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Reposted by Stephanie Drumheller

Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 5d

For #FossilFriday, an ichnological 2-for-1 special in a body fossil: a termite nest packed with termite coprolites (feces) in an araucarian tree trunk, from the Early Cretaceous (~125 mya) of Victoria, Australia; oldest termite nest in Australia & largest wood nest from this time. 🧪🪵🪨⚒️ #ichnology

Gray to light brown fossilized (petrified) wood with interconnected spaces between the wood filled with sand-sized coprolites (fossil feces); the spaces are interpreted as a nest, and the coprolites are also attributed to termites. A few black spots on the surface are of modern marine mussels, with a marine snail and barnacle in the upper left, which were living there because the fossil tree was on a rocky marine platform on the coast of Victoria, Australia.

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Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 5d

I love fossils. And I love horror. Tyrant Lizard Queen is going to have heaps of both.

🕷️Gory Thing🕷️ @korybing.bsky.social · 6d

Here’s a sneak peek! This is one of my favorites! I looked at a lot of photos of lions eating elephants for this drawing and let me tell you: it was gross.

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Sternberg Museum Paleontology @sternbergpaleo.bsky.social · 5d

This #FossilFriday, we have our museum's most recognizable fossil: Fish-Within-A-Fish! Featuring Xiphactinus, a large predatory fish, with the smaller Gillicus in its gut contents. It was found and collected by George F. Sternberg in 1952, and is now an iconic part of the Sternberg's collections!

Fish-within-a-fish fossil at the Sternberg Museum. A fossil Xiphactinus with a Gillicus within the gut contents. A dark brown fish fossil within another fish fossil against a light brown background.

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Anthony Tackles Dead Cows @mosasaurologist.bsky.social · 5d

I finally put a human in for scale of the Deinosuchus

I'm not a good model but my bulk fills the maw of a giant fossil gator in one go

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · 4d

There's something slightly creepy about going through the hours of silent trailcam footage at our decomp experiment. Most of them don't end up recording anything (which makes you wonder what tripped the motion sensor in the first place), and then every once in a while, you get jump scared by a deer.

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Anthony Tackles Dead Cows @mosasaurologist.bsky.social · 5d

Happy Croctober everyone! We just finished the prototype Deinosuchus schwimmeri, named in honor of David Schwimmer (not not THAT one)

Holy crap this croc is BIG!

30 linear feet of crocodile goodness, with a dinky tyrannosaur in the background

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Science Magazine @science.org · 5d

Jane Goodall, a towering figure in primatology whose observations of chimpanzee behavior in the wild and advocacy for their conservation made her a household name, died Wednesday at the age of 91. https://scim.ag/4mKKEg4

Jane Goodall, famed primatologist, changed the way we thought about apes

The scientist and conservationist made waves with her observations and advocacy

scim.ag

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · 5d

Aren't they? The decomposition process has been so interesting to watch.

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · 5d

Some of the overlying skin is still there, but it looks similar to the leaves in this photo.

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Armin Reindl @arminreindl.bsky.social · 6d

A happy day 2 of #Croctober (lets see how long I can keep this going)
Crocs are well known for their parenting, but did you know that we even have fossils of them on their nest?
This specimen comes from Germany and clearly shows a Diplocynodon mother that died on her nest

A photograph and a line drawing of a fossil crocodilian (Diplocynodon) curled up above its nest. The head is moderately long and somewhat blunt and the body curles around the animal so that the tail curves around the skull. The illustration highlights the presence of several eggs surrounding the fossil.

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · 5d

I certainly think so.

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · 6d

Happy #Croctober to all who celebrate.

A skeletonized American alligator decomposing in a wood framed box

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Aug 29

I was sick all week, which has kind of derailed a lot of stuff. To play catch up, here I am in my office, chatting research with @boydpaleo.bsky.social and @mhouseholder.bsky.social while sewing patches on my eldest kid's gi ahead of his karate belt test tonight. #sciencemom

Laptop with open Zoom window in the background, blurry black gi with black and white patch in the foreground.

