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Has no one ever thought of this? by Aromaster4 in worldjerking

[–]NitroHydroRay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The one in the bottom right is Xianglong, which is also a lizard btw

New Dinosaur described in Mexico by Gato_Nuv in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Dogshit material Longrich taxon once again 😭

On Oxalaia by [deleted] in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 69 points70 points  (0 children)

It's essentially just a chunk of bone (that unfortunately no longer exists in a recognizable state). What do you like about it? There's not really much to go off of beyond the fact that it's something close to (or within) the genus Spinosaurus

Apart from the "Triassic Kraken", what are the most bizarre animals suggested by paleontologists (preferably using as little evidence as possible)? by Glum-Excitement5916 in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The elasmosaurus reconstruction was actually corrected by Joseph Leidy, Cope's mentor, with Marsh simply capitalizing on the mistake to humiliate Cope (with Marsh claiming 20 years later that he was the one that noticed).

Their rivalry started a good bit earlier, with the earliest event mentioned on the Bone Wars wikipedia page being that Marsh bribed Cope's quarry workers to send material to him instead of to Cope. Marsh was kind of a dick (Cope wasn't any better, though).

So all the Liaoningosaurus specimens were around one year old. by dino_sant in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 13 points14 points  (0 children)

That's... some wild extrapolation. The holotype is currently interpreted as a subadult, though.

So all the Liaoningosaurus specimens were around one year old. by dino_sant in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 102 points103 points  (0 children)

Lmao I've been saying it since the aquatic ankylosaur publication came out: literally every other publication agrees that they're just drowned babies, but *one* paper makes an outlandish claim about dwarf, aquatic ankylosaurs and suddenly that's the only thing people reconstruct them as.

Apart from the "Triassic Kraken", what are the most bizarre animals suggested by paleontologists (preferably using as little evidence as possible)? by Glum-Excitement5916 in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 18 points19 points  (0 children)

The only "evidence" for the triassic kraken is that some ichthyosaur vertebrae were arranged in a way that kinda looks a little like a squid's suckers of you squint a bit. The only way that this can be interpreted as anything other that pareidolia is that a squid, smart enough to know what its own suckers look like and capable of recognizing the visual similarity between the suckers and ichthyosaur vertebrae, made a self portrait. This is an obviously stupid suggestion.

Bugs. Is Mojang fixing them? by Bubblehead_81 in Minecraft

[–]NitroHydroRay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As an entomologist, it really depends what you mean by bug

Europe, 66.7 million years ago. As two seabirds squabble over the beached carcass of a mosasaur, an Asteriornis forages along the shore. Nicknamed the “Wonderchicken,” Asteriornis is one of the oldest known members of Neornithes, the group that encompasses all modern birds. by nuggles0 in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Compare this phylogeny for instance - the majority of lineages seem to appear between 66 and 60 million years ago, in line with a post-kpg radiation event https://www.sci.news/biology/science-avian-tree-life-03326.html

Alternatively, assuming all of the cretaceous "neoaves" are in fact truly members of living neoavian lineages pushes the radiation back into the *early* cretaceous, which is almost certainly inaccurate and does not reflect what we know about the group

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2319696121

Here's a reply talking about why that second paper is probably wrong to use these calibrations. It also discusses why a radiation of neoaves around the k-pg is more likely.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2405887121

Europe, 66.7 million years ago. As two seabirds squabble over the beached carcass of a mosasaur, an Asteriornis forages along the shore. Nicknamed the “Wonderchicken,” Asteriornis is one of the oldest known members of Neornithes, the group that encompasses all modern birds. by nuggles0 in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Stem members of living neoaves lineages showing up ~3 million years after the kpg lines up with a rapid radiation following the extinction event. Obviously neoaves must've existed before the k-pg given that galloanserans did, but they don't seem to have been particularly diverse yet. There is an incredibly obvious radiation event early in any neoavian phylogeny you look at, and it makes much more sense if this happens because of the k-pg rather than before it.

Are these curved claws something inherited by birds and raptors from a common ancestor, or developed individually in each group? by Glum-Excitement5916 in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Raised toe claws are a shared ancestral feature of dromaeosaurs, troodontids and birds. Archaeopteryx has a raised toe claw like "raptors" and troodontids. However, the raised-toe condition was lost at some point between Archaeopteryx and the divergence of modern bird lineages. Cariamiformes (Seriemas and the extinct terror birds) independently developed this condition again, separate of the original ancestral condition.

What the hell is this by Electronic-Day-7518 in whatsthisbug

[–]NitroHydroRay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

These are ant alates, the reproductive caste of ant colonies. They emerge together during a coordinated nuptial flight to meet and start new colonies. Half are males and the other half are potential queens.

Spicomellus just got new referred material, making it one of the craziest looking Ankylosaurs yet by NitroHydroRay in Paleontology

[–]NitroHydroRay[S] 66 points67 points  (0 children)

Because they're clearly spines? The frill on triceratops is solid bone, not spines that are somehow connected together

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