#triassic march madness

[scolop98]

Apologies in advance for the person I will become once @weirdanimal-tournament’s tournament bracket begins. I’m know most of y’all follow me for the fandom memes but I’m also a huge zoology nerd and I will be hyperfixating on this and flooding this account with impassioned arguments to vote for chevrotains and Jerusalem crickets

#describing actual living animal species as my blorbos feels cursed #but would not be inaccurate in the slightest #the only reason I didn’t go completly feral during Triassic March Madness was b/c I didn’t have a tumblr account at the time #nothing will stop me now

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Noticed that none of the widely known Dino’s aren’t in the competetion…..which is honestly good cause the trex would have absolutely swept

So actually this is our 6th dinosaur march madness! (5th, technically, anyway). We've been doing this for ages, ever since I got inspired by a similar thing on twitter (mammals, not dinosaurs)!

Year one was way back in 2016 - we used to use google polls to run the competition! We had people narrow down their fave dinosaurs by general group (ie ones closely related to each other) and then duked it out. Believe it or not, T. rex didn't make it into the first year! That'll remain wild for me, but Yutyrannus was the tyrannosaur. Ultimately, the Common Raven won, which makes a significant amount of sense for tumblr

Year two (2017) we only allowed in contestants that hadn't made the bracket the year before - this was a weird year, because Maiasaura won, and I s2g, I don't think it should have, I think people just voted for it because it's my (Meig, the main ADAD guy) favorite dinosaur. What can ya do...

Year three (2018) we only allowed in things that hadn't been in EITHER bracket EITHER year - this allowed for a lot of weirdos to show up, and the ultimate winner was Halszkaraptor, the first known goose-raptor-thing (like Natovenator this year)!

Year four (2019) - DMM Allstars! It was a bunch of competitors that had made it into the bracket the other three years, but didn't win outright. Amargasaurus won that year! It's a close cousin of Bajadasaurus in this year's bracket

Year five (2020 - note all the prep happens BEFORE March...) we switched it up and did Triassic March Madness - not technically dinosaurs, just a bunch of really weird critters from one of the weirdest times in Earth's history - Postosuchus won though, even though its not that weird, because the art made it look like a puppy. What can ya do.

Then we took a break because I was starting grad school again, moving across the country, bunch of the rest of the team also doing literally the same two things to whatever extent it applied to them, and also that whole pandemic thing

And now we have DMM: Rising Stars, where we take the opportunity to highlight dinosaurs that had come out since the last competition new ones would have showed up in (2018) - hence its a bunch of dinosaurs y'all haven't heard of! What a great opportunity to share new science and make DMM even more interesting!

Plus it gave me and @albertonykus more opportunities to brag about the birds (Anachronornis and Asteriornis respectively) we've named during that same time period XD

We want to do Permian Madness eventually like we did Triassic, because the Permian is also super weird. Another year we might do Fossil Birds, because often the birds that got voted in those first four years were living species and a lot of fossil birds haven't had their time in the spotlight in my very biased fossil-bird-researcher opinion. We have a lot of ideas, and frankly the excitement that is not having to use a third party (google) with the addition of tumblr polls means prehistory-march-madness will continue for a while!

#its just really funny so many people have joined DMM rising stars with absolutely none of this backstory known to them #dmm: rising stars #dmm #dinosaur march madness #dinosaurs #palaeoblr #birds #birblr

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

SO...I guess there are polls on here. Who knew?

Today's competitors are therapsids, anscestors to modern mammals.

Cynognathus

Lived during the late Triassic Period. It had a double gait meaning that its hind legs were erect but its front legs were sprawling. Dinosaurs had a completely erect gait.

Lystrosaurus lived duringbthe late Permian into the early Triassic some 20 million years before dinosaurs. While 98% of all life died at the end of the Permian, Lystrosaurus said "naw, I got this." It had a semi-sprawling gait and it was found on multiple continents so it was used as evidence for continental drift.

