#fossil day

This isn’t a dinosaur but I don’t have a synapsid blog to post this on so

"Ammonitida," Plate 44 in Kunstformen der Natur by Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), 1904. Ammonite fossils!

1. Ammonites (Cardioceras) cordatus = Cardioceras cordatum, from side

2. Ammonites (Cardioceras) cordatus = Cardioceras cordatum, from below

3. Ammonites (Schloenbachia) Coupei = Schloenbachia varians?, from side

4. Ammonites (Schloenbachia) Coupei = Schloenbachia varians?, from below

5. Ammonites (Ptychites) opulentus = Ptychites opulentus, from side (outer shell layer removed)

6. Ammonites (Ptychites) opulentus = Ptychites opulentus, from below

7. Ammonites (ornatus) mammillaris = Douvilleiceras mammillatum, from side

8. Ammonites (planulatus) cavernosus = Puzosia planulatus, cross-section

9. Ammonites (amaltheus) rotula = Amaltheus margaritatus, from side

Happy Fossil Day. Happy Fossil Day! Brontosaurus is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period some 156 to 146 million years ago. The first remains consisted of a fairly complete skeleton was recovered from Como Bluff Wyoming in 1879 by William Harlow Reed who named its Brontosaurus excelsus,  meaning "thunder lizard", from the Greek brontē meaning "thunder" and sauros meaning "lizard", and from the Latin excelsus, meaning "noble" or "high". Despite being one of the most complete sauropod skeletons known at the time, the brontosaurus type specimen along with another found in 1880 lacked skulls. In 1903 Elmer S. Riggs argued that Brontosaurus was so similar to Apatosaurus that it should become a synonym. However, when the first skeleton of Apatosaurus was mounted in the American Museum of Natural History in 1905, it bore the name Brontosaurus, in additional confusion because no skulls where known from these animals a faximilally was constructed based off of other sauropod skull remains now know to be Camarasaurus and brachiosaurs which gave the mount a truly bizarre head. This one mounted skeleton is the reason why so much controversy would exist for this dinosaur over the next hundred years. It was not until a 1975 study by John Stanton McIntosh and David Berman re-describing the skull and jaws of Apatosaurus and Diplodocus was published that things would really get moving for more accurate reconstructions. In 1995 the original Brontosaurus mount from 1905 finally got a skull revision to be like that of Apatosaurus, and was also now named as Apatosaurus excelsus. It took the best part of a century to reveal the true shape and form of Apatosaurus, and for most of this time the majority of paleontologists agreed with the opinion of Elmer S, Riggs from 1903 that Brontosaurus should be a synonym to Apatosaurus. One notable exception however was Robert T. Bakker, who in 1998 argued that Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were distinct. Bakker would be proven right in 2015 when an extremely in-depth sauropod study conducted by Emanuel Tschopp, Octavio Mateus and Roger Benson found that the Brontosaurus type species B. excelsus was infact a valid genus. Reaching 62 to 72 (19 -22m) in length and 30,000 to 38,000 (13,600 -17,250kgs) in weight, brontosaurus was large, long-necked, and quadrupedal with a long tail terminating in a whip-like structure. The cervical vertebrae are notably extremely robust and heavily-built, in contrast to its lightly built relatives Diplodocus and Barosaurus. The forelimbs were short and stout whereas the hindlimbs were elongated and thick, all signs that brontosaurs was remarkably strong and muscular. Brontosaurus would have likely lived in loose herds  acting as a nonselective browser feeding upon ferns, cycads, ginkgos, and horsetails, as it coexisted with with a menagerie of other morrison taxa such as the Diplodocus, Barosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Dryosaurus, Camptosaurus, Allosaurus, Torvosaurus, and Ceratosaurus.

Art Used in this video belongs to the following creators

Brontosaurus excelsus: Paleoguy https://www.deviantart.com/paleoguy/art/Brontosaurus-excelsus-526754288 https://www.deviantart.com/paleoguy/art/Brontosaurus-780543420 https://www.deviantart.com/paleoguy/art/Brontosaurus-Allosaurus-570575957

Brontosaurus is Back: tuomaskoivurinne https://www.deviantart.com/tuomaskoivurinne/art/Brontosaurus-is-back-526656913

I would’ve drawn fan art of the new Pokémon from Pokémon Scarlet Version and Violet Version. But the “announcement” that was uploaded today might be what I consider THE biggest waste of time on this planet. (Anime filler episodes are more entertaining than whatever THAT was.)

The world is full of fossilbilities—and many of them are cephalopods! 

Thanks to the fossil record, more than 17,000 species of extinct shelled cephalopods have been identified, like the ammonite in this photo. And while there’s still much to learn about these ancient denizens of the sea, we do know one thing for shore: Ammonites rock, littorally and figuratively!