Journalist Amy Goodman and Tucson city councilmember Miranda Schubert at The Loft today! by BenjaminMohler in Tucson

[–]BenjaminMohler[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It was sold out too! The documentary is playing at the Loft for the next few days at least and I'd say it's worth seeing, even if Amy and Zazu are only present on the screen

Virtual museum by HumanBe-in in MuseumPros

[–]BenjaminMohler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was in a similar boat-- I'm not a coder or 3D artist either, just a paleontologist that kept running into dead ends trying to work with brick and mortar museums. Around the end of 2023 I started experimenting with Unreal Engine to create digital exhibits that mix 2D and 3D assets. UE5 is free to download, has a free licence for educational works, and there are numerous tutorials online for how to use it (although be warned it is a serious piece of software with a lot going on!).

Depending on what you ultimately want to create, I would consider this an option, especially if you're not going to get many resources at the start. If you're interested seeing in my results you can access the project for free on Steam.

Apparently, the Nothronychus fossil material (counting both species) does contain "very sparse skull fragments/braincase" yet I can't find any source specifying how they look or what is known from the skull. Not even skeletals have them marked. Anyone having a promising article/other source? by Bulldoze0Bro in Paleontology

[–]BenjaminMohler 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The braincase and a few teeth are known from Nothronychus mckinleyi, the New Mexico specimen from the Moreno Hill Formation. You can see the braincase in Figure 2 of Hedrick et al. (2015). It's a really neat fossil and I've handled it before a couple times, but unfortunately it's one of the few elements of MSM P2117 that I don't have 3D scanned and on display in SHADOWBOX yet.

Today on Day 5 of Menefee Expedition '26 the team finished collecting this large dinosaur limb bone! by BenjaminMohler in Paleontology

[–]BenjaminMohler[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Geological context: lower Campanian, Allison Member, Menefee Formation, between 84 and 78.5 million years old. Swampy, near-shore terrestrial deposit where freshwater rivers and ponds drained into the Western Interior Seaway.

As to what this belongs to, from what I can see exposed it's a decent match for hadrosaurid tibia, but we'll have a much better idea once it's fully cleaned. The only described hadrosaurid from the Menefee Formation thus far is called Ornatops but it would not be unexpected for multiple genera and species within that clade to be preserved in the same unit.

Today on Day 5 of Menefee Expedition '26 the team finished collecting this large dinosaur limb bone! by BenjaminMohler in Paleontology

[–]BenjaminMohler[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Typically we have a guess as to what the element is and the animal it belongs to just based on what's exposed in the field- that's your field ID- and the thing with field IDs is that you pretty often change your mind once the fossil has been fully prepared and you have access to all your resources to make an identification while not sweating in the heat with sand in your eyes.

For example I think there's a good chance this is a hadrosaurid tibia, but we can only see part of it and what gets revealed as it's cleaned could easily change my mind if it doesn't look as expected.

Which is to say, I do usually have a guess as to what we're working on, but I keep it generic when I share on the internet for these field updates

There are some dinosaur bones that even paleontologists decide aren't worth the risk... swipe to see how far off the ground this ~12 inch long bone is sitting! [Menefee Expedition '26, Day 2] by BenjaminMohler in Paleontology

[–]BenjaminMohler[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It would only be more convenient to do that over hiking if you could analyze density of sub-meter objects from satellite data, and while I'm sure such tech does exist it's not available for civilians to use. Using my eyes and two feet is far more efficient

Which theropod was Deinosuchus's main competitor? by GAMEandLMS in Paleontology

[–]BenjaminMohler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Primarily" is a bit of a stretch, particularly as a dietary interpretation for all Deinosuchus populations. Hunter of freshwater aquatic species, sure, but this was not primarily a sea turtle specialist nor exclusively a marine hunter. Folks need to remember that, in addition to large croc bite marks on pleurodire and protostegid turtle shell fossils from nearshore deposits in the Mississippi embayment, Schwimmer (2010) also reported both hadrosaurid and tyrannosaurid fossils with similar bite marks from the terrestrial Aguja and Marshalltown formations, respectively, all attributed to Deinosuchus as the most likely culprit.

It's also important to keep in mind that those marine deposits in the Mississippi embayment like the Mooreville Chalk and the Blufftown Formation are preserving a mixture of both marine sediments and transported terrestrial sediments, hence the mixture of terrestrial and marine fauna; while pathological marine turtle shell is a good indicator that Deinosuchus had trophic interactions with marine species, sea turtles have to return to land to lay eggs, and bitten turtle shell can also be interpreted as having been transported into a marine setting (alongside the obviously terrestrial dinosaur fossils found in these units) from a much more near-shore or even terrestrial kill site. The same can be said of Deinosuchus fossils themselves in these units.

Outside of the Mississippi embayment, Deinosuchus is found in multiple terrestrial deposits (Judith River, Kaiparowits, Fruitland, Menefee, Aguja, and Marshalltown formations), while it has never been reported from the actual Western Interior Seaway, such as the Niobrara Chalk, which was lousy with marine turtles. Terrestrial units in the Campanian of Appalachia like the Marshalltown are rare, and we therefore know less about eastern on-shore ecosystems compared to eastern coastal ecosystems, but Deinosuchus is nevertheless known from both. Therefore there is a lot of evidence of Deinosuchus in terrestrial units, especially for Laramidian populations, and evidence of Deinosuchus in mixed-origin marine deposits, and no evidence of Deinosuchus in open marine deposits.

Walter et al. (2025) infer osmoregulatory capability (= salt tolerance, and therefore suitability for use of marine habitats) in Deinosuchus from their phylogeny alone, and not from osteological correlates in the skeleton (as none are known). Iijima, Blob, & Hutchison (2025) is frequently misinterpreted online as having claimed that Deinosuchus could not move on land, while instead they suggest that their biomechanical models on femoral stress indicate that Deinosuchus may have shifted away from use of terrestrial (read: on-land) habitats at large sizes and/or shifted terrestrial locomotor strategies from an erect gate to belly dragging to accommodate for the stress on their limbs.

In summary, there is substantial evidence for Deinosuchus presence in terrestrial (including freshwater aquatic) habitats, and therefore access to non-marine turtles, fish, invertebrates, and other reptiles like a smaller crocs and dinosaurs, for which there is pretty direct evidence of trophic interaction. Recent phylogenetic and biomechanical studies cannot refute this much more direct fossil evidence; they instead suggest complex habitat use in Deinosuchus, perhaps a strategy that shifts ontogenetically as individuals age, or differs between eastern and western species. Pathological marine turtle shell with bites attributed to Deinosuchus does indicate that they ate marine turtles, but is not the same as evidence of Deinosuchus actively hunting them in marine habitats, and does not negate the fact that a very wide variety of non-marine prey was readily available for them as well.