#paleontology #fossils #march madness #competition #not a dinosaur #mammal

[blorbologist]

You said we could ask about dinosaurs, what's your favourite/weirdest one? Also, do you think dino feathers are related to pterosaur fur? I'd love to imagine their common ancestor as a fluffy sillysaur-like creature :p

My favorite dinosaur flipflops between Dakotaraptor (potentially not valid & has the mess around its discovery, BUT was in a super cool ecosystem and is a real life JP Raptor) and Deinonychus (incredible fossils, revolutionized how we understand dinosaurs, the inspiration for those JP Raptors even if they slapped Velociraptor's name on the package). Because as fascinating as other species get, I'm a sucker for 'eagle-leopard-dragon'.

There's something just so cool about larger dromaeosaurids, even as it seems increasingly like most were not as social as we initially thought. I study social behavior in reptiles and can tell you that them not necessarily hunting in packs does not mean they didn't have fascinating intraspecific behaviors, and potentially social learning / gaze following / 'friendships' (here citing research in bearded dragons, red-footed tortoises and garter snakes, all of which are considered less socially / cognitively complex than birds. So I'd expect this as a bare minimum from most dromaeosaurids.)

My favorite weird dinosaur is actually harder to choose because there are so many of them. My current favorite is likely Jakapil, because I'm bitter it didn't win Dinosaur March Madness. You can read a bit more about it in @a-dinosaur-a-day's finalist post for it here! This thing has a super long ghost lineage, lived alongside one of the largest terrestrial predators to ever live, and just has such a funky look to it:

(Art credit to pantydraco on Twitter, which I 100% just chose because of the handle gkntrnh incredible)

Other weird favorites include Yi qui (dinosaur gave being a tiny dragon a try), Kulindadromeus (we'll get to it shortly) and Deinocheirus (giant-sloth-bear-duck, and its fossils also have their own incredibly weird story).

(I can't find who GIFed this and for that I am devastated, but it's from Prehistoric Planet's first season.)

To answer your second question, we don't actually call what pterosaurs have 'fur', given the implication that it'd be related to mammalian integument - the fuzz is called pycnofibers! Given that we see similar simple fibers in pterosaurs, theropods (see: the host of feathered dinosaur fossils, modern birds, a potential fuzzy pants trackway dated to the Triassic) and the ornithischians as well, I'd lean towards pycnofibers being basal to the group.

That weirdo I mentioned above, Kulindadromeus, is actually pretty instrumental to this - not only are its fossils absolutely insane (there are potentially hundreds of them in the bonebed! Including juveniles! Preserved with several types of scales!) but it was fuzzy! With three different types of fibers, too!

(Artist credit: Andrey Atuchin)

So the Triassic was likely rife with smallish not-quite-dinosaurs-not-quite-pterosaurs running around with floof, potentially to better deal with the harsh conditions. Or maybe just to look cute (this is half a joke gntrkntrknh)

#paleoblr #dinosaurs #Am I becoming a paleo-ish blog? :DDDD #all my reblogging of paleo content finally paying off baybyyyy #I wonder what the overlap between CR and dinosaur nerds is. #how many suffered with me at the wave of pronated arm T.rex!Caleb art after Rumblecusp and the boat fight

[deinonychusfloof]

DEAD MEME! DEAD MEME!

Tag urself poorly drawn Triassic fauna edition.

#I'm Just a Fish and Gay. #tag yourself #tag urself #palaeoblr #Triassic March Madness #tmm #DREPANOSAURUS OR BUST BABY

[wtf-triassic]

WHY THE TRIASSIC????

What the FUCK is so WEIRD about the Triassic?

Well I will TELL YOU! 

Okay so first of all, the Triassic is SUPER DUPER OLD. In the grand scheme of the Earth, sure, it happened relatively recently, but working on the scale of the entire geologic time span of the Earth’s existence is not exactly fair: 

I mean, animals that we can recognize today didn’t show up until that line in the Phanerozoic (Hadean is the oldest stuff), so like, it’s smack dab in the middle of THAT 

Look, basically, here’s what happened: 

- The earth Formed. Life Appeared. Chaos reigned (4,600 million years ago until 4,000 million years ago) 

