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I collected the sample that contained this diatom while standing in a river in northeastern Ohio, during my nephew's wedding. Samples were processed and imaged in my lab, and the SEM image was colorized using a combination of Photoshop and Lightroom.

Heck yeah!

Are you a fan of horned dinosaurs? Can you not choose your favorite? Now you don’t have to with a nice group shot of 3 phenomenal members of this exquisite prehistoric family.

A Long One...

Yeah- Michigan does cool space stuff too! Did you know the Keweenaw Peninsula used to have a rocket range?

Meganeura lived during the Late Carboniferous period (300MYA) and was the apex aerial predator of it's day, dominating the skies before birds, pterosaurs, or mammals had evolved. Resembling modern day dragonflies but much much bigger, they had a maximum wingspan of roughly 28 inches.

Last year a study was published answering some questions about what T.rex’s exterior soft tissue looked like. Traditional reconstructions have shown the Tyrant Lizard with scaly skin, the new study suggests that this is most likely the case based on numerous small examples of what appear to be scale impressions on different places on the body of a fully grown specimen. The research shows evidence of scales on the chest, stomach, neck, tail, and pelvis.

During the Late Triassic period (214 to 204 million years ago), in what would eventually become Heroldsberg, Germany, a group of long-necked giants worked their way across an ancient floodplain; due to their great weight, up to 4.4 tons, they began to sink into the mud, their panicked struggles to free themselves from this predicament only serving to pull them further down until exhaustion eventually set in and they passed away, trapped by their own massive bulk.

A new final illustration for my prehistoric series which I may now be calling “Ancient Life.” This here is Dilophosaurus wetherilli, the twin-crested lizard made famous by the first Jurassic Park movie. Unlike it’s movie counterpart, the actual animal was not not quire the small fry that relied on a big frilly threat display and venomous spit to take down it’s prey. Dilophosaurus was about 23 feet long and weighed in at about 880 lbs, which wasn’t huge compared to the carnivorous cousins that would come after it, it was still pretty big and had a long skinny frame that was built for speed. It’s most distinctive feature, it’s dual crest, was most likely used for species identification and attracting mates.

The BEST mission!

Shringasaurus (it’s name coming from the sanskrit word “śṛṅga” for “horn” and greek for “lizard”) was a member of a group called Allokotosaurs, a group of reptiles that were related but not part of the cladistic grouping of Archosaurs, the group that includes crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and modern birds. It has also been called a stem-archosaur as it appears to be part of an earlier lineage that split before the evolution of true archosaurs. It was about 9.8 to 13.1 feet in length and was distinguished by it’s long neck and superaorbital brow horns (similar to those of some ceratopsian dinosaurs. It’s teeth indicate that it was an herbivore, possibly using it’s long neck to reach higher foliage than other competing animals.

It brings all the girls too. This is for neuroscientists and lovers of science puns everywhere!

Coelodonta antiquitatis, otherwise known as the woolly rhinoceros, was a large member of the Rhino family that inhabited Europe and Northern Asia from the Late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene. Like many Ice Age megafauna, the Woolly Rhino was covered in thick fur and fat reserves, unlike it’s mostly hairless modern day relatives. The average adult rhino weighed in at around 4000-6000lbs and measured somewhere around 9-12 feet in length. Ice Age cave paintings show evidence of interactions with early humans, which is a possible reason for their eventual extinction.

Megaloceros giganteus otherwise known as the Irish Elk, one of the largest deer species in the fossil record. Measuring 6.9 feet, with the largest antlers of any deer species, measuring 12 feet in width. Despite it’s name it was not exclusively native to Ireland, nor was it actually an elk. Most of the best and most complete specimens were found in Ireland, with some of the antlers winding up on the walls in medieval castles. Megaloceros lived during the Middle pleistocene to the early holocene 0.781 – 0.008 million years ago.

Roughly 216 to 196 million years ago in Triassic New Mexico, close to a thousand dinosaurs died, their remains preserved as fossils that would later be discovered in 1947 by Edwin H. Colbert and his assistant George Whitaker on a site appropriately known as the Ghost Ranch. It’s extremely rare in paleontology that scientists are handed such a find, a buffet of death that allows them to piece together the biology of a specific species in such a complete manner.

Someday water bears will rule the universe. Maybe they already do.

Biochemist and First Female ISS Commander!

A species of trilobite from the Upper Ordovician, about 445 million years ago, it was discovered in 1838 by an American geologist and paleontologist named James Hall, in the Beecher’s Trilobite Bed in Rome, New York. These specimens were particularly well preserved with even soft body parts preserved in iron pyrite (fools gold). The fossilisation was so good that scientists were able to study their legs, gills, antennae, digestive system, and even some eggs. As a result of this exquisite preservation, this species is often referenced as the standard for scientific text describing trilobite anatomy. Triarthus was a small animal, on’y about 2 inches in length, but that is pretty average among most species of trilobite.

This adorable children's book style cartoon illustration makes a great gift for anyone, young or old, who loves dinos. The happy smiley style makes this Stegosaurus fun for all ages

Under a veil of moonlight, a giant pushes its way through the edge of an ancient forest, massive legs plow slowly through deep snow, crashing through the stillness of the night making sure not to tangle the even more massive antlers that adorn its head.

