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What About the Wings
There is something about the forelimbs of Yiqi that seems unnatural or even a bit downright creepy. Yi qi had feathers preserved with its skeleton. Those feathers are stiff and cover almost the...
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You Can't Buy Popularity
Yi qi is a popular little dinosaur for a variety of reasons, though that popularity is not entirely evident outside the paleontological community. The announcement of the description was met with...
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A Cheeky Image
The images shown this week are all serious reconstructions of the small maniraptoran dinosaur Yi qi. Those reconstructions are all as scientifically accurate as possible with the scientists and artists...
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True Bat Wings
After a little contemplation it was decided that we should continue our discussion on bat wings, but instead of continuing with small maniraptoran dinosaurs we are going to look at the origin of the...
View ArticleShort Facts
The fact files for Icaronycteris are lacking almost entirely. The only page hosting a fact file for this fossil bat is About. Eocene mammals are not unpopular really, but fossil bats are very rarely...
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The Single Video
Whenever we have a little known animal we have few if any videos. Icaronycteris is one of those animals that has very few videos associated with it. The videos that do exist are patchy, but there is a...
View ArticlePaper Thin Fossil
The American Museum of Natural History holds records for the two most definitive articles written on Icaronycteris. The first article, Simmons and Geisler 1998, describes the familial relationships of...
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Your Average Sized Bat
Measuring in at approximately 14 cm (5.5Â in) long from nose to tail Icaronycteris was just a little larger than the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus), the most common bat in North America. The...
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Drawing in the Bat
Having a lack of popular references there was no reason to talk about them yesterday. Instead, we come back today to look one of the only well illustrated restorations of this prehistoric bat. The...
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Mountainous Ichthyosaur
Shastasaurus pacificus is the only certain species of the genus of mid Triassic ichthyosaurs. The middle Triassic is early in ichthyosaur evolution and Shastasaurus is clearly not as advanced as the...
View ArticleFacts and Swimming Mountains
A full size Shastasaurus would be a sight to behold in today's waters. Appearing very piscine (fish-like if you prefer) with its vertically oriented tail but entirely lacking dorsal and anal fins....
View ArticleMonday Videos
As promised, here are the videos for Shastasaurus. These are tribute videos, however, they are here for your perusal and viewing pleasure.
View ArticleA Day of Papers
Shastasaurus is a complex animal and because of the complexities associated with this giant marine reptile there have been a lot of different studies, descriptions, and research delving into the life,...
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Behold the Mountain
I have referenced mountains a number of times when discussing Shastasaurus this week and that is not without purpose. Shastasaurus was, after all, named for Mount Shasta in California. Shasta is an...
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Ancient Marine Books
Shastasaurus has been featured in a number of books concerning and written about marine reptiles of the Mesozoic. As noted earlier in the week Shastasaurus appears in a limited number of tribute videos...
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Quality Images
The best quality images of Shastasaurus are all somewhat similar and lack the flash that is often added into dinosaur illustrations. However, there are a number of high-quality illustrations of...
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Silly Sauropodomorphs of Space
This is the last week of November and therefore it is the week of the calendar creature. This month that animal is the sauropodomorph Yunnanosaurus. Discovered originally in the southwestern Chinese...
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Long Lists of Knowledge
Yunnanosaurus is a well known sauropodomorph and as such has many fact pages devoted to it hosted online. These include well known sources such as KidsDinos and Prehistoric Wildlife. It also includes...
View ArticlePopular Without Movies
Yunnanosaurus is an early dinosaur with no movie credits in its accomplishments. There is a WizScience video that exists regarding Yunnanosaurus. Unfortunately the other videos mentioning the dinosaur...
View ArticleScholarly Fun
Yunnanosaurus has been written about extensively. The most important papers are the papers that describe various aspects of the fragmentary prosauropod. There are fewer articles exploring aspects of...
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