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Jorgo Ristevski

@jorgoristevski.bsky.social

300 followers 210 following 25 posts

PhD in paleontology, specializing in crocodylomorph anatomy, taxonomy and evolution. Postdoc at Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. He/Him/His https://jorgoristevski.com/

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Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Nov 14

Hello Bluesky! My name is Jorgo Ristevski, and I am a paleontologist that studies crocodylomorphs.

Although my research has been primarily focused on extinct crocodylians, I have also published on extant ones. In my book chapter in the Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior, I covered the basic basics of anatomy in living crocodylians: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_955. Contact me if you need a PDF copy of the chapter.

Me holding the holotype specimen of the mekosuchine crocodylian Trilophosuchus rackhami. Both of my papers on this croc are Open Access, and you can read them over at The Anatomical Record (https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.25050) and Journal of Anatomy (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.13732).

This image is from my paper published at Alcheringa, where the evolutionary history of crocodyliforms in Australasia was reviewed in detail. The paper is Open Access and you can read it here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03115518.2023.2201319

This image is from my paper published at the Journal of Anatomy, where I described the paleoneurology of the mekosuchine crocodylian Trilophosuchus rackhami. The paper is Open Access and you can read it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joa.13732

Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Armin Reindl @arminreindl.bsky.social · 2d

#Croctober Day 6
Heres a fun one from a research history POV.
In 1997 researchers described a snout tip under the name Baru huberi and in 2016 skull elements were given the name Ultrastenos willisi
Only last year did we recognize that both fossils belonged to a single individual

An image created by Adam Yates comparing a photo of the "complete" cranial material of Ultrastenos huberi with prior interpretations of the material. At the bottom left sits a reconstruction of Ultrastenos willisi based on the 2016 interpretation of it as a narrow-snouted animal with a circle around the skull table and an arrow pointing to the skull table of the "completed" Ultrastenos skull in the middle. The top right corner shows a reconstruction of "Baru" huberi based on pre-2024 ideas of the animal. The snout tip is encircled and an arrow points towars the snout elements of the Ultrastenos huberi fossil. This shows how both individual fossils were once interpreted vs how it actually looked like put together. The finished fossil suggests a small animal with a fairly traditional looking crocodilian snout.

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Historical Biology @historicalbiology.bsky.social · 14d

📣Editor spotlight

Dr Jorgo Ristevski is an early career palaeontologist that studies crocodyliforms. He researches the extinct crocodylian clade Mekosuchinae. He has named and described several extinct crocodyliform genera and species, including Australia's giant gavialoid Gunggamarandu maunala 🐊

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Manusuchus @manusuchus.bsky.social · Aug 14

- A hungry adult female Iberosuchus sp. tries her luck ambushing a small Diplocynodon on a river bank -
Created for the latest @paleologica.bsky.social video

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Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Aug 25

Hi all! I'm Jorgo, a palaeontologist that studies the evolution, anatomy, and taxonomic diversity of crocodylomorphs (i.e., crocodylians and their extinct relatives).

Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Literally Miguel 🇻🇪 @literallymiguel.bsky.social · Jul 19

Bretesuchus bonapartei, a real-life dragon #paleoart

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Literally Miguel 🇻🇪 @literallymiguel.bsky.social · Jun 17

CRACK!

Razanandrongobe easily crushes a dinosaur's femur to feed from its nutritious marrow

If Barinasuchus' skull rivaled the size of a Daspletosaurus, this crocodyliform's skull rivaled the size of a T. rex, and was arguably more specialized for bone-cracking

#paleoart

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Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Jun 11

New paper published today by @weisbeckerbblab.bsky.social and a big group of incredible collaborators! It has been a great honour to contribute to this study and be part of the Ozboneviz team.

Weisbecker B&B Lab @weisbeckerbblab.bsky.social · Jun 10

Today we’re publishing Ozboneviz, an open-access 3D atlas of Australian vertebrate (mostly mammal) bones: doi.org/10.1093/bios...

Ozboneviz: an Australian precedent in FAIR 3D imagery and extended biodiversity collections

Abstract. Billions of specimens are in biodiversity collections worldwide, and this infrastructure is crucial for research on Earth's natural history. Thre

doi.org

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

_crocodiles @crocodiles.bsky.social · May 29

A last ditch attempt to save the Orinoco crocodile.

🐊

www.reuters.com/investigates...

The last-ditch race to save the Orinoco crocodile

For decades, the men and women of the Venezuelan Crocodile Specialist Group have been raising younglings of the critically endangered species in captivity in a race against time to avoid its extinction

www.reuters.com

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Historical Biology @historicalbiology.bsky.social · Feb 28

#FossilFriday For our first social media posts, we highlight the iconic MB.Av.1010: a complete fossil of Archaeopteryx siemensii; a Late Jurassic species thought to be transitional between theropod dinosaurs & birds.

