Stair Conure?

Prehistoric Pride Vel-ace-raptor

Below the poll is a series of animal images labeled A through J. A is the least close to the birds we have today; J is the closest. If you encountered these animals in the wild, which would you call birds? If you pick a higher up option, then that means you consider all the below ones birds as well - so if you pick A, then BCDEFGHIJ are all birds. If you pick J, only J is a bird.

A:

B:

C:

D:

E:

F:

G:

H:

I:

J:

PLEASE REBLOG THIS SO IT CAN LEAVE PALAEOBLR. I NEED PEOPLE WHO DON'T RECOGNIZE THESE ANIMALS ON SIGHT TO VOTE.

I apologize to all of y'all with vision impairments for whom this poll is inaccessible. Alas, this is an experiment, and I cannot name the taxa. Thank you.

All alt text includes artist attribution; I did not make these pictures myself.

Ayy, nice! Here's my full-body of a Tsaagan mangas.

(The art was done without a skeletal reference. Forgive the botched head shape.)

At about this time some of you are probably saying “what is that? It looks like a bird!” You’re not entirely wrong. Those of you who are saying “oh cool, a Velociraptor” are actually more wrong than those other people.

This is Tsaagan mangas. It is almost identical to Velociraptor, lived in the same area as Velociraptor, during the same time period as Velociraptor, but it is not a Velociraptor. For all intents and purposes, though, they are practically identical.

Drawn for a-dinosaur-a-day, because it seems that no one has drawn a half-decent full-body picture of a mid-sized Mongolian dromaeosaurid that is almost identical to Velociraptor and called it a Tsaagan before. I think Tsaagan is going to be my new second-favorite dromaeosaurid (behind Deinonychus) because it’s basically Velociraptor but it doesn’t get nearly as much attention as Velociraptor and definitely deserves more love than it gets, even if only because, for all intents and purposes, it is the same as Velociraptor.

Tsaagan mangas Tsaagan mangas Tsaagan mangas Tsaagan mangas Tsaagan mangas Tsaagan mangas

There. Now I’ve said “Tsaagan mangas” in this post more times than I’ve said “Velociraptor.”

Tsaagan mangas.

A silly little meme I made for the tenth anniversary Kulinday, hosted by @a-dinosaur-a-day.

This IndiHome Paket meme was made on Scratch 3.0 (don't judge me, I don't have proper video editing software).

Meme template adapted for Scratch by @-PhantomAnimations- on Scratch, aka https://scratch.mit.edu/users/-PhantomAnimations-/ .

Happy Kulinday, fellow palaeonerds!

Capital letters ||

Wait. WAIT.

WAIT-

Fig. 1 - "Compy" fans and people with OCs who are "compsognathid" fans.

But hey! on the bright side, even if Sinosauropteryx was a juvenile, we know that there were baby dinosaurs that looked like red pandas. :) And such is the way of science.

NEW PAPER FROM CAU HUGE IF TRUE

Cau A. (2024). A Unified Framework for Predatory Dinosaur Macroevolution. Bulletin of the Italian Paleontological Society , 63(1): 1-19. doi:10.4435/BSPI.2024.08

one of the most important things, perhaps the most important thing I have learned in my life is that nice people can fuck each other up in monstrous ways. people can be bone deep kind and loving and self reflective and still lash out under pressure. people can be earnestly neighbourly and charitable and hospitable and generous and still find themselves in situations where they become selfish. people can be well meaning and easygoing and gregarious and hold deep seated opinions that turn them into vicious little bullies under the right conditions. nobody is just one thing, and nobody stays one way. every person is a kaleidoscope and they will surprise you. you will surprise yourself. it's not a warning and it's not a judgement and it's not an excuse, and it's certainly not a reason to stop trying or to stop trusting. it is just a fact.

Cool!

