Alberta Claw
@albertonykus
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Research Fellow studying extant and fossil birds. Alternatively, North American alvarezsaurid described in 2009. They/he.
Joined November 2011
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Two years in the making, my take at illustrating bird phylogeny:
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New dromaeosaurid Daurlong wangi, with preserved feathers and potentially intestinal remnants:
#dinosaurs
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A wise artist once said, "Any reason is a good reason to draw a [bunch of] birds." I've now drawn a representative of every living bird group ranked at the level of family by the IOC World Bird List (and a few that aren't)!
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Advertise your account with one image.
Advertise your account with one image.
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Seeing lots of love for Mononykus in
#PrehistoricPlanet
, including from producers
@Jon_Favreau
and
@MikeGunton
. Mononykus was part of a group called the alvarezsaurs, and as someone who has adopted one as my username for years, I was very impressed by its portrayal! Here's why...
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Silky anteaters are already delightful creatures, but William Beebe's description of one is just... perfect: "No circle plotted by mathematician could be rounder than this small being when engaged in passing the useless hours from dawn to dusk." (📷Mhairi McFarlane)
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The origin of the mammalian ear is one of the most remarkable and well-studied transitions in vertebrate evolution. This is my attempt to explain it:
#SciArtTweetStorm
#SciArt
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Ontogeny of bony head crests in modern birds, with implications for studying those of extinct dinosaurs:
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Phorusrhacid tracks indicate that they walked with the second claw on each foot slightly raised, similar to modern seriemas:
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Analysis of melanosomes in the feathers of Wulong suggests iridescent and gray coloration:
#dinosaurs
(📷
@BobNichollsArt
)
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Osteology of Fukuivenator: It is recovered as an early therizinosaur, and had a pygostyle (no evidence it supported large feathers though)!
#dinosaurs
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Just passed my PhD viva with no corrections requested. Guess I really am Dr. Claw now... Special thanks to my supervisors
@fieldpalaeo
,
@WillsProf
, &
@DrLMTurner
and my examiners
@Basidiobolus
and
@KsepkaLab
! Bonus of getting a PhD: not having to pick a gendered title to go by.
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#PrehistoricPlanet
Season 2 has been a treat. The series has featured quite a cast of characters, but some of the strangest dinosaurs in the finale may have been these “flamingo ducks”! They are members of an extinct group of waterbirds called the presbyornithids.
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Added Yuanchuavis and modified Eoconfuciusornis for the paleocolor chart.
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Late for a bandwagon I never planned on jumping on, but ideas sneak up on you sometimes. We've barely known Microraptor for two decades, yet our understanding of it has already been subject to much change and debate.
#DinosThroughTheDecades
@jimmadseni
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Range of motion in the shoulder of Mononykus: Arm was *not* permanently sprawled, but could still be placed in a position suited to digging. Note also new term skalodactyly for having an enlarged digging claw with other digits reduced.
#dinosaurs
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New Miocene flightless, filter-feeding marine swans with wings and tail possibly specialized for carrying young, Annakacygna hajimei and Annakacygna yoshiiensis, "the 'ultimate bird[s]' to ever exist" (yes, the paper really says that!):
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Cranial musculature and bite forces of oviraptorosaurs: As long suspected, their jaws were strong: results suggest they could bite as hard as or harder than other herbivorous theropods over 20x their size!
#dinosaurs
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It was a pleasure to work with
@Kurz_Gesagt
as a consultant on their new tree of life poster! Now available in their online shop:
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QRT With Your Most Popular Art
That's an easy one: "The Cartoon Guide to Vertebrate Evolution". There's lots I'd change if I were to make it now, but I see the appeal!
QRT With Your Most Popular Art
A couple of hours drawing, a few more painting, and it’s been a Daily Deviant, on 3 book covers, a magazine cover, & a gallery exhibit in Spain.
“Darwin Took Steps”, oil on canvas paper.
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Evolution of function in the claws of alvarezsaurs and therizinosaurs: Supports specialization towards digging in alvarezsaurids and suggests the claws of Therizinosaurus may have been for... display!