On display at the Berlin Natural History Museum.

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Jake Kotevski @dinoman-jake.bsky.social · Feb 19

They’ve only waited 120Ma.
A new glimpse into theropod diversity from Early Cretaceous Australia: megaraptorids, an unenlagiine, and for the first time, carcharodontosaurians.

Read it here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Artwork by Jonathan Metzger.

1/10

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Manusuchus @manusuchus.bsky.social · Feb 11

- Voay robustus -
Commission I made for a very nice guy last week. If someone wants to commission me, Im open, as we say in Spain: Bueno, bonito y barato.

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Aubrey Keirnan @aub-birdy.bsky.social · Jan 22

Check out our latest paper validating telencephalon and cerebellum endocast measurements in birds 🐦🦅🦆🦃🪿🐦‍⬛ royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @evolsara.bsky.social @evoneuro.bsky.social

Avian telencephalon and cerebellum volumes can be accurately estimated from digital brain endocasts | Biology Letters

For studies of the evolution of vertebrate brain anatomy and potentially associated behaviours, reconstructions of digital brain endocasts from computed tomography scans have revolutionized our capaci...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Manusuchus @manusuchus.bsky.social · Dec 18

- Sebecus icaeorhinus -

For a prototype, I am quite happy with the result.
#Crocodylomorpha

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · Dec 13

In the Late Triassic, croc relatives took on a broader array of forms and ecological roles than dinosaurs. The largest carnivores, for example, were big croc relatives like our chompy friend Fasolasuchus here. This life-size model is on display at Parque Nacional Talampaya, Argentina. 🧪

A life sculpture of a giant terrestrial crocodile relative, like a giant reptilian wolf with the head of a tyrannosaur

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Manusuchus @manusuchus.bsky.social · Dec 9

Lately I've been more focused on sculpting than 2D , but I felt like doing something fast to keep practice going.
A Mekosuchinae indet. inspired by the latest study on its presence in Papua New Guinea.
I really need to refocus on painting man.
#crocodilia

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Douglass S Rovinsky, PhD @dsrovinsky.bsky.social · Dec 4

A year or so ago, @zieglertn.bsky.social notified me that they've come across a fossil #thylacine from one of the caves in eastern Victoria - a BIG one. After hours of delicate prep work, I got to take a look at the beast (though apparently not take great photos... ).

Scale photos of very large thylacine fossils, including the upper jaw and cheekbone and part of the lower jaw, which has a rock stuck in a break in the bone.

The lower jaw of the large thylacine fossil, showing both sides of the fossil. There is a very large socket for the canine, and the symphysis is large and heavy.

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Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Dec 4

Thank you!

Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Dec 4

Can you please add me as well? Thanks in advance.

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Tom Parker @tomozaurus.bsky.social · Jan 4

Finished with one of the commissions I have been working on, the Australian Pleistocene crocodilian Quinkana fortirostrum.The commissioner requested the animal be reconstructed emphasising its terrestrial nature, though how terrestrial this animal actually was is debated.

Illustration of the extinct crocodilian Quinkana.

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Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Dec 4

Currently, there is only one specimen that can be referred to Quinkana fortirostrum with 100% certainty - the holotype. It's not even a complete skull, it's just the upper snout.

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Reposted by Jorgo Ristevski

Pedro Godoy @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social · Dec 2

New croc paper alert! 🐊🚨

In this new study led by my friend and colleague Thiago Fachini, we reassessed the cranial morphology and phylogenetic position of Barreirosuchus franciscoi, a peirosaurian from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil.

anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Nov 29

When more material is discovered, it may be demonstrated that at least some (if not all!) of the postcranial croc elements from the Otibanda Formation could be assigned to Mekosuchinae.

Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Nov 29

The postcranial elements were more challenging to determine as to which taxon/taxa they may belong, so we provisionally referred to them as Crocodylia incertae sedis. However, some of the postcranial elements are mekosuchine-like in appearance.

Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Nov 29

The conidont (meaning conical) teeth from the Otibanda Formation probably belong to a species of the genus #Crocodylus (which has surviving species today, both in New Guinea and mainland Australia). So, we provisionally referred the conidont teeth as cf. Crocodylus sp. indet.

Jorgo Ristevski @jorgoristevski.bsky.social · Nov 29

#Sebecosuchia is a group of extinct crocodyliforms that do not have a known fossil record from Australasia. The last known sebecosuchians went extinct in South America by the end of the Miocene. Therefore, we provisionally referred the Otibanda ziphodont teeth as ?Mekosuchinae gen. et sp. indet.