- Life began to become more complex. Some life began to stick its blueprints inside of pockets so they’d be safer. They then swallowed other life forms that were better at getting energy, but kept them around like a buddy inside of them. Some of these guys could make a shitton of oxygen. This made the earth cool and a lot of shit die out super duper quickly. Extinction rate unknown. (4,000 million years ago until 2,500 million years ago) 

- Climate change and fluctuating oceans allow life to start to group up together into SuperLife aka Multicellular Things. These multicellular things got more and more complicated. Some became animals and started moving around a lot. Some plants went on land. Some things were super weird looking and mysterious. LOTS of experimentation by life. Things start to change and a lot of these early experiments go extinct. Extinction rate unknown. (2,500 million years ago until 541 million years ago) 

- Animals can suddenly burrow underground and go absolutely apeshit and diversify faster than you can say “wait a second whAT THE FUCK IS THAT”. Ice Age causes Death, 85% of species die out. (541-444 million years ago) 

- Fish suddenly have a chance to be weird too and some of them decide, what the heck, let’s crawl onto land. Why not, right? Some other animals decide to join them. Plants make everything super cold, 75% of all species die out. (444-359 mya) 

- Land-vertebrates start to diversify. They try out a lot of new things, but there aren’t a lot of them yet. So there’s still a lot of experimentation in body plans. Mammal-relatives are actually some of the most diverse ones. Reptiles are fairly rare. A GIANT MASS EXTINCTION CAUSED BY A GIANT LAVA FIELD EXPLODING KILLS ~95% OF LIFE ON EARTH. (359-252 mya)

- NEW animals get to try to diversify and do lots of crazy shit in the wake of SO MANY JOBS IN THE ENVIRONMENT GETTING CLEARED OUT. Reptiles diversify so fast you don’t know what the heck is happening. Other animals also take this opportunity to do new and weird shit. VOLCANOS EXPLODE, KILL ~80% OF LIFE (252-201 mya) 

- Dinosaurs finally get to do fun things now that other reptiles are no longer being weird. Modern life starts to show up. (201 mya-today). 

BASICALLY: 

- Land Animals had only just started to diversify and try out new funky things with their bodies in order to cope with the challenges of terrestrial life 

- Then a giant mass extinction killed everything. Mass exinctions are bad news for a lot of shit that’s specialized for the environment that’s been destroyed, BUT it allows things that make it through to have a chance to try out new shit to fill all those empty jobs in the environment 

- So, generalist reptiles, who hadn’t had a chance to do jack diddly squat before, now suddenly had the whole planet to play with. And the other animals around them, from mammal-cousins to amphibians to fish to insects to other invertebrates, also got to try out some new stuff in this new world 

- AND THEN ANOTHER MASS EXTINCTION HAPPENED RIGHT AFTER THAT RESET THE CLOCK AGAIN

This means that the TRIASSIC has some of THE MOST UNIQUE ANIMALS TO HAVE EVER EVOLVED IN EARTH’S HISTORY. Experiments were tried, rapidly, and MANY were lost RIGHT AWAY. It’s not like the life that evolved after that, which was honestly similar to what we see today - or those that evolved after the end-Cretaceous extinction, which was even more like today. These were weirdos that appeared and were wiped out before they could continue on to today 

And, because this was a rapid evolutionary period, we see the starts of many of today’s modern groups of animals, and they’re super weird, too! 

Honestly, the only weirder period in Earth’s history is the Cambrian Explosion, when animals first started doing anything notable at all 

On top of THAT, the ENTIRE EARTH was ONE GIANT SUPERCONTINENT called Pangea! Everyone could go everywhere! There were no terrestrial barriers to movement! So many creatures spread all over the globe. It was a HOTSPOT of biodiversity and a major turning point in Earth’s History

But, because the dinosaurs that evolved in the Triassic were kind of Meh, it doesn’t get enough press!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

So, we’re going to cover the Weird and Wonderful animals of the Triassic - we have a carefully curated list of Weirdos ready to take Tumblr by storm, and we hope you’ll enjoy learning about these amazing animals right along with us! You’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see them, though - don’t want to give away the surprises! 

GET! PUMPED! 

IT’S TRIASSIC TIME!

