#paleontology history

[arminreindl]

"Paleontology can be really petty and stupid"

In 1898 Santiago Roth discovered the armored tail of a large turtle in Patagonia, which he showed to British paleontologist A.S. Woodward. Recognizing it as the remains of a meiolaniid, Roth was told to go on an expedition to find more material, which he did. This material, which included an almost fully preserved skull, was initially published on in a brief communication in 1899.

Strangely, also in 1899, Florentino Ameghino published his own communication claiming that his brother Carlos had found the almost fully preserved skull of that same kind of turtle, a meiolaniid he dubbed Niolamia argentina.

It is curious how both Ameghino and Roth seem to have found the exact same material of a meiolaniid in different localities at the same time, but weirder things have happened. Tho it is further pretty weird how Ameghino rushed to get a name out, but didn't bother describing what defined the animal nor designated a holotype. Hell he didn't even illustrate his skull. But lets give him some time.

Two years pass, its 1901 now. Woodward publishes a proper description of Roth's skull, illustrating the animal in detail. Having heard that Ameghino found a remarkably similar fossil, Woodward assigns the Roth skull to the same species as the Ameghino skull. Although he doesn't carry over the genus Niolamia, instead placing the fossils in Miolania (a misspelling of Meiolania, described a few years prior from Australia). Ameghino didn't seem to mind or disagree, tho he still hadn't properly described nor figured his skull.

1938: Ameghino is dead at this point and weirdly, his Niolamia skull is still nowhere to be found. Since his initial description was wholy insufficient, George Gaylord Simpson (yes thats his actual name) decides to declare the Roth skull the type specimen for Niolamia (the neoptype). Meaning that the genus is now defined on this skull rather than the one Ameghino had when coining the name.

Fast forward to 2011. It is now generally accepted that Roth's skull is the fossil that defines what Niolamia is. Of course Ameghino still gets credit, after all he described the first remains, even tho nobody has ever seen those...ever really. Over a 100 years passed and far as anyone could tell, the last person to have seen those bones were Ameghino and his brother, after which they just disappeared. But we still got the Roth skull, and Juliana Sterli and Marcelo de la Fuente could readily redescribe Niolamia based on that.

But Sterli seems to suspect that something very fishy is going on. Remember, Ameghino just happened to find a perfectly preserved skull at the same time as Roth did. Ameghino made sure to get a name out before Woodward got around to fully describe it. Ameghino only vaguely compared the skull to Meiolania, but didn't specify its unique features nor did he actually illustrate his material. So Sterli said out loud what I'm sure many people must have been thinking. "Did Ameghino just make it all up?"

In 2015 Sterli comments on the matter by noting how awfully convenient the whole situation was. Although no concrete evidence exists, Sterli suggests that Ameghino may have found out about Roth's skull, lied about having found a similar one, and named Niolamia not on a fossil he actually had but based on what little he knew about Roth's discovery.

This is just a basic summary of a rabbit hole I recently went into and my god its so frustrating on so many levels. Again we don't have concrete evidence that Ameghino's skull didn't actually exist, but the way the timing lined up and the fact that he was in a feude with Francisco Moreno, which has been likened to an Argentinian Bone War, means that this suggestion isn't that out there. It really doesn't help that his supposed skull was only ever mentioned by him in 1899 and never again. Ameghino never claimed it was destroyed or stolen, hell, far as I could find he even agreed with Woodwards research.

What's also fascinating is that seemingly, for over a hundred years, nothing was written in scientific literature casting doubt over his claim. I'm sure some people must have called bullshit on him in private, but the only resource I could find that actually goes as far as to say "Hey isn't his weird that the Ameghino skull is basically a phantom" came out in 2015. Everything in-between seemed content with just assuming that Ameghino and Roth both had skulls and just never followed up on whatever happened to the former. Then again I could just as much understand if people just didn't want to deal with this nightmare of a backstory.

#paleontology #ameghino #florentino ameghino #niolamia #history #prehistory #palaeblr #coproliteposting #meiolaniidae #turtle #paleontology history

[adigitalsky]

dusk settling over the ocean, a long long time ago

#skys art #artists on tumblr #original art #animal #dinosaur #icthyosaur #plesiosaur #paleontology #history #desert

[pimsri]

Paleo art inspired by Minoan frescoes

#pimsriart #pimsriart2023 #paleoart #paleo art #paleontology #dinosaur #marine reptile #animal #minoan #minoan frescoes #frescoes #art history #ancient greece #triceratops #lambeosaurus #microraptor #mosasaurid

[gsirvitor]

#paleontology #natural history #coelacanth

[delyth-thomas-art]

Please help the National Museum Of Wales

Please sign the petition!!!!

You don't need to be living in Wales or the uk to sign.

#wales #welsh #museum #history #petition #signal boost #geology #paleontology #palaeoblr #support education #support history

[amnhnyc]

We’re celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day in a big way, with one of the largest known deer: the Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus)! It was originally discovered in bog deposits in Ireland. This megafauna could weigh up to 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and its antlers could reach an incredible 13-ft- (4-m-) spread. Once ranging from western Europe to China, this animal died out some 10,000 years ago. However, at least one population, living in Russia’s Ural Mountains, managed to survive until about 7,770 years ago, long after the end of the Pleistocene. 

