Friday Fragments #1
74 days until the paperback release of When the Earth Was Green
249 days until the release of Tyrant Lizard Queen
Happy Friday, fossil friends. Weeks of ice have finally thawed and transformed my local habitat into slop season, drizzle and eager buds setting the tone for early spring. I’m still working on getting my new office together - hooking up new hardware, my favorite books nearby, places for the pets to sleep when they want to be close - but it’s nearly there. And all the while, I’ve kept writing. Here are my new pieces from the past week.
Scribblings
Premium tier subscribers got a new piece about Tyrannoroter. Imagine a reptile-like lump that looked kind of like a pinecone wandering some of Earth’s earliest swamps and you get the idea. Next time? A Cretaceous face bite.
Utah’s legislature has again targeted trans people for the fourth year running. The bigotry has created such a state of fear that the University of Utah health system has preemptively ended gender-affirming care for trans children, obliterating an oasis that served much of the Intermountain West. I report for Assigned Media.
Andrewsarchus has always been one of my favorite fossil mammals, but what in the world is it? A mesonychid? A hell pig? Something as-yet-unknown? Come get to know the chompy beast in my latest for Smithsonian Magazine.
Ice Age megafauna are still all around us. Jaguars are among them, ancient cats that will need our help if they’re to survive millions of years more. Check out my new one for SIERRA.
I joined the brilliant David and Will on Common Descent to talk about the famous Dinosaur Renaissance. Spoiler: visions of warm-blooded dinosaurs did not start with Deinonychus. Listen in here.
Ear Perks
“The presence of sexual characteristics typical of one sex in the opposite sex is more common than has been previously recognized.” You’re telling me. The latest from the zoological realm? Little live-bearing fish found in Ecuador have different female morphs, some of which possess gonopodia - a specialized structure often associated with passing sperm - while also being gravid and capable of live birth. You can check out the OA paper yourself here.
Godzilla’s been many things over the years, but I have a special fondness for the interpretations that delve into the monster’s glowing, burning horror. A new series from IDW revisits the monster’s 1954 debut with just that terrible emphasis.
https://youtu.be/guH5xc09L4c?si=y6htVAx8JHbsw-ZGThe prickly shark always stood out to me in the big glossy shark books I read as a kid, but I’d never seen the living fish. I was thrilled to see video of such a shark rising out of the undersea canyon just off San Diego.
