W a n d e r l u s t

Raccoon, beaver, and otter skull progress. If anyone is...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:21:06 -0700

Raccoon, beaver, and otter skull progress.

If anyone is interested, I am more than willing to sell some of these. I am ordering bobcat, fox, and more otter skulls next week. They’re all different prices, so feel free to ask. The discoloration on the raccoon (L) is blood stuck behind the teeth. One more round of peroxide and it will be done.

This wins. Oh my god. Everyone else can go home.

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:49:54 -0700

This wins. Oh my god. Everyone else can go home.

Little doe skull. Newest part of the family. I love her. She...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:47:47 -0700

Little doe skull. Newest part of the family. I love her. She needs a name.

Photo

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:19:24 -0700

taxidermyextaordinaire: In 1731, King Frederick I of Sweden...

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:38:28 -0700

taxidermyextaordinaire:

In 1731, King Frederick I of Sweden gave a lion he had killed to a taxidermist who had never seen a lion before, and this was the result

There is a special place in my heart for bad taxidermy.

this urn will turn you into a tree after you die

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:29:53 -0700

seapeny:

rainbow-road-to-happiness:

You can choose what kind of tree you want to become

Idk I just find this beautiful

just imagine cemeteries looking like this

a forest of living, changing, beautiful trees. I think a tombstone holds much more finality in death than a tree. It’s like you are living on symbolically through something greater than yourself.

this is a serious post about how much I want this. I’ll make sure my family knows.

jtotheizzoe: The Evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex The terrible...

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:28:52 -0700

jtotheizzoe:

The Evolution of Tyrannosaurus rex

The terrible lizards of your childhood have changed quite a bit, despite having been dead for millions of years. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in ol’ Sharptooth: T. rex

Many folks without strong paleontology backgrounds (which, let’s face it, includes most people … including me) don’t appreciate how little we really know for sure about these prehistoric forms. We go to a museum, we see a fossil reconstruction of an immense dinosaur, and we assume that’s how it came out of the ground. That’s not the case.

While the Field Museum’s famous T. rex ”Sue” was 80% complete upon excavation, the first specimen ever constructed was done so with just a suitcase’s worth of bones. See the shaded regions in the upper left drawing? That’s the 108-year-old first reconstruction of T. rex done by W.D. Matthew. And it’s very wrong.

Even into the 1940’s, when Rudolph Zallinger painted The Age of Reptiles mural (top right) for Yale’s Peabody Museum, T. rex was still a clumsy, chubby, upright tail-dragger that looked more like a drunk Godzilla than king of the dinosaurs. By the 1970’s it was clear to scientists that T. rex could not have have held its body that way, and instead moved holding its head and tail nearly parallel to the ground.

But the tail-dragger myth persisted, and in 1988’s The Land Before Time (which, let’s face it, is where most of us first formed our images of dinosaurs) Sharptooth was frustratingly upright (see middle left). Combine that with the ridiculously impossible, ninja-like aerial assault on Littlefoot’s mom, and we have a real dino science stinker on our hands. Stan Winston’s Jurassic Park finally got the head-down pose right (middle right). Yet children and college students still overwhelmingly draw T. rex as upright.

Modern paleoartists (like Raul Martin, lower left) get it consistently right, but the public doesn’t. It shows you just how important it is to deliver good science to kids, because even today I can feel the upright pose of my T. rex dinobot calling me back to wrongville.

And as we continue to learn more about Tyrannosaur relatives and the feathery frills they sported, we are beginning to see many artists add them to the great hunter (lower right, by pheaston). Plumage rarely shows up in fossils, and scientists and artists have to be careful not to make errors of incompleteness like we saw 108 years ago. But considering how good Velociraptor looks with that fancy outfit on, I think we’ll see more and more feathery fury on T. rex in the future.

At least none of YOU will ever draw it incorrectly again, right? :)

For more cool dino illustration, check out Fuck Yeah Dino Art.

I <3 you, Atlas Moth.

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:26:05 -0700

I <3 you, Atlas Moth.

woodendreams: (by Sarah Marino)

Sat, 18 May 2013 15:28:35 -0700

woodendreams:

(by Sarah Marino)

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:54:27 -0700

paleoillustration: Dromaeosaurus nest, from the Dino Hunt...

Sat, 18 May 2013 13:30:31 -0700

paleoillustration:

Dromaeosaurus nest, from the Dino Hunt team!

rhamphotheca: Dimetrodon milleri - a synapsid from the Early...

Sat, 18 May 2013 13:17:50 -0700

rhamphotheca:

Dimetrodon milleri - a synapsid from the Early Permian of Texas

* a sphenacodont synapsid from well before the time of dinosaurs, so… not a motherfucking dinosaur!!!

(illustration by Dmitry Bogdanov)

I always love Paxon’s descriptions.

tornfeathers: pheebadohdoh: usoppsass: IM GONANa FuCkiNG PEE...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:16:32 -0700

tornfeathers:

pheebadohdoh:

usoppsass:

IM GONANa FuCkiNG PEE MY PAN t s

HIS NAME IS FUCKING DORB

ITS LIKE A FUCKING KIWI OMG.

featheryraptor: Dromaeosaurs by ~Tharos222

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:12:11 -0700

featheryraptor:

Dromaeosaurs by ~Tharos222

Drink drank drunk.

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:17:31 -0700

Welcome to alcoholland where you’ve been drinking for far too long.

Photo

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:26:33 -0700

One beaver, one racoon, and maybe I’ll sell the otter....

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:45:48 -0700

One beaver, one racoon, and maybe I’ll sell the otter. Being cleaned now. Taking offers.

How to freak out everyone in Walgreens: A Story Told with a...

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:09:23 -0700

How to freak out everyone in Walgreens: A Story Told with a Single Photo

Only getting dressed to go buy peroxide. I’m a winner.

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:42:11 -0700

Only getting dressed to go buy peroxide. I’m a winner.

It’s always a good day when I get dead stuff in the mail.

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:54:21 -0700

It’s always a good day when I get dead stuff in the mail.