See the Irish Elk up close in the Museum’s Hall of Advanced Mammals! We’re open daily from 10 am-5:30 pm. Plan your visit.

Photo: © AMNH 

#science #amnh #museum #fossil #natural history #nature #paleontology #megafauna #did you know #fact of the day #fun fact #saint patricks day #st patricks day #luck of the irish #deer #mammals

[tibli]

In light of that little "sharks are older than the north star" post, here's some other little fun facts i keep in my brain for such an occasion:

-mammals are older than flowers

-fungi are more closely related to animals than plants

-the t-rex existed in a closer period of time to humans than it did to stegosaurus.

-hyenas are closer in relation to cats than dogs

-the mitochondria in a human cell was originally a kind of bacteria that later evolved into the organelle we all know and love

-Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Iphone's debut than to the construction of the pyramids

-Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire, and the modern English language (which i'm including Middle English in, as well, just for the record.)

-if you laid the blood vessels in a single human body end to end, it would be over 60,000 miles long, or, long enough to wrap around the earth twice.

-the oldest company in the world still in operation is kongo gumi, which was founded in the year 578

#history #paleontology #i want to make it clear we obviously arent older than plants #just FLOWERING plants #science #biology #i could probably think of more if i wanted to. but im lazy lmao #tibtalks

[wobblyworks]

A Coelophysis pair enjoying the early morning hours

#paleoart #paleontology #dinosaur #dinosaurs #art #3d animation #3d art #animation #natural history #coelophysis #triassic #science

[sombertide-0]

hello hi it has been a while, i am still hyerfixating on Hades but i got a little guy for you! Leaellynasaura! i have no idea how to pronounce it and the fact that i memorized how to write it is good enough for me

this is a collab with a friend of mine who made a plush that i designed! go visit @bladespark he makes amazing things and this was super fun

#art #digital art #sombertide art #paleoart #paleontology #natural history #dinosaur #paleo #dino #mesozoic #leaellynasaura #theropod #it's so fucking cute #collab #plushie #stuffed animals #plush toy #dino plush #gods i want that plush so bad #its so small #and floofy #perfect creature #a friend

[eutrochiumfistulosum]

Here's another new dinosaur sticker! You know ankylosaurus was a party animal.

#paleoart #paleontology #natural history #science #dinosaurs #dinosaur art #dinosaur #sciart #vector illustration #typography #illustration

[arminreindl]

So everyone loves Megalania (Varanus priscus), the giant monitor lizard from Pleistocene Australia. But here's something I found out today. For a brief period of time in the 1880s Richard Owen, the guy who described it, thought it was a giant spiny lizard similar and possibly related to the Thorny Devil. At that time this reconstruction was created.

The reason is about as dumb as you would think. So while Megalania was originally described based on a few vertebrae, Owen was beginning to referr more and more material to the animal, a lot of the time without the bones showing any overlap. Now around 1880 the skull of the giant turtle Ninjemys was found in Australia and sent to Owen in London. G. F. Bennett, who found the skull, correctly identified it as a turtle and mentioned as much in a letter to Owen.

Except Owen seemingly ignored that or disagreed, because he swiftly proposed that the skull was actually that of a lizard and not just that, specifically that of Megalania. As if that wasn't already an unholy chimera enough for you, the limb bones that Owen assigned to Megalania at the time were those of a GODDAMN MARSUPIAL. Not even a reptile.

Even when studying more turtle skulls from Lord Howe Island, Owen insisted that what he had were actually lizards, which he considered to be relatives of Megalania (naming them Meiolania). Eventually both Huxlay and Woodward got involved, recognizing the two skulls as turtles and removing all the non-lizard stuff from Owen's Megalania. But for just a brief period of time Megalania was some uncanny hybrid between monitor lizard, giant wombat (art by Gabriel Ugueto) and tail-clubed turtle (art by Joschua Knüppe)

#megalania #varanus #varanus priscus #monitor lizard #ninjemys #meiolania #diprotodon #australia #richard owen #palaeblr #paleontology #prehistory #pleistocene #history #paleontology history

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Errors, “Errors,” and Sci Fi

@strawberry-crocodile

tvtropes calls stuff like the wolf example "science matches on" which I think is a pretty fair shake

This.  This is what’s got me thinking so much about errors.  There’s a certain danger, here.  A certain way that this particular effect — delicious dramatic irony — tempts the mind when reading old stories, even true ones.

What do you know about R.M.S. Titanic? I ask my class every year, and the first hand rises.  “It was unsinkable,” the student inevitably says, and everyone is nodding, “or so they thought.”  I write the word UNSINKABLE on the board, underneath my crude drawing of a ship with four smokestacks.  It will be crossed out before the end of the hour, but not for the reason they expect.

