson’s Spook Stories (1928)
February 6, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Big fan of this title page for EF Benson’s Spook Stories (1928)
C. 1890. Dimensions: very small.
February 6, 2026 at 2:21 PM
C. 1890. Dimensions: very small.
I didn't realise there were so many graptolite fans on Bluesky
February 6, 2026 at 9:29 AM
I didn't realise there were so many graptolite fans on Bluesky
For #FossilFriday, a cute Didymograptus deflexus collected by William Kinsey Dover and his sister Sarah Anne Willes Dover of Keswick, now in the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social.
One for the graptolite fans.
One for the graptolite fans.
February 6, 2026 at 8:00 AM
For #FossilFriday, a cute Didymograptus deflexus collected by William Kinsey Dover and his sister Sarah Anne Willes Dover of Keswick, now in the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social.
One for the graptolite fans.
One for the graptolite fans.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
"#February in the Isle of Wight," by John Brett, 1866--a little bit of mist pooling in the valley, but full of promise of the coming spring. Looking forward to that! victorianweb.org/painting/bre...
#painting #PreRaphaelites
#painting #PreRaphaelites
February 4, 2026 at 11:27 AM
"#February in the Isle of Wight," by John Brett, 1866--a little bit of mist pooling in the valley, but full of promise of the coming spring. Looking forward to that! victorianweb.org/painting/bre...
#painting #PreRaphaelites
#painting #PreRaphaelites
I mean he's been through a lot, fair play to him
February 4, 2026 at 10:40 AM
I mean he's been through a lot, fair play to him
Reposted by Richard Fallon
"These prehistoric pictures...associate with the name Mr Wood, form a not inconsiderable portion of the exhibition. In most cases the nightmare objects, which the artist would have us believe infested the earth during the "Stone Age"...
Bexhill Observer 15.7.1911. #WyrdWednesday #LawsonWood #Art
Bexhill Observer 15.7.1911. #WyrdWednesday #LawsonWood #Art
February 4, 2026 at 9:15 AM
"These prehistoric pictures...associate with the name Mr Wood, form a not inconsiderable portion of the exhibition. In most cases the nightmare objects, which the artist would have us believe infested the earth during the "Stone Age"...
Bexhill Observer 15.7.1911. #WyrdWednesday #LawsonWood #Art
Bexhill Observer 15.7.1911. #WyrdWednesday #LawsonWood #Art
Just noticed that Quin Hall's incredibly hideous hairy dinosaur in Edgar Rice Burroughs's 1918 novel The Land that Time Forgot (right) is based on the incredibly hideous hairy dinosaur from Lawson Wood's c. 1907 artbook Prehistoric Proverbs (left). And here I assumed Hall was just winging it.
February 4, 2026 at 9:44 AM
Just noticed that Quin Hall's incredibly hideous hairy dinosaur in Edgar Rice Burroughs's 1918 novel The Land that Time Forgot (right) is based on the incredibly hideous hairy dinosaur from Lawson Wood's c. 1907 artbook Prehistoric Proverbs (left). And here I assumed Hall was just winging it.
Interesting. That's probably where Kobayashi got it from then. But I still like to think he just enjoyed French poetry!
February 3, 2026 at 9:09 PM
Interesting. That's probably where Kobayashi got it from then. But I still like to think he just enjoyed French poetry!
If you wanted a connection between Godzilla villains and nineteenth-century French Symbolist poetry ... you got it.
![According to Shinichiro Kobayashi, who created the story for Godzilla vs. Biollante, he got Biollante's name from a passage from the poem "Chanson d'automne" by the 19th century French poet Paul Verlaine, specifically the passage:
Des violons
De l'automne
Kobayashi combined the word violon, the French word for "violin," from this passage with the katakana character テ (te), as he noted that no other kaiju used this character in their names. Kobayashi later stated that it was a complete coincidence that Biollante's name seemed to imply biotechnology.[7]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2k2x7yjb5o3fdejbyp5bmduh/bafkreieegffmdcblji3q7noqc6votv5bq2vuafqngrnuxkhe2mxrynj6ra@jpeg)
February 3, 2026 at 8:27 PM
If you wanted a connection between Godzilla villains and nineteenth-century French Symbolist poetry ... you got it.
Reposted by Richard Fallon
@thomasgermain.bsky.social Are you aware that Google Books has effectively stopped working - the material is still there, but all search functions no longer seem to work, making fresh access impossible. Can't find any reportage on this but it seems a major story with huge implications..
February 3, 2026 at 1:35 PM
@thomasgermain.bsky.social Are you aware that Google Books has effectively stopped working - the material is still there, but all search functions no longer seem to work, making fresh access impossible. Can't find any reportage on this but it seems a major story with huge implications..
Reposted by Richard Fallon
Sad news in the UK #histSTM community - my former University of Kent colleague and admired historian of 19thC energy physics and steam ocean navigation, Crosbie Smith, died at the weekend following a short illness. We owe him a great deal.
www.kent.ac.uk/history/peop...
www.kent.ac.uk/history/peop...
February 2, 2026 at 8:45 PM
Sad news in the UK #histSTM community - my former University of Kent colleague and admired historian of 19thC energy physics and steam ocean navigation, Crosbie Smith, died at the weekend following a short illness. We owe him a great deal.
www.kent.ac.uk/history/peop...
www.kent.ac.uk/history/peop...