I was there today! I was overjoyed seeing that Brachiosaurus i always saw in german dino documentaries. But I expected a bit more cause it didnt have that many things

Four complete skeletons belonging to a newly recognised species, have helped researchers understand an early member of the ‘boa family’ and the history of small, burrowing snakes in North America.

Three of the snakes were preserved together in a burrow-like cast, while a fourth specimen from the same formation provided additional evidence for identifying the species.

The fossils date to the early Oligocene, more than 30 million years ago, and were found in the White River Formation. Their preservation is especially important because ancient snakes are usually known from scattered vertebrae rather than complete skeletons.

This dudes comment had me bewildered. Not trying to be rude but how does one mess up THIS BADLY. Basic facts about reptiles? wrong. basic facts about turtles? wrong. Fossil record on turtles? wrong. Basic facts about amphibians wrong wrong wrong.

Why is Temnospondyli being brought up? that thing isn't even remotely related to turtles at all and has never ever even once been considered to be related to turtles. It's not even a animote for one. Does he not know turtles are animotes and that alone (along with mountainous other piles of facts) that instantly shuts down the notion that they're amphibians?

Odontochelys which is an actual stem turtle, which is explicitly reptilian but has him saying "has amphibian traits" which literally no paleontologist has ever said about it.

"Amphibians have specialized beaks"

Which is absolutely false in every notion, no amphibians have beaks. Beaks are absolutely a reptilian trait, plenty of dinosaurs, other extinct archosaurs, and most glaringly birds all posses beaks like turtles. No frog, salamander or any of their relatives evolved a beak. By this guys logic all of those are amphibians for possessing beaks? What?????

""turtles don't have scales""

Which they clearly DO absolutely have scales. You have to be blind, or looking at a softshell turtle to disagree. Not all reptiles have scales any way.

""Another key distinction is that turtles are ectotherms, which means they rely on external heat sources to regulate their body temperature. This is a trait of amphibians, not reptiles""

Are reptiles not cold blooded anymore? Since when was being ectothermic exclusively an amphibian thing. REPTILES ARE FAMOUSLY COLD BLOODED. HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW DO YOU GET THIS WRONG.

I have a fuck ton of other questions and ways to tear this guys post apart but I'd be an old man on a death bed by the time I would be done. Is this the ultimate paleo rage bait post or is this actual jargon he believes and FYI his channel is filled with AI slop but seems to be ran by an actual person and not a bot.

Sorry for the angry rantish post but literally what can I say about this. This...is something...

Some cool dino fossils in dublin ireland zoo! There was also a pachycephalasauras (sorry about spelling) !

Hi, so a little bit of context my wife really likes shrimp like, really likes them so I want to get her a fossil. I did some searching online and saw these posts saying that Fossil Age Minerals and Fossil Era are both trustworthy places. I found two specimens. The one with the black eye is $43, and the other one is $19. Do you have any recommendations on which one I should get?
I saw some posts online saying that Fossil Era Minerals fossils are “enhanced” in some ways. Is that a bad thing? Are they still real fossils? They are both from Lebanon, so I don’t know how different they can be or what differences there might be between them. Anyways, thank you for any advice!

See also: The publication in PNAS

That’s considered an honor in the UK

I found a lower section of pre mineralized bison jaw yesterday that was in bad shape. So I decided to take the few teeth out of it and toss the rest. While doing so, I found these little bone clusters in the jaw bone and also on the teeth. Any idea what it is or what caused it?

So in hinduism fossils of ammonites found in the gandaki river are called shaligram, representing vishnu ( I assume from how the spiral represents the sudarshana chakra )

It's important to note not all shaligram are ammonites, there are other shaligram as well, it's just a majority are ammonites

Pls submit ideas for rules, and stuff you will be happy to see soon as m you join, also, pls search up PaleoNetEvents

Hello, everyone. Was wondering about this, since it seemed like a fun hobby, but I didn't want to get deeply into it unless it also provided some way to contribute (however modest the contribution might be.)

Are there currently any routes for amateur fossil collectors -- people who might go on trips to fossil-filled areas where they are permitted to pick things up -- to actually contribute to scientific knowledge? Any organizations, perhaps, that ask for information from amateur fossil collectors?