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Aug 20

Oh, I did. This is more me leaning into the meme. If anyone attends my talk, no one gets to act surprised when I bombard them with photos of rotting animals. The warning is right there in the title.

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Aug 19

Oh, they nixed the gators too. Apparently they are "dangerous predators" who "eat people." Cowards.

Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Aug 19

When they were designing Strong Hall, we were asked to make suggestions that would help advance our research. I requested a moat for my gators and was denied. Killjoys.

Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Aug 19

Now that I have received confirmation that my #SVP2025 abstract about reptile decomposition has been accepted as a talk, I went ahead and downloaded the most important graphic of my upcoming presentation:

Clip from Arrested Development featuring the "dead dove do not eat" scene.

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Jeremy Lockwood @valdosaurus.bsky.social · Jul 4

Bite marks on a section of the neural spine of a dorsal vertebra from the #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur Brighstoneus simmondsi. Trace fossils transporting you back to a short space of time 125 million years ago. #FossilFriday

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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · Jul 2

Clustering crocodylian dental morphology: Insights into functional adaptations, diet, and ontogeny - Testin - Journal of Anatomy - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Clustering crocodylian dental morphology: Insights into functional adaptations, diet, and ontogeny

Extant crocodylians may be divided into five clusters based on the residuals of four linear dental measurements (y-axes) and their variation along the jaw (x-axes). These clusters correlate to snout ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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

The wolf wall at La Brea displays the skulls of 400 dire wolves, a fraction of the number in the museum’s collection. Current research includes looking into wolves from the “tough times” pits, when Aenocyon wore down and broke more teeth by chewing bones more often. 🧪

The crania of 400 dire wolves at La Brea, brown fossils against a yellow background

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Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. @arctomet.bsky.social · Jul 2

Elucidating the thermometabolism of Thalattosuchus superciliosus (de Blainville) Young, Brignon, Sachs, Hornung, Foffa, Kitson, Johnson & Steel, 2021 (Archosauria: Metriorhynchidae): a paleohistological study. Comptes Rendus Palevol 24 (17): 333-344. doi.org/10.5852/cr-p...

Elucidating the thermometabolism of Thalattosuchus superciliosus (de Blainville) Young, Brignon, Sachs, Hornung, Foffa, Kitson, Johnson & Steel, 2021 (Archosauria: Metriorhynchidae): a paleohistologic...

Metriorhynchidae Fitzinger, 1843 constitue un groupe emblématique de crocodylomorphes dont le mode de vie marin et pélagique a longtemps suscité l’intérêt des paléontologues. En effet, tant leur...

doi.org

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Jul 2

A clerid beetle, visiting our crocodylian decomposition research site:

Close up of a small clerid beetle on the postorbital of a large alligator skull

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · Jun 24

Shark Week bills itself as pro science and conservation and says they don’t promote fear.

One of these 2025 episode titles is real and I made up the rest.

Guess which is real.

1 Great white assassins

2 Great white sex battle

3 Great white invasion

4 Florida’s death beach

Lolz all real

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Stephanie Drumheller @uglyfossils.bsky.social · Jun 24

A colleague took a somewhat tasteful photo of my students (Hannah Maddox and Owen Singleton) and I looking over our current decomposition experiment.

I'm looking forward to sharing the research, but I recognize that the photos are a bit grim for general consumption.

3 people bending over a wood framed, chicken wire box cobraining decomposing crocodylian remains. All are situated in a clearing in a wooded area.

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Christiana Garros @chrissygarros.bsky.social · Jun 13

#livefromthefield
Work resumes on "Scorpio" the Lambeosaurus lambei whose quarry was reopened last year. While last year we collected the skull, this year the body blocks are revealing vast swaths of skin underneath! Exciting!

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