#dinosaurs
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Thanks for all the poster and print requests! I plan to make prints available soon in a few days; just need to make sure I catch any typos or errors first. Let me know if you find any!
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It’s
#SwiftAwarenessWeek
! I currently work on the evolution of swifts and their kin, so I should tweet something. Among modern birds, the swift lineage is an ancient one. Here is the 48-million-year old swift Scaniacypselus from Germany. (📷Robert Clark)
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If you watched today’s
#PrehistoricPlanet
, you probably saw the amazing Hesperornis! It’s the only aquatic creature in this episode that is a dinosaur. Dinosaurs may be better known for their diversity on land, but Hesperornis shows how they’ve adapted superbly to the ocean, too.
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It’s
#WorldParrotDay
! People have speculated about dinosaurs evolving into primate-like forms, but with their great capacity for learning, boundless curiosity, dexterous beak and feet, social behavior, and long childhoods, parrots are basically the real deal! (📷Duncan Rawlinson)
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Can we ever figure out the colors of long-extinct dinosaurs? All the books I read as a child said no. Some research now suggests yes... up to a point, at least!
#SciArtTweetStorm
#SciArt
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A new paper I'm on is out today! Major congrats to
@J_BenitoMoreno
, as this is mostly work from his PhD! We describe the postcranial skeleton of Ichthyornis based on new specimens, which we hope will inform future studies on modern bird origins.
#dinosaurs
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Review of the evolution of partially-buried eggs and contact incubation in theropods: Lots of other fascinating papers about nesting behavior (in various animals, not just dinosaurs) in the same issue!
#birds
#dinosaurs
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New alvarezsaur Jaculinykus yaruui: Had two-fingered hands and was preserved in a bird-like resting pose, very cool!
#dinosaurs
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My review of
#PrehistoricPlanet
Season 2 and the science behind its maniraptoran dinosaurs:
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Hummingbirds have a greater range of plumage colors than all other birds:
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Phylogeny is one of my favorite subjects. Well of course, I study it. But it also connects you to every species that has ever lived on Earth! I drew this vertebrate phylogeny in 2015 as an undergrad. It needs many updates...
#SciArtTweetStorm
#SciArt
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Tail feather forms and arrangements in Mesozoic pennaraptoran theropods, updated with the new dromaeosaurid Wulong.
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After two years of work, the first part of my PhD is now out in
@DiversityMdpi
! We combined evidence from fossils and genetics to study the evolution of hummingbirds, swifts, nightjars, and their kin. The paper is open access:
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For more about the biology of Mononykus and its close relatives, I wrote a popular article a couple years ago covering most of these topics in more detail:
#PrehistoricPlanet
(📷
@DinosaurDrawing
)
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Meet the
#Wonderchicken
! Led by
@daniel_j_field
, we named Asteriornis maastrichtensis, a close relative of the last common ancestor of ducks and chickens! 🐓🦆 So yeah, I've helped name a new
#dinosaur
in
@nature
now.
#birds
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In fact, there used to be marine
#sloths
, and first sloths in North America may have arrived by swimming
#InternationalSlothDay
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Not only is the early waterfowl Conflicto fantastically preserved for a bird fossil, it has important implications for when and how modern ducks evolved. I write more about it here: (📷Tambussi et al.)
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Although my main focus is on birds and bird-like dinosaurs, I also have a soft spot for rodents, of all things. 🐭🐹 Here's a rodent phylogenetic tree I drew to help myself (and others) understand rodent diversity:
#SciArtTweetStorm
#SciArt
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Alvarezsaurs were previously featured on Chased by Dinosaurs (2002) and Dinosaur Planet (2003), but neither truly highlighted how amazing they were. I couldn’t be more pleased with their depiction in
#PrehistoricPlanet
, and the fact so many viewers are now enamored by them!
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Oh right,
#SciArtTweetStorm
. Guess I'll start off with some feathered dinosaur tails!
#SciArt
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I suppose I couldn't get enough of
#RodentWeek
. The next thing I draw will be dinosaur-themed, I swear.
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The newest alvarezsaur discovery shown in
#PrehistoricPlanet
is their great hearing! A study last year found they had similar inner ear structure to barn owls, which hunt by ear. Some modern termite-eaters like the bat-eared fox listen for prey, too. (📷
@jonahchoiniere
et al.)
