PYF Dinosaur Media and Paleoart

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LITERALLY A BIRD: Sep 27, 2008; I knew you were trouble
when you flew in

Oh wow, Dinotopia lol. I read my childhood library's collection to pieces.

edit for content:
Meet Heracles inexpectatus, the biggest parrot that ever lived. Heracles was three feet tall, weighed fifteen pounds, and was native to New Zealand. Scientists have nicknamed him Squawkzilla.

No, I'm not kidding.

The bones that turned out to be giant parrot leg bones had been sitting in a paleontology closet for 11 years before a student thought to pull them out and take another look at them. Everybody had to that point thought they were the bones of (yet another, I guess?) enormous man-eating eagle and hadn't really cared all that much.

quote:

The large bones, believed to be the bones of an ancient eagle, flew under the radar for a decade. It was during a research project in the lab of Flinders University paleontologist Trevor Worthy that graduate student Ellen Mather rediscovered the bones.

After that, a team of researchers began reanalyzing the findings earlier this year, according to the BBC.

"It was completely unexpected and quite novel," Worthy, the study's lead author, told National Geographic. "Once I had convinced myself it was a parrot, then I obviously had to convince the world."

https://www.newsweek.com/largest-parrot-ever-massive-beak-fossils-1452749
https://www.sciencealert.com/check-out-this-hercules-parrot-from-prehistoric-new-zealand
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49262365

quote:

The parrot's beak would have been so big, Mike Archer of the University of NSW Palaeontology said, it "could crack wide open anything it fancied".

The professor told AFP news agency the parrot "may well have dined on more than conventional parrot foods, perhaps even other parrots".

However, because the parrot had no predators, it is unlikely that it was aggressive, Prof Worthy told the BBC.

"It probably sat on the ground, walked around and ate seeds and nuts, mostly," he said.

, giant parrot, :same:

.

The study was published just two years ago and Heracles is the first extinct giant parrot ever discovered (or at least identified). Pretty cool. Not biased.

LITERALLY A BIRD has a new favorite as of 03:33 on Dec 22, 2021

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LITERALLY A BIRD: Sep 27, 2008; I knew you were trouble
when you flew in

Winklebottom posted:

I have a small fossil collection and I keep hunting for some decent models to complement it (otherwise it's a lot of brown rocks to the casual observer).

PNSO makes some good ones. They can suffer a bit from the "shrink-wrapped" look but are otherwise quite striking.

PNSO Spinosaurus with a collection of teeth from the Kem Kem fossil beds in Morocco (third from the left is a spino tooth)

PNSO Mosasaurus with various Moroccan mosasaur teeth (and a single plesiosaur tooth).

Ammonite models are surprisingly scarce, probably because we're still quite uncertain how their soft parts looked. I like this one from Safari.

I made this mammoth out of clay just for fun (mammoth molar top left and tusk piece to the right, with wooly rhino molars top right)

Hunting for a good Megalodon, Edmontosaurus, wooly rhino, cave bear and Irish elk since I have some bits and pieces of those as well.

Also Dinotopia is incredible and so is this

This is absolutely :krad:

# ¿ Dec 22, 2021 20:03

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