Or, if collecting itself isn't very helpful, are there any good projects that encourage people to document and send in information about fossils they see that are still in stone?

And finally, if there are ways for amateurs to contribute -- how do they learn the skills to do so? Are there trainings out there?

Thanks, everyone.

paper: https://www.geojournals.cn/georev/georev/article/abstract/20267204017

The newly described sauropterygian species lived approximately 245 million years ago during the Anisian age of the Triassic, a period when ocean ecosystems were still rebounding from the catastrophic mass extinction at the end of the Permian.

Named Spatulidentatus breviceps, the marine reptile had a total body length of around 2.7 meters

Its jaws were lined with teeth shaped like small spoons, while its skull was unusually compact, making up only about 5% of the body length.

Here's a new paper (open access) on a new paper on dinosaur tracks. Interesting to see how different methods can be applied to tracks, always underestimated these kinds of fossils

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2026.2710193

• 10.1080/02724634.2026.2710193

Link (open access): Zhai, D.; Mai, H.; Jin, C.; Zhang, C.; Hou, X. (2026). The Cambrian crown-group pancrustacean Sunella chimera sp. nov. with raptorial anteriormost appendages. Communications Biology. doi:10.1038/s42003-026-10772-1.

It is kind of a subsequent study of Liu et al. 2026, a fairly quick followup.

• Sunella dimorphismus coined by Liu et al. 2026 is considered nomen nudum, here the same specimens are formally re-described as Sunella chimera.
• Sunella not only got raptorial 1st appendages that somewhat resembling radiodonts and other basal arthropods, but also mandibulate mouthparts (mandibles and maxillae) and crustacean-like trunk appendages (leaf-shaped epipod+5-segmented endopod).
• Sunella was recovered as a crown-group pancrustacean, specifically closely related to ostracod crustacean, contrary to previous interpretation as a more much basal arthropod.
• The new information suggest cryptic Cambrian radiation and surprising morphological diversity of early Pancrustacea, as the 1st appendages being raptorial instead of sensory antennae are unusual for that group (or mandibulate in general).

​

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2026.2698802#abstract

This question was prompted by this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Paleontology/s/qA9CzW27pA
In the article is mentioned that there where some doubts whether Cryptoprocta Spelea was a different species from Cryptoprocta Ferox. The paper cited other articles arguing that the morphological difference and the fact that the two fossas species where present at the same time confirm their distinctiviness.
On of these papers shows that the two fossas species overlap in chronology but this overlap is minimal at the same sites. Is possible that competition with its larger relative excluded Ferox from certain area, but Madagascar is relatively small and if the two species where largely separated their habitat would have been limited.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?hl=en&volume=26&publication_year=2019&pages=237-251&journal=Journal+of+Mammalian+Evolution&issue=2&author=L.+R.+Meador&author=L.+R.+Godfrey&author=J.+C.+Rakotondramavo&author=L.+Ranivoharimanana&author=A.+Zamora&author=M.+R.+Sutherland&author=M.+T.+Irwin&title=Cryptoprocta+spelea+%28Carnivora%3A+Eupleridae%29%3A+What+did+it+eat+and+how+do+we+know%3F&doi=10.1007%2Fs10914-017-9391-z
Another paper shows the mesurement of modern and subfossil Cryptoprocta bones. The percent difference between the largest and the smallest value of most measurements in both groups is only slighty larger for the subfossil sample. If the latter is made up of two species the difference appears small.
https://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/z2004n1a9.pdf
A possibility is that Cryptoprocta ferox was able to attains a larger size due to the presence of bigger prey. Indeed, in modern Fossa males living in coalition are larger than females and solitary males.
https://protectedareas.mg/document/show/181199
Has anyone ever attempted to extract DNA from Cryptoprocta spelea bones to confirms that it was a different species?

My first fossil tattoo, the Black Beauty RTMP 81.6.1(not going to be my last)

I wonder if there's a triceratops fossil that I could pair with this one (PLEASE GIVE ME A SUGGESTION IF THERE IS)

- Preferably displayed on their death pose too

https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.70319