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I have a new paper out with
@daniel_j_field
, in which we define clade names for nightjars, potoos, and their kin following the rules of
@PhyloNames
. We also review the fossil record and diagnostic traits of these groups. Paper is available in open access!
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Enamel biogeochemistry of vertebrates from the Oldman Formation provides evidence for omnivory in troodontids:
#dinosaurs
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It's time for the yearly roundup of new research in maniraptoran paleontology, anatomy and evolution! What were everyone's favorite maniraptoran discoveries of 2021?
#dinosaurs
#birds
(📷
@jonahchoiniere
et al., Mayr & Zelenkov, Xu et al., Lane et al.)
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Could oviraptorosaurs incubate their eggs with their body heat (as seen on
#PrehistoricPlanet
), despite the partially buried, layered arrangement of their eggs? Experimental evidence suggests yes:
#dinosaurs
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@realscientists
I draw cartoons to help explain concepts in vertebrate paleontology. My biggest and most popular work so far is the "Cartoon Guide to Vertebrate Evolution". I made it in 2015 and it will already require many edits to bring it up to date...
#SciArt
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@skwinnicki
I don't have a photo of it, but this behavior inspired (in part) one of my cartoons!
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It was a pleasure to work with
@Kurz_Gesagt
again on this poster featuring some of the last non-avialan dinosaurs! I got to make a few suggestions on their latest video, too. 🙂
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The beak is a notable feature of modern
#birds
, but their close fossil relatives had only a very small beak at the jaw tips. A recent study looks at the structure of this tiny proto-beak in detail, and I write about it here:
#dinosaurs
(📷Bailleul et al.)
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New Pliocene penguin Eudyptula wilsonae, a close relative to the little penguins (the smallest extant penguins):
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Redescription of Dapingfangornis: Great to see, as this specimen really needed a detailed restudy!
#dinosaurs
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New Miocene diurnal owl Miosurnia diurna, probably a close relative of the extant northern hawk-owl and pygmy owls:
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Alvarezsaurs were a group of small theropod dinosaurs, mostly pigeon- to turkey-sized. They were pretty closely related to birds (but not as close as, say, Velociraptor) and one species has been preserved with remains of a feathery coat.
#PrehistoricPlanet
(📷
@skeletaldrawing
)
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"[...] Cyclopes of old as gigantic troglodytes, cannibals with a single eye, living a pastoral life [...], ignorant of law and order, and fearing neither gods nor men. With our modern little spherical Cyclopes we can find no parallel, except as to the final phrase." (📷Jota)
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What were the strange arms of alvarezsaurids used for? My unsolicited opinion is that mainstream hypotheses explain them pretty well. Thanks
@DinosaurDrawing
(who did the attached image) and
@skeletaldrawing
for letting me use artwork for this!
#dinosaurs
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PSA: The hindlimb feathers of Archaeopteryx did not stop abruptly at its ankle (unlike many modern birds). Well-preserved specimens show small feathers on their feet. (📷Foth et al.)
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Every (extinct) dinosaur that was named in 2020... in phylogenetic context:
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In
#PrehistoricPlanet
, Mononykus digs up termites from dead wood, not a termite mound. Traces of wood-nesting termites are common in some Cretaceous deposits, whereas it is disputed whether mound-building termites were present in the Mesozoic at all. (📷Joe Kunkel)
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Termite-eaters also often have a long tongue. A tongue skeleton (“hyo” in picture) is preserved in one alvarezsaur specimen and reported to be “well-developed”. A toothless tip of the lower jaw may have allowed a long tongue to protrude.
#PrehistoricPlanet
(📷
@ChiappeLuis
et al.)
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New masillaraptorid Danielsraptor phorusrhacoides provides evidence of stem-falcon affinities:
#birds
#dinosaurs
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Tickled to find at least two sightings of my Mesozoic Twitter birds (sensu lato) at
#2020SVP
so far (in
@Hayleyozoic
and
@TomHoltzPaleo
's talks), let me know if you spot any others!
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