Famed Dinosaur
As you may have noticed, I did not write yesterday; I let time get away from me and just never got around to it honestly. However, if you thought you would miss a lot of material on Allosaurus anatomy,...
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Pictures Worth Many Words
Art imitates life to the best of its ability when it comes to fossils. We know with fossils that this is not always simple and of questionable accuracy. In the spirit of loving art for art's sake today...
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New Year Fossil
Before discussing this week's fossil I would like to say it has been a lot of fun to work on this every day (with a few exceptions now and then) for the past six years. We have discussed more fossil...
View ArticleGround Sloth Fact Files
Megatherium is a well-known genus of the ground sloths and as such has a dedicated following of professional and amateur fossil enthusiasts willing to write and share information about the large...
View ArticleTelevision and Movie Stars
Megatherium has appeared in a number of television and movie roles. It is typically portrayed as a slow animal about to be eaten; this is not always entirely wrong. However, one episode of Walking With...
View ArticleSlowly Writing Slow Creatures
Megatherium was one of the most well-known descriptions published by Georges Cuvier at the end of the 18th century. A number of papers were published and read in the following 60 years by Richard Owen...
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The Bass on the Plain
Case in point al a ©Dmitry BogdanovIt is not at all difficult to imagine Megatherium as an immense animal with a sizable body and a stout hindquarters; we see it sitting on its haunches often enough in...
View ArticleFamed Sloths
One wondering just how famous Megatherium is need look no further than all of the evidence that has been intermittently presented this week. The different outlets for popular culture are actually more...
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Beautiful Sloths
It is difficult to find a quality and beautiful image of a sloth. There are two typical poses for Megatherium in illustrations; 1) Rearing up and eating from a tree and 2) Walking toward or around a...
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Talking About Birds
This week, because last week contained National Bird Day, we are going to discuss a well-known fossil bird that we have not yet discussed. Described and named in 2002 by Zhou and Zhang,...
View ArticleA Fun Little Bird
Fossil birds have a habit of becoming popular overnight. This is in part because we have so few good fossil birds that any that are well preserved are sensational. However, Sapeornis is somewhat of a...
View ArticlePapers of Today
Yesterday suffered from a lack of movies. Articles and scholarly papers, though, are another story. As with many fossil birds and new species that defy even the smallest portion of our perceived...
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Losing Your Tail
Sapeornis was one of the first primitive birds lacking a bony tail. Ancestors to this and some other primitive birds still possessed bony elongate tails. The newer crop of birds had evolved shorter,...
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Putting the SAPE in it
Sapeornis is named after the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution (SAPE), but what is that exactly? SAPE is an organization of scientists devoted to researching the origins and adaptations of...
View ArticleThe Sapeornis Image We Know
Matt Martyniuk'sSapeornis looks a bit like a hawk or a falcon. Jeff Powers also went with that look for Sapeornis. The exact look of the bird is actually unknown, but that is a good start. Many other...
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Curiousity Piqued
The Cretaceous amphibian Koolasuchus was not at all a suchian (crocodilian) but it was fairly cool; though it was named for Lesley Kool, not because it was interesting. Evoking the very image of the...
View ArticleKool's Crocodile
There are fact pages all over the internet for Koolasuchus. Part of the reason that the BBC, Cool Dino Facts, the Walking with Wikia have dedicated pages to this salamander-like animal is because of it...
View ArticleWalking with Temnospondyls
Koolasuchus appears in one Walking with Dinosaurs episode and in no other documentaries, movies, or cartoons. It is kind of a dud in terms of animation/CGI. Koolasuchus is not the problem though,...
View ArticleReading About Temnospondyls
Temnospondyls have not been discussed much here, as a group. Therefore, we do not have a vast library of literature concerning them that I can point back at and say "remember when we read such and...
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Koolasuchus Anatomy
Koolasuchus cleelandi was approximately 5 m (16 ft) long and 500 kg (1100 lbs). The large temnospondyl had an enormous head measuring about 65 cm (26 in) from snout to occiput. That head has been...
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