Fossil Novembirb: Day 11

Dawn in Messel

1. Eocoracias brachyptera

2. Masillastega rectirostris

3. Juncitarsus merkeli

KULINDAY APPROACHES

TOMORROW, July 24th, is the tenth anniversary of the description of Kulindadromeus! And we want YOU to be there for the tenth annual Kulinday livestream! As always, the ADAD crew and a bunch of other paleontologists and paleoartists banter about dinosaurs, paleontology, and whatever else comes to mind. We'll be using Henry's Twitch channel this time - fittingly enough, https://www.twitch.tv/kulindadromeus. We start at 4 PM UTC / 10 AM MOUNTAIN TIME and will go forth for as long as we can. It's gonna be fun! Join us!

Rufous Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone cinnamomea), family Monarchidae, order Passeriformes, Philippines

photograph by Ugin Bxu

Fossil Novembirb, the first nine days

Hello World. I never thought I'd be on this site, but here I am. This blog was created for the purpose of participating in a-dinosaur-a-day's Fossil Novembirb. Fossil Novembirb is a yearly art event founded by Meig Dickson, a vertebrate palaeontologist who, as far as I can tell, studies dinosaurs, especially theropods. Don't fight me or em over birds being theropod dinosaurs. Neither ey nor I want to have this conversation, so enjoy the art!

I started off my Fossil Novembirb with Vegavis iaai. What makes this fluffy anseriform special is that we found a fossilised syrinx (avian voice-maker) belonging to one of these, so we can reconstruct their sounds. This Vegavis was coloured based on a bunch of anseriforms that are alive today, like ruddy shelducks and cotton pygmy geese.

For Day 2, I did a bit of spec evo and pulled out a scientific name I told myself I'd assign to a newly-discovered fossil genus. This sketch has a Serina-like text description for Phantasmavis.

Tropicbirds! I chose to draw Clymenoptilon because I was hoping "tropicbird" meant "brightly coloured bird". Even though they aren't that brightly coloured, they're still cool. And Kumimanu (approximately to scale in this drawing) didn't really have the obligation to be black-and-white like most extant penguins (because Inkayacu), so I went... mild-wild with the colours.

No... one's... tall like Gastornis, no one calls like Gastornis! In the bottom right, no one feeds small like Gastornis!

I've seen the "Andy's Prehistoric Adventures" episode featuring these megafowl, realised it was Walking With Dinosaurs with a human inserted, and drawn a mildly speculative colouration for these Gastornis. To the left, two adults have their necks out towards each other and are calling into the sky. Whether this is courtship or a challenge, nobody knows. But a calmer scene happens in the bottom right, where a mother shows her chick red berries on a branch to show them that it is food.

"Don't make me fly up there, you punk!" is one way to interpret the screamerduck Anachronornis' call in the direction of the Primoptynx owl. This scene unfolds in the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum ecosystem of the Willwood Formation before it was rock.

It's a twilight hummingswift! We know the colour of this iridescent little birb from the Danish Fur Formation. I watched a tutorial on painting iridescence, but I'm not really satisfied with the parent feeding their chick to the left of the flying Eocypselus rowei. It's hard to see, but there's a baby hummingswift being fed a Cimbrophlebia scorpionfly.

London Clay has a lot of plant fossils. Not all of them are listed on Wikipedia, but there's a photo of a pencil-root mangrove seed listed. Featuring a speculatively-coloured Eotrogon, a Dasornis carrying away a mackerel, and a Prophaeton just gliding, and repeat telecasts Gastornis parisiensis and Eocypelus rowei, Eocene London was a birder's dream (believe me, I'm a kinda-birder).

This Tynskya art was somewhat late, rather dissatisfactory, and mildly rushed. I had an exam the next day. Don't judge me.

And here's a better Primozygodactylus! I couldn't tell the specific species because it wasn't listed for the Wikipedia image. But here we are: a bird that gives off ashy prinia/sparrow/orange-headed thrush vibes.

This concludes the first nine days! I don't know if I'll be doing the tenth because nobody's giving me straight answers about the palaeobotany of the Green River formation.

Enjoy!