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cascoclauda.bsky.social
Claude ✡️🦖🦕
@cascoclauda.bsky.social
970 followers 1K following 8.5K posts
Claude, they/them, 25.
Writer, thembo, palaeontology enthusiast, occasional funnyman.
Profile pic by @wargonopsid
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cascoclauda.bsky.social
happy #fossilfriday! bonus: this is lokotunjailurus, a sabre-toothed cat that was widespread throughout africa from the late miocene to the early pliocene. it is notable for its gracile build and cursorial adaptations, different from most machairodontines
(art by mauricio anton)
art of lokotunjailurus, a homotherin whose morphology and robusticity is somewhat intermediate between a leopard and a cheetah
November 21, 2025 at 3:20 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
happy #fossilfriday! this is ornatops, a hadrosaur from late cretaceous north america. discovered in new mexico, ornatops represents the southern-most occurrence of brachylophosaurini found thus far
(art by brian engh)
a portrait depicting the hadrosaur ornatops; it has mostly orangish-brown skin, but bright blue markings around its eyes, and a fleshy scarlet crest
November 21, 2025 at 3:15 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
pov he is thinking about biting you. your fate hangs in the balance #parrotsky
a congo grey parrot named oscar stares into the camera with an indecipherable expression
November 21, 2025 at 12:19 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
anyway, a new and incredibly detailed study has been released about the ever-famous dunkleosteus, suggesting that it was a macropredatory generalist rather than the ammonoid specialist it is often portrayed as
(art by @literallymiguel.bsky.social)
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
miguel's "scawwy" dunkleosteus that lacks labial tissue; actually found to be the more accurate despite his other version being considered 'accurate' at the time! it has a grainy, analog-horror esque filter over the image
November 20, 2025 at 6:07 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
🚨NEW TURTLE🚨
a warm welcome to shakiremys colombiana, described by cadena et al. from the colombian la venta biome, and known from a complete skull with an articulated carapace!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
(art by juan giraldo)
art depicting a pair of shakiremys by some shallow water a figure from the paper showing the phylogenetic position of shakiremys
November 18, 2025 at 2:50 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
how it feels to be a short king transmasc approaching a tall beautiful woman
still from 'prehistoric planet' showing the sexual dimorphism in the extinct giant moa, where the females are over twice the size of the males
November 18, 2025 at 8:26 AM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
incredible! a gorgeously preserved skull from tupandactylus imperator has been described, offering new insights into its dietary ecology and soft tissues 😻
www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/6Hv...
(art by maurilio oliveira)
the stunning next skull attributed to t. imperator art of t. imperator soaring over a lagoon on a sunny day, plant material clasped in its beak
November 17, 2025 at 5:01 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
buster? i have one of those!
a close-up of a beige american bulldog looking very sleepy on a bed
November 17, 2025 at 2:49 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
say it with me, cat owners:
BIG STRETCH! #prehistoricplanet
a still from 'prehistoric planet: ice age' showing a young smilodon doing a classic big kitty stretch in an icy tundra
November 17, 2025 at 2:35 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
pachyrhinosaurus and nanuqsaurus, take 2! #prehistoricplanet
a herd of coelodonta (woolly rhinos) face off against a group of homotherium (scimitar-toothed cats) in an open woodland blanketed by snow
November 17, 2025 at 2:17 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
forgot to post this earlier but thank you to @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social for acquiring a plushie of claude the alligator for me 🐊
a photo of a plushie of an albinistic alligator named claude on a bed with dinosaur-patterned bedsheets. i am a very mature and serious academic
November 16, 2025 at 6:51 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
so the only souvenir i bought at #SVP2025 was a fridge magnet of tiktaalik's skull, pictured here alongside an owlbear fridge magnet. tragically, tiktaalik fell off my fridge in the dead of night and was subsequently EATEN BY MY DOG 😭
a photograph of the tiktaalik fridge magnet (rest in pieces) next to a cartoony owlbear fridge magnet
November 16, 2025 at 9:33 AM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
from @inspectoir.bsky.social on twt, a pair of male t. rex courting one another 🦖🏳️‍🌈 as the artist pointed out, same-sex relationships are quite common among both extant theropods as well as terrestrial megafauna
a dimly-lit scene showing a pair of male t. rex nuzzling each other affectionately
November 15, 2025 at 2:23 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
maple is so cute 🐻 #acnh
a screenshot from 'animal crossing: new horizons' showing the brown bear cub maple sat reading a book (and she's wearing reading glasses, so cute) on a moroccan chair in front of a brown kids' tent, dark flower cart, and campsite sign. to her left is a campfire with marshmallows, a green bicycle, a schefflera, green mums, and the in-game campsite. to her right is a brick staircase that leads up to benjamin the dog's house pretty much the same screenshot again, except maple is looking at the camera. she's so adorable
November 15, 2025 at 9:33 AM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
however, the authors also acknowledge the possibility of DNA contamination, which is important to consider
image in text: DNA contamination traces present in our sequencing data may reflect inefficiencies during RNA isolation, but, given the low RNA yield and minor DNA spillover, we caution against aggressive DNA removal that might compromise RNA retention. The high number of PCR cycles used in our study may also have introduced bias toward certain transcript families. Nevertheless, we note that we did not aim to accurately quantify gene expression or perform any comparison across samples. Instead, we examined relative transcript abundances within each specimen to assess metabolic function and tissue identity, thus validating the endogenous origin of the aRNA profiles.