#Triassic #Palaeoblr #Dinosaurs #Prehistoric Life #Animals #Reptiles #Triassic Madness #Triassic March Madness #History of Life #Evolution #Paleontology

[romigodon]

In honour of Triassic March Madness, here’s me in the field this weekend working in the Redonda Formation of Eastern New Mexico!

Also, our program got really into it (minus Max who was out to the lab that afternoon). It seems some of our picks have already been beaten out, and my professor who has based their whole career on Phytosaurs was not pleased that Rutidon was beaten in round one!

Remember everyone, that funky Doswelliad Vancleavea needs our votes!!! So, VOTE FOR VANCLEAVEA!!!

#romigodon #paleontology #field work #triassic march madness #vancleavea

[rave-lord-nito]

It’s finally Triassic March Madness, which means i will be doing nothing but rooting for the big lad Lisowicia for the rest of the month

#lisowicia bojani #palaeontology #triassic march madness #tmm #please help the big lad

[palaeowhy]

#palaeoblr #nothosaurus #tmm #triassic march madness

[vacuum-fluorescent-display]

if any of y’all are participating in triassic march madness vote desmatosuchus they’re my fucking boy

#desmatosuchus is my favorite triassic animal of all time. there are a few others i also love but desmatosuchus for triassic champion #talking tom #paleontology #triassic march madness

[amberjadeblood]

Idk how many of my followers are aware, but it's Triassic March Madness time, baby! Check out the hashtag #triassic march madness and give these weirdos some love!!!

ALSO VOTE XENACANTHUS my boy did *not* survive The Great Dying to go out this early😭😭😭

#if xenacanthus can just make it to the second round i will consider my life's work complete #triassic march madness

[scolop98]

VOTE STEGOUROS FOR DINOSAUR MARCH MADNESS 2023

art by Gabriel Ugueto

This is admittedly a really tough choice, but what is March Madness season for if not throwing your entire soul into campaigning against a random animal species for petty reasons? (disclaimer: this is from the guy who slandered Vaderlimulus for almost the entirety of Triassic March Madness before realizing that it never actually beat Atopodentatus in a poll)

I’ll try to keep this short since my previous Berthasaura propoganda post took a lot out of me and I actually respect Spicomellus as a contender /hj

A VOTE FOR STEGOUROS IS A VOTE FOR:

- an entirely new basal clade of ankylosaurs, only described less than two years ago, which survived until the Maastrichtian!

- the macuahuitl, which I believe is the first new type of thyreophoran tail-weaponry discovered in a long time

- asymmetrical, vaguely hourglass shaped teeth. what was it doing with those teeth? something cool, no doubt; I am a sucker for phylogenetic trends in feeding ecology 

- was apparently adapted for cursoriality, including with hoof-shaped claws? I didn’t even know thyreophorans could do that but yes please, all of that. Hello, new hyperfixation rabbithole

- south america! as far as I’m concerned, South American ecology has been Fabulous roughly since the Cretaceous and hasn’t stopped. Stegouros lived alongside unenlagiines! that’s really cool!

- a Little Guy™️. exhibit A, from wikipedia:

what a perfectly sized little guy. so precious and (comparatively) small, and this was a full-grown adult thyreophoran from the non-European Maastrichtian! As far as I know, Stegouros has no right to be that small. If it does, please tell me, as it will only make me love it more

- something known from a mostly-complete skeleton! so we actually have a good idea of what it looks like!

As much as I love Spicomellus for being so extra (osteoderms attached directly to the rib, first known african ankylosaur, earliest known ankylosaur, lived alongside a Stegosaur) it’s only known from a single rib bone. It is, admittedly, a really cool rib bone, but Stegouros also lots of really cool bones! And they all belong to the same skeleton! Spicomellus may come with some really interesting biogeography and ankylosaur evolution facts, but so does Stegouros! And Stegouros objectively has more neat anatomy than Spicomellus does, no matter how you slice it. Does Spicomellus really have anything to offer that Stegouros can’t offer just as well, if not better?

Vote Stegouros for the only remaining Cool Ankylosaur™️ with a remotely complete skeleton. For the only remaining definitely-a-thyreophoran with a remotely complete Skelton, for that matter.