A trilobite found in deposits near Saint Petersburg Russia. It first appeared on the fossil record about 500 million years ago, and died out around 390 million years ago, it was discovered around 1845. Sadly there isn’t as much specific info on this one, but there are more than 20,000 currently identified Trilobite species, and not all of them has as much info as others.

First Astronaut's Nurse!

Dunkleosteus was a 19.7 foot super-predator that used a lethal combination of suction and a wicked bite to cut through everything unlucky enough to cross it’s path, armor or no. Like many fish living today, D.terrelli most likely would swim close to unsuspecting prey and suck water into it’s mouth along with it’s victim. Instead of teeth, Dunkleosteus possessed a set of bony plates that were an extension of it’s own dermal armor. These places were self sharpening and would shear through most other armored fish with little trouble and was aided by a four-bar linkage mechanism that allowed it to open and close it’s jaws on the top and bottom at incredibly high speeds.

In 1598 Dutch sailors landed on the shores of Maritius looking for supplies during an expedition to Indonesia, while on the island they encountered a large, odd looking, flightless bird. According to the surviving translations of that first account the birds were somewhat tasteless, leading to their discoverers initially calling them Walghvogel (Dutch for “tastelss” or “sickly” “bird”). The origin of the name Dodo is somewhat nebulous, but it’s possible that it may have it’s routes in the word Dodaars, meaning “fat-arse” or “knot-arse.”

While being a member of the overall group that dinosaurs like Ankylosaurus was a part of, Sauropelta edwardsorum was a member of a different branch known as Nodosaurs. Unlike Ankylosaurs, Nodosaurs did not possess tail weapons, though they often displayed large shoulder spikes and still possesses a body covered in armor. Sauropelta could grow up to 17 feet in length and weighed around 2.2 tons, they lived during the Early Cretaceous period, around 108 million years ago.

I Love Science Heart.

Baryonyx, meaning "heavy claw", was one of the first spinosaurs discovered that gave us a more complete look at this strange group of theropods

Possibly one of the most recognizable dinosaurs, Stegosaurus was named in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh during the “Bone Wars,” becoming the flagship genus of the entire Stegosaur group. The name Stegosaurus means “roofed” or “covered lizard,” as Marsh initially thought the back plates formed a roof-like shell over the animal’s back. There are 3 species currently described: S. ungulatus, S. sulcatus, and S. stenops (stenops being the longest species yet discovered at 29.5 feet).

Roughly 76 to 75 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, large herds of an animal now known as Lambeosaurus congregated around the shallow rivers that ran through what is now Alberta, Canada. These beasts could be up to 31 feet long, and weigh up to 3 and a quarter tons, they would mostly walk on all fours, switching to two when speed was required, their huge tails stiffly hanging in the air behind them, making up nearly half of their length. On their heads, they sported large, flamboyant crests, the males likely sporting ones larger and more complex than those of the females.

Known from only a skull, the rest of Irritator's appearance remains a mystery. Its anatomy here is a rough guess based on its close relative Spinosaurus.

In the 1920s Captain Marshall Field funded two expeditions to South America which were undertaken by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois; these expeditions were launched under the hopes of finding fossils of mammals and other animals from the Cenozoic Era. In 1926, during the second expedition, a team was searching the Ituzaingo Formation in northern Argentina when they came across the remains of three animals thought to be never before discovered species of ancient marsupial. It was roughly 4.9 feet in length and weighed around 330 pounds and it lived during the Late Miocene to Pliocene, roughly 9 to 3 million years ago.

Vera Rubin!

From its many observatories, to Meteor Crater, to the dark skies, to its numerous contributions to space science, Arizona is full of space! (Ha- "full of space"- nice oxymoron)

Named for the enormous neural spines running along it’s back to form what most have theorized to be a large sail or possibly a hump-like structure, Spinosaurus was first uncovered by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in 1912 while he was in Western Egypt in the Bahariya Formation. The fragmented remains looked to be from a very large and unusual theropod, possibly one bigger than the famous Tyrannosaurus Rex, which had been discovered less than 10 years prior. Unfortunately the museum holding those remains was destroyed in a bombing run during World War II, but detailed drawings of the fragments did survive along with photos of the display.

Discovered in the Gobi desert, Velociraptor was roughly the size of a modern day Turkey, standing at just around 1.6 feet in height at the hip and measuring 6.8 feet in length, it likely only weighed around 33 pounds when fully grown. Like all members of the dromaeosauridae family it possessed a pair of specialized claws on the second inner toe of each foot. These claws were over-sized and were held off the ground by tendons that allowed them to retract when not in use, it’s thought they deployed this menacing weaponry as a means to pin struggling prey, much like modern day eagles and hawks do.

Yutyrannus huali lived in what is now China during the Early Cretaceous (124.6 million years ago). An early relative to the famed T.rex, it is known from three nearly complete fossil skeletons that were found together and show a surprising amount of detail, including the presence of a feathered covering over most of their bodies. At adulthood Y. huali measured at around 29.5 feet in length and weighed in at about 1.2 tons, making it the largest dinosaur yet discovered with direct evidence of feathers.