#mesozoic — Public Fediverse posts

🌊 Habitat #debate: Most austrolimulid occurrences are near shallow marine areas (or at least areas with #marine influence) and together with their wide distribution, challenge the idea they lived in fully #freshwater environments. This new material adds to the growing picture of #xiphosurid diversity and evolution in the early #Mesozoic.

🦀 New discovery: 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘻𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘻𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 gen. et sp. nov., a striking new austrolimulid #xiphosurid from the Early #Triassic of Poland’s Holy Cross Mountains! This find pushes the boundaries of what we know about early #Mesozoic horseshoe crab #diversity https://peerj.com/articles/20950/

@xolotl it was a stone age prediction mkt #Mesozoic

"Dinosaurs are the protagonists so far in the history of animal life on land — not some peculiar preamble to our own story. Throughout the epochs they inhabited every niche — predator and prey, herbivore and carnivore — and spanned every size, from the pigeonlike anchiornis to the hangarsized argentinosaurus. Sauropods like these were so monumental that their methane farts might have been partly responsible for making the Mesozoic so warm."

— Peter Brannen: Ends of the World

This is a majestic book. It really blew my mind. It is all so beautiful, mesmerizing, and fucking scary.

And maybe funny #Mesozoic #Farts #Dinosaurs

"[Darren Naish] This week sees the publication (in the UK!) of just such a successor, namely Mesozoic Art II (MAII from hereon), again edited by Steve and myself, again published by Bloomsbury (White & Naish 2025). Here, we take a quick look at this lavish, riotously colourful, spectacular volume that showcases the state of modern palaeoart, one that we hope audiences will enjoy."

https://tetzoo.com/blog/2025/9/23/mesozoic-art-ii

#Art #Books #Prehistoric #Mesozoic #Paleoart

Brought out from a discussion elsenet: would Earth now be warm enough to support large, #nonavian #dinosaurs today? This is a fair question, because as bad as global warming is—and it's going to get worse—we're still nowhere near the hottest times of the #Mesozoic.

The answer is, it was *generally* warmer than the present day, but #global #temperatures went up and down considerably, as you'd expect over such a long stretch of time—about 175 million years from the first dinosaurs to the #Chicxulub impact. Dinosaurs as a #clade did fine the whole way through, although of course with plenty of various groups dying out in the meantime.

Also, the planet has always had warmer and cooler regions. Many large dinosaurs lived comfortably in polar regions that had #climates comparable to the cooler parts of the temperate zones today. The idea that non-avian dinosaurs exclusively inhabited steaming jungles or baking deserts has been embedded by generations of paleoart, but it's just wrong. If the impact hadn't happened, they'd still be thriving.

That being said, #sauropods in particular seemed to prefer warmer environments, so their range might be a lot more limited now than it was then, and it's possible the ice age(s) would have finished them off. Other famous giants like #tyrannosaurs, #ceratopsians, and #hadrosaurs would still be widespread, and smaller ones like #dromaeosaurs ("raptors") would be as numerous as coyotes and wildcats are in our world.

https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/06/six-types-dinosaur-eggs-found-one-place/

The story is less dramatic than the headline (try to contain your shock) which makes it sound like multiple #species sharing a #nest. That would be tremendous news, implying amazing things about #interspecies behavior. But it's still a very nice find. And I love some of the site names on the map.

Also, the journal article is linked from the story, which IMO should be mandatory for all #popular #science #reporting. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0314689

What the find does seem to show is a diverse ecosystem with multiple species sharing nesting *grounds*. Some of them were related, like various kinds of the unfairly-named† #oviraptors, while others weren't even #dinosaurs at all! That's still pretty nifty.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: no more than today, the #Mesozoic was never All Killing, All The Time. Dinosaurs did, of course, hunt and eat each other, and no doubt destroyed rivals' nests as well. But most of the time, they were living their lives in relative peace. Modern dinosaurian behavior is as good a guide as any here: even the meanest #birds tend their nests more than they fight.

†#Oviraptor was discovered on a nest, and the initial assumption was that it was stealing the eggs for food, thus the name "egg thief." Subsequent discoveries showed the eggs were its own—it was brooding, not raiding. But the species and all its kin have to bear the slander through their afterlife.

A new study by Smyth and colleagues identifies pterosaur trackmakers and shows that several lineages of Jurassic and Cretaceous pterosaurs independently evolved to thrive in terrestrial ecosystems, foraging on foot rather than on the wing!