“I find no evidence,” Walter Lord, preeminent biographer of the ship’s survivors, wrote, “that Titanic was ever advertised as unsinkable. This detail seems to have entered the collective mind so as to create a more perfect irony.”  Indeed, historians’ examinations of White Star Line documents show the shipbuilders themselves worried it would be so large as to risk collision; they stocked several more lifeboats than 1910s regulations required.

The War to End All Wars (deep breath, satisfied exhale), also known as World War ONE. Chuckle.  Shake of the head.  What if I told you that this phrase, used primarily in American newspapers after the fact, wasn’t meant to be literal? Nowadays we’d say The Mother of All Wars, or One Hell of a Fucking War, but we wouldn’t mean literal motherhood, literal intercourse.  What if I said the armistice and the Lost Generation and the Roaring 20s were all braced for another outbreak of European conflict, and yet we still failed to prevent it?

Did you know they were so confident in the safety of the S.S. Challenger that they put a civilian schoolteacher onboard? I do, because I’ve heard that one repeated many times.  Only, see, it’s got the cause and effect reversed.  Challenger launched on a day the shuttle’s engineers knew to be dangerously cold, because the first civilian in space was on board. And NASA knew its shuttle project would be cancelled entirely, if they couldn’t get that civilian’s much-delayed entry into space in the next two weeks.  So they launched on a cold day, and killed her instead.

These are all what cognitive science calls Hindsight Bias on the personal level, what sociology calls Presentism on the cultural level.  Social psychology’s a little of both, is primarily interested in why you’re sitting on your couch in a Colonize Mars shirt watching PBS and chuckling at the fools who believed in El Dorado.  It wants to know why the mind flees straight from “marijuana will kill you” to “marijuana will cure cancer” without so much as a pause on the middle ground of its real benefits and drawbacks, its real (mild) risks and rewards.

And they can paralyze the sci-fi writer, if you think too much about them. Jetsons is futurist one decade, retro the next.  “There are no bathrooms on the Enterprise,” the creators of Serenity say smugly, as if Gene Roddenberry should’ve simply known that decades later it’d be acceptable to show a man peeing in full view of the camera, nothing but the curve of the actor’s hand to protect his modesty.  “No sound in space,” the Fandom Menace says, “No explosions in space,” and “A space station can’t collapse in zero-G.”  Only then NASA burns a paper napkin outside of atmosphere, transmits music using only the ghost of nearby planets’ gravities, and logs onto Reddit long enough to point out the Death Star would implode in its own gravity field.  And now we’re the ones pointing, the ones laughing, at those earlier point-and-laughers.  Self-satisfied, smug in superiority.  As if we did the work to find out ourselves, instead of just happening to be born a little later than George Lucas.

#errors #continuity #sci fi #presentism #star wars #titanic #world war i #science marches on #history #started a new post because i got waaaaaay off topic here #if you think the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) should've had feathers #you're a lot more ignorant about paleontology than the people you're trying to criticize #science was not handed down to us in its perfect complete form circa 1943 #stop for a second before you call out someone else's reptilian denonychus #someone else's oxygenated moon #and ask: am i better read #or am i just more recently born?

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

If only we treated rocks like the archive of Earth’s history they are

#geology #Paleontology #palaeoblr #archives #history

[mycoblogg]

Tell me a shroom fact please

a recently-found amber fossil (dating to ~100 million years ago) suggests that dinosaurs ingested psychotropic fungi !!

in this fossil, we see some of the earliest recorded evidence of grass. atop the grass? a fungal parasite. in comparison with our fungi today, this fungus is most similar to ergot - fungi that grow on rye & produce alkaloids. ergot has been used as a medicine, a poison & a hallucinogen by humans for thousand of years.

"there’s no doubt in my mind that it would have been eaten by sauropod dinosaurs, although we can’t know what exact effect it had on them." - george poinar jr, of the oregon state university's college of science.

the small chance that dinosaurs tripped on psychedelics keeps me going, tbh.

#• finn's freaky fungi fact ^^ • #• askbox replies: • #(ask : warmilkbread) #|| #fun fact #dinosaurs #amber #paleontology #fossils #grass #dinos #science #biology #history #fact #mushrooms #fungus #mycology #mushroom #earth #nature #fungi

[nazrigar]

Women's History Month 2024 - Mary Buckland and Megalosaurus

It's International Women's Day! Featuring Mary Buckland, the OG Paleoartist, AKA the lady who drew the iconic Megalosaurus jaw described by her husband William in 1824!

Coincidentally, Megalosaurus' first scientific description turned 200 years old earlier this year!

#my art #women's history month #megalosaurus #paleoart #mary buckland #international women's day 2024 #dinosaurs #paleontology #nazrigart

[paleo-cafnir]

Medieval tapestry but dinosaur style

#this took so long to draw dont even talk to me about it #i drew each of the little leaves and patterns #mapusaurus #artists on tumblr #dinosaurs #my art #paleontology #3d art #paleoart #prehistoric animals #palaeoblr #theropod #medieval #medieval art #medieval tapestry #tapestry #art #digital artists #digital art #history