May 2013
13 posts
3 tags
3 tags
April 2013
15 posts
1 tag
1 tag
March 2013
4 posts
2 tags
Back from extinction!
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve made a post! Life has been extremely busy (I got ENGAGED to the paleontologist of my dreams, Lee!), but I’m proud to say that Lee and I are going to start posting again (in between wedding planning). I really want to use the new and improved blog to share photos from the amazing fossils and specimens that I see daily, and to post our thoughts on...
February 2011
5 posts
Theropods Gone Wild!
Too often do we forget that birds are the descendants of some of the world’s most impressive, most intimidating animals. It’s easy to think of the extinct dinosaurs as vicious, reptilian and brutally competitive in their ancient swamps and floodplains. Our whole lives have been spent imagining as much. But birds? They chirp and tweet to announce spring time, right? Well,...
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Happy Birthday, "Chuckie D!"
HAPPY 202nd Birthday, Charles Darwin!
(Charles Darwin’s 1837 sketch, his first diagram of an evolutionary tree from his First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837) on view at the the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.)
Interpretation of handwriting:
“I think case must be that one generation
should have as many living as now. To do this and to have as many
species in...
4 tags
Trilobyte Tuesday!
Greetings Dear Readers,
No, that’s not a typo in the heading, it really is Trilobyte Tuesday! We like to keep our eyes open for anything cool and unusual involving fossils and natural history, of course, and one of the wonderful things about the internet is it’s so easy to find paleo-schwag. Just look at this amazing hand-carved trilobyte:
The bottom, I mean ventral side, is...
4 tags
15 tags
Welcome, "Monstrous Murderer"!
Dearest readers,
Happy “Superbowl Sunday” weekend (Not that I’m keeping score OR watching)! I wanted to take a minute and tell you about a new dinosaur just described!
Watch out—-there’s a new kid on the block and he comes from my expansive and scenic “neighborhood” of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah…
(Photo of GSENM taken by...
January 2011
2 posts
3 tags
The Tell-Tale Heart
Sad news…are you ready for this?
The “fossilized heart”—from an ornithischian Thescelosaurus dinosaur nicknamed “Willo” that once gave paleontologists hope for resting the “warm or cold blooded” debate—has beat its last beat.
Research was led by PhD candidate Timothy Cleland at North Carolina State University, and assisted by the infamous...
9 tags
New Year--New Fossils--New Papers!!!
Dearest readers,
I hope all of you had a warm and happy holiday season! I’ve missed you! It was quite the busy one for me! I went back to spend a snowy, cold Christmas with my family in the midwest—and on the way back through Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I was greeted by an old friend…
The Field Museum’s sauropod! It wouldn’t be a trip home without seeing...
December 2010
2 posts
5 tags
WatchThis week, the paleo news stories have been dropping faster than trilobites nearing the Devonian extinction! There have been some fascinating discoveries and research done on our beloved scaly beasts—-whether they’re classified as dinosaurs or not…
THIS JUST IN:
Wet Willi! New (rare articulated) Dimetrodon discovered by HMNS (Houston Museum of Natural Science...
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Trader "Awesome"...
Yet another reason (besides fudge-covered peppermint Jo-Jos) to LOVE Trader Joes supermarket. These pictures were taken in the *new* store in Lincoln, Nebraska…now if they could JUST make some dinosaur shaped cookies…
A mammoth on a bike? We love it. I think more grocery stores should have ancient beasties in their store. I think of it as a form of public education (and good...
November 2010
3 posts
4 tags
CYBER Monday MUSEUM Sales!!!
Oh goodness…it does NOT get better than this! Now that we’ve stuffed ourselves with delicious THANKSGIVING theropod, it is time to fill up that second cup of coffee and get to SHOPPING!!!
Need a gift for your favorite paleontologist? Grandkids? Husband or wife? Well wait no further because I JUST found GREAT deals on fossiliferous gifts for the dinosaur lover in your life (and I am...
Why a Pterosaur is Not a Dinosaur →
It’s been a busy week!
Here’s a bit of good solid information from Smithsonian’s Dinosaur Tracking blog via writer Brian Switek. Enjoy!
<3 Paleochick
5 tags
...and NOW the moment you've all been waiting...
OUR JURASS-O-LANTERNS! (They’re both from the Late Jurassic 150 mya)
We wanted our Paleo Pumpkins to work as a set—a sort of prehistoric pumpkin pair. We sat down and tried to nail down a few different design possibilities and finally, mere hours before All Hallow’s Eve, a consensus was reached…
Like a fossilized limestone phoenix rising up from the ashes of the Late...
October 2010
13 posts
10 tags
Pumpkin #10: Beasts of Burden
AMAZING.
I LOVE the Witmer Lab.
Dr. Larry Witmer and his crew at Ohio University use modern technology (CT scan and 3D visualizations) to “flesh out” the past. They have really gotten into the minds of animals, studying the endocasts or BRAINS of dinosaurs, nasal cavities, and even air pockets in the skull of Tyrannosaurus rex. Their mission is to use the structure of extinct AND...
3 tags
Something twisted this way swims...
One of the most surprising things about searching for Paleo-themed jack-o-lanterns has been that many of the designs found were not as typical as, say Tyrannosaurus or Apatosaurus and really surprised us. (See Anomalocaris and Grallator and Smilodon)
On the other hand, there were some pumpkins that fell into the category of “Well, duh! Who wouldn’t carve a Jurassic Park emblem or a...
9 tags
Don't Call Me "Tiger"
We love Smilodon.
We love Smilodon fatalis, more.
We presented you with THIS fleshed out version of the ancient fearsome feline earlier this week, but there’s nothing quite like seeing it raw and “bare-boned”. This pumpkin in particular comes straight from my backyard…in fact, I TOOK the picture! Yes, that’s right, this pumpkin comes from the richest and most...
Check out this Gurched-Out Gourd!
Today we’re bringing you a little bit of nostalgia!
There are a lot of iconic dinosaurs, and there is certainly a lot of iconic dinosaur art. I would have to argue that among all the canvasses ever covered with a Mesozoic landscape and those so very familiar archosaurs, one of the *most* recognizable paintings would have to be John Gurche’s Albertosaurus facing off against Styracosaurus:
It’s...