November 14, 2025 at 9:59 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
congrats, it's a boy! new paper by @marmole6.bsky.social et al. describes RNA molecules from woolly mammoths that, among other things, establish that the famous 'yuka' was male 🦣
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
a photograph of the mammoth calf 'yuka', who was preserved in permafrost
November 14, 2025 at 9:39 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
awesome art by @eongriel.bsky.social of nanotyrannus pursuing a young edmontosaurus, incurring the wrath of its parent, based on the recent papers validating nanotyrannus as a genus and describing new soft tissues from edmontosaurus
on a dreary and rainy day, nanotyrannus attempts to attack a juvenile edmontosaurus annectens, earning a baleful glare from its protective parent, who is much larger than the predator in question
November 14, 2025 at 5:25 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
their horns feature striations consistent with being covered by a keratinous sheath; earlier paleoart often depicted them as being covered by skin, similar to the ossicones of giraffes, but modern work normally portrays them in the aforementioned manner
(art by mark witton)
a portrait of arsinoitherium, its horns encased in keratin
November 14, 2025 at 3:33 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
interestingly, arsinoitherium’s huge horns do not appear to have been a sexually dimorphic feature, meaning that they likely evolved for a purpose entirely separate from sexual selection
a photo of a cast of an arsinoitherium skull
November 14, 2025 at 3:32 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
the closest living relatives of arsinoitherium are hyraxes, elephants, and sirenians; if the extinct desmostylians were afrotherians as has been proposed, they would be among arsinoitherium’s closest relatives as well
(art by @astrapionte.bsky.social)
a cartoon depicting afrotherians in the clade paenungulata, from left to right: palaeoloxodon, arsinoitherium, a dugong, a desmostylian, deinotherium, a tiny hyrax, and a protosirenid
November 14, 2025 at 3:31 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
happy #fossilfriday! bonus: this is arsinoitherium, an afrotherian from late eocene-early oligocene north africa. a robust and stocky herbivore, it was mostly found in mangrove swamps and tropical rainforests
(art by mark witton)
art of an adult arsinoitherium with a youngster in a swampy environment at sunset; it is an imposing, rhino-sized animal with a pair of massive horns extended from its nasal bones, and a much smaller pair of horns posterior to the first pair a mounted arsinoitherium skeleton
November 14, 2025 at 3:30 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
the closest living relatives of parrots are falconiformes and passerines, but some workers consider another extinct group to even closer to them within panpsittaciformes – the carnivorous messelasturids
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
(art by joschua knuppe)
a portrait of messelastur, a bird from the eocene which has a mosaic of features similar to parrots and birds of prey
November 14, 2025 at 3:03 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
the kea and kaka – both belonging the genus nestor – are likely closer to the ancestral state of psittaciformes, being rather generalist omnivores; the kea is unique as the only parrot to regularly scavenge on the flesh of large vertebrates, facilitated by a more raptorial beak
a kea in flight, its claws and sharp beak on full display a kaka perched on a tree branch
November 14, 2025 at 3:02 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
the new zealand parrots of the clade strigopoidea are recovered through phylogenomic analysis as the basal-most group of parrots, though the kakapo possesses several highly derived characteristics associated with flightlessness and herbivory
academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...
a photograph of a kakapo
November 14, 2025 at 3:01 PM
cascoclauda.bsky.social
h. inexpectatus is famous for being the largest parrot in the fossil record, possibly being over twice as heavy as the extant kakapo – whether it was flightless is unclear, as no elements of the pectoral girdle have been found
(art by roman uchytel)
art depicting h. inexpectatus standing next to a kakapo, demonstrating the size difference between the two
November 14, 2025 at 3:00 PM