@a-dinosaur-a-day

#dinosaur march madness #dmm round two #dmm rising stars #stegouros #spicomellus #ankylosauria #a-dinosaur-a-day #dinosaurs

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

So next year's DMM is going to be Permian Madness, which we've promised for literally ages

I'm just a curious bean who wants to get a feel for whether these other ideas have support?

So here are some other "dinosaur" (I recognize permian march madness will not have a single dinosaur) march madness ideas I have. Remember I'm just looking for interest, so vote for whatever you're curious about, not necessarily what you'd like to "win" or what have you since there are no winners here, only losers

(ie things that get voted very little probably won't happen)

yeah I probably can come up with more that's why I need y'all to help me narrow it down

also we ARE open to more period-madnesses a la triassic and permian, that's just a whole other question

#dmm #dinosaur march madness #palaeoblr #birblr #poll

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

March Madness Day 13: Wild and Weird Reptiles

Tanystrophaeus is a long-necked archosauromorph, a reptile more closely related to crocs and birds than to lizards and snakes. And by long-necked, I mean 80% of it's length is neck. It lived during the middle Triassic some 15 to 20 million years before dinosaurs.

Drepanosaurus is a type of arboreal reptile with a prehensile tail. Even crazier, the tail ends in a freaking claw. Don't believe me? Here's the fossil:

#paleontology #fossils #fun facts #march madness #competition #not a dinosaur

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

WWD2020: Postosuchus kirkpatricki

First of all, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to everyone for all your kind words on my first WWD2020 post and your excitement for this project!! I’m so glad this is something that so many other people are passionate about, and I hope y’all enjoy the rest of these!

And now onto the next reconstruction, and a very topical one given its recent victory in Triassic March Madness! So this one’s dedicated to @wtf-triassic​, it’s Postosuchus from Episode 1: New Blood!

Honestly as far as I’m aware, the Postosuchus in WWD is actually pretty good! It’s decently-proportioned, with a long, low body, a very chunky neck, and even the weirdly-humanoid flat feet (they’re not visible in this picture but trust me they’re there). The head is a bit wonky, and one particular thing that I noticed as a kid is that the Postosuchus in the series never actually fully closes its mouth. In my redesign I’ve equipped it with a set of reptilian lips, allowing it to properly close its jaws and keep the inside of its mouth moist.

The biggest difference, however, is its posture. WWD portrays Postosuchus as an obligate quadruped, “too top-heavy to walk on two legs”. As our understanding of raisuchian anatomy has improved in the two decades since, however, it has become clear that the front legs of Postosuchus were actually physically incapable of functioning as walking limbs. This means more modern Postosuchus reconstructions have pulled a 180 and now portray it as a fully bipedal animal. We were so close though!!

Personally, Postosuchus was one of the most iconic species from WWD growing up, and I spent plenty of hours on my hands and knees roaring and attacking imaginary Placerias. The colour patterns on this one are superb, which I’ll probably be saying very frequently. The vibrant sandy reds and browns make it blend with the desert environment, and it wasn’t until closely examining the design for this that I noticed there’s a bit of blue-grey in there as well!

So yeah, that’s Postosuchus! An already-weird land-crocodile apex predator that’s turned out to be and even weirder bipedal land-crocodile apex predator with uncomfortably human-like legs and tiny little baby hands. Look at those, they’re adorable!

(Drawn with Krita, using skeletal references by Scott Hartman)

#wwd2020 #walking with dinosaurs #postosuchus #redesign #palaeontology #paleontology #palaeoart #paleoart #not a dinosaur #triassic

[deinonychusfloof]

My voting reasons for various species in Triassic March Madness range from

 “I think this is a genus that has been very important in advancing the science of palaeontology and deepening our understanding of evolution, anatomy, and ecology” 

through 

“I have a strong sentimental attachment to this animal” 

all the way down to 

“LOOK AT THIS RIDICULOUS MAN WHAT IS HE DOING??”

To that end: VOTE DESMATOSUCHUS, TERRESTRISUCHUS AND DIPHYDONTOSAURUS

#tmm #triassic march madness #the above are my boys