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2825%2900446-4

#science #paleontology #pterosaurs #pterodactyl #mesozoic #reptiles #paleoecology #ecology #locomotion #functionalmorphology

Dark coats may have helped the earliest mammals hide from hungry dinosaurs. The spots and stripes familiar to us today didn't arise until later in mammalian evolution https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dark-coats-earliest-mammals-dinosaurs

#Mesozoic mammaliaforms illuminate the origins of pelage coloration https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads9734

"Zebra stripes? Leopard print? Neither were in vogue among the earliest #mammals during the Age of #Dinosaurs. Early mammals and their close relatives probably sported dark, drab coats from snout to tail."

come on, 4 inches is quite large for a scorpion. You didn't expect something the size of Xingjangtitan, did you?

https://www.livescience.com/animals/extinct-species/125-million-year-old-fossil-of-giant-venomous-scorpion-that-lived-alongside-dinosaurs-discovered-in-china

#fossils
#scorpions
#arthropod
#mesozoic

Therapsids Originated in Tropical Rather than Temperate Regions https://www.sci.news/paleontology/mallorca-gorgonopsian-13515.html

Early–middle Permian Mediterranean gorgonopsian suggests an equatorial origin of therapsids https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-54425-5

"#Therapsids were a dominant component of #Permian terrestrial ecosystems, eventually giving rise to #mammals during the early #Mesozoic... #Paleontologists have discovered a #NewSpecies of early #gorgonopsian #therapsid that was part of an ancient summer wet biome of equatorial #Pangea"

Ancient #cicada wings evolved to deal with evolutionary changes in birds https://phys.org/news/2024-10-ancient-cicada-wings-evolved-evolutionary.html

Enhanced flight performance and adaptive #evolution of #Mesozoic giant cicadas https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr2201

"in their earlier years, #cicadas typically had wingspans similar to modern butterflies... But over the course of approximately 160 million years, the wings across all species began to grow a little wider even as they became slimmer... to fly up to 39% faster"

3 illustrations which I did for the Korean book, published last August, <Mesozoic Earth Travel>. #Sciart #Paleoart #Mesozoic #Dinosaur

New #venomous reptile species from the Late #Triassic unearthed in #Arizona https://phys.org/news/2024-10-venomous-reptile-species-late-triassic.html

A small venomous reptile from the Late Triassic (Norian) of the southwestern United States https://peerj.com/articles/18279/ by Helen Burch​ et al.

"We know very little about the origins of reptile #venom systems outside of living #snakes and# lizards, so Microzemiotes sonselaensis is a very exciting addition to a small handful of #Mesozoic envenomaters"

#Paleontologists discover #fossil #birds with teeth had #seeds in their stomachs, indicating that they ate fruit
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-paleontologists-fossil-birds-teeth-seeds.html

Direct evidence of #frugivory in the #Mesozoic #bird Longipteryx contradicts morphological proxies for diet: Jingmai O’Connor et al. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)01124-2

"Since #Longipteryx lived in a temperate #climate, it probably wasn't eating #fruits year-round... it had a mixed diet which included things like #insects when fruits weren't available."

"World's oldest dinosaur found": Heavy rains reveal 233 million-year-old dinosaur fossil
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/worlds-oldest-dinosaur-found-heavy-rains-reveal-233-million-year-old-dinosaur-fossil/articleshow/112398287.cms

#Paleontology
#Dinosaurs
#DinosaurFossil
#Fossil
#Brazil
#Herrerasaurids
#Triassic
#MesozoicEra
#Mesozoic

Introducing Asiatyrannus xui https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2024/07/30/introducing-asiatyrannus-xui/ by @Ferwen

Their colosal body size and deep snouts were key features of tyrannosaurid species from the latest stages of the #Mesozoic. In Asia, during the latest #Cretaceous, existed a derived group of long-snouted #tyrannosaurids called #alioramins... The new specimen reveals the coexistence of the long-snouted and deep-snouted tyrannosaurids in southeastern China.

Ancient marine #animal had inventive past despite being represented by few species https://phys.org/news/2024-07-ancient-marine-animal-species.html

Morphological innovation did not drive diversification in #Mesozoic–#Cenozoic brachiopods https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02491-9

#Brachiopods were evolving in new directions but this did not become an evolutionary success in terms of the numbers of species... The findings shed light on some core principles of the #evolution of modern #biodiversity.

Reconnaissance Basement Geology and Tectonics of North Zealandia
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https://doi.org/10.1029/2023TC007961 <-- shared paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #modeling #model #Zealandia #continent #NewZealand #geology #structuralgeology #Gowanda #Gowandaland #rock #dredge #sampling #samples #geochemistry #geochronology #Cretaceous #LostContinent #remotesensing #geomagnetism #geophysics #geologicmap #Mesozoic #Eocene #tectonics

A random artwork from my gallery:

"Velociraptor mongoliensis" — 2019

A reboot of a paiting I originally did in 1997, age 16. I think at the time I considered it my first sucessful oil painting. I have added all the stuff to it that I originally intended to, but chickened-out (painting over skies in oil painting is scary,... [more]:

https://johnconway.art/velociraptor_1997

#Art #Dinobirds #Dinosaurs #FeatheredDinosaurs #Mesozoic #Mongolia #Painting #Palaeo #PalaeoPortraits #Paleo #Theropods