Jack o' lantern carved onto two pumpkins of the famous 'dueling dinos' fossil featuring Triceratops and Nanotyrannus
Share to scare a Nanotyrannus denier
Happy Halloweeeeen! 🎃
A portrait of Albertosaurus as seen on Walking with Dinosaurs 2025.
The final portrait I could find from my time on WWD - Rose the Albertosaurus. All of these were done in early 2024, so about a year and a half ago now!
#sciart #paleoart
#WWD2025
How Extreme Weather Can Reveal (And Destroy) Dinosaur Fossils | #WalkingWithDinosaurs Unearthed
With Mark Powers, Henry Sharpe and the whole team including Christiana Garros ( @chrissygarros.bsky.social)
By PBS Terra
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtpJ...
#WWD2025
Student-led crew brings Albertosaurus named Rose to the screen #WalkingWithDinosaurs
With Mark Powers, Annie McIntosh, Colton Coppock, Henry Sharpe, Christiana Garros (@chrissygarros.bsky.social) and Jordan Stock mentioned
www.ualberta.ca/en/folio/202...
#livefromthefield
Work resumes on "Scorpio" the Lambeosaurus lambei whose quarry was reopened last year. While last year we collected the skull, this year the body blocks are revealing vast swaths of skin underneath! Exciting!
Dinosaur park my beloved. Excited to be back there in 2 weeks 🥰
For such a rich formation, big beautiful mural-style pieces like this one are not as common as I would like!
For those itching to know more about what you might expect to see each episode!
www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...
☺️♥️
Yep! You are! You're only the second person I've seen who noticed it!
Overall, I am very happy with this project. I would like to sincerely thank my coauthors and many mentors and friends I've made along the way. I would also like to thank the guest editors of the special issue Mateusz Wosik and @funstonpaleo.bsky.social . I am excited to see the full thing!
It is worth noting however, that histological markers can vary a lot across the skeleton of an individual, so approach direct comparisons with other individuals and elements with caution. Always consider histological studies in the context of which bones were sampled and where
What this could mean we have no idea. Sexual dimorphism with different ages of reaching sexual maturity? Different taxa entirely with different growth trajectories? Something else? A Regardless, we found it extremely interesting and definitely something worth exploring
Stranger however, is that there appear to be two growth trajectories present even among the healthy individuals. One with an earlier growth spurt and plateau (blue, red, orange?), and another with a later one (teal, black, green)
We were curious how, (if at all), these pathologies impacted growth in these animals, so we measured area within cyclical growth marks. While it appears TMP1992.036.0720 (red) may have experienced reduced growth, the other two (black and teal) seem relatively unaffected
Unlike the other two specimens, the trauma in this one appeared to have happened earlier in life and was more widely impacting. Severe resorption at the distal end suggests chronic inflammation at the distal joint that may have resulted in lameness and subsequent injuries
The third specimen however, was a little bit more complicated. TMP1992.036.0720 consisted of a severely deformed MTIV (pictured here) and a slightly deformed MTII
Speaking of stress, we selected three pathologic specimens we deemed good candidates for histology. Two of these appear to have relatively straightforward conditions. A superficial cortical fracture, and an enthesophyte turned chip fracture in another.
Figure 1 from the paper. Featuring an illustration of a troodontid foot with lines indicating where the sections were taken. On the right, there are illustrations of the histologic thin sections taken across the foot showing where different bone types deposit
By taking full cross-sections and sampling across the entire metatarsus, we were able to map where along the metatarsus different bone types occur, which parts grow and finish growing first, and where the stresses concentrate (as shown by Haversian bone)
A box containing 11 troodontid metatarsals after they have been sectioned. Specimens are in several pieces with some being embedded in resin
Fortunately, metatarsals are among the most commonly found and recognized isolated troodontid elements from the Dinosaur Park Formation, and this combined with the generosity of the lovely folks at the Royal Tyrrell, allowed us to section 11 specimens!
A block of resin containing the distal portion of a troodontid left metatarsal II, a slide with a thin section of the same metatarsal II, and another block of resin containing a small piece of the shaft that was removed when the section was made.
Three troodontid right metatarsal IVs
Four histology thin section slides of the midshaft region of troodontid right metatarsal IVs
So we set forth to sample as many metatarsals as we could in hopes of not only exploring the growth of troodontids from the DPF (which had never been done prior) but also to diagnose pathologies we found and see how they related to the animal's life stage or impacted growth.
A transverse histologic section of the shaft of a troodontid left metatarsal II
My lovely colleagues Mark Powers and @a-dyer-wolf.bsky.social introduced me to the world of histology, and how it can be used not just to help diagnose pathologies like the one above, but also explore the life history of these animals (the first section we made shown here)
Me standing next to my poster that I presented at the 2022 SVP annual meeting in Toronto
5 pie charts showing pathology prevalence from a survey of theropod metatarsals. Each chart is a taxon (Caenagnathidae, Dromaeosauridae, Ornithomimidae, Troodontidae, and Tyrannosauridae). Tyrannosaurs had 50% pathologic specimens, troodontids had about 1/3
At the 2022 SVP meeting, I presented the preliminary findings of my metatarsal pathology survey, among which was an unusually high occurrence of pathologies in troodontids. This paired with their weird anatomy, was hard to ignore, so I decided this taxon warranted a closer look
Illustrations of the foot of an ornithomimid, tyrannosaur, and troodontid. The metatarsals are highlighted. Yellow for MTIV, green for MTIII, and teal for MTII. Icons from phylopic of the taxa are present above the foot illustrations
In particular, I became fascinated with the troodontids and their unusual modified arctometarsus (pictured on the right), which features an enlarged MTIV and reduced, laterally compressed MTII for bearing the raptorial digit.
Me sitting at a table at the Royal Tyrrell Museum collections with my laptop and several theropod metatarsal specimens on the table
In 2019, I begun my histology and pathology journey at the Royal Tyrrell Museum surveying theropod metatarsals for signs of injury and disease. I was interested in theropod feet because of their similarity to those of birds, and metatarsals because of their varied morphologies
Paper here, thread following
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
A troodontid with a pathologic metatarsal Iifts its foot towards its face to investigate. The pathologic bone is highlighted and features a red line to indicate where a thin section was taken. The thin section appears as aarge imags behind the troodontid, the troodontid's tail passing through the central medullary cavity.
Published yesterday in @journalofanatomy.bsky.social with open access, we demonstrate how tiny slices of isolated bones (in this case, troodontid metatarsals) can provide a wealth of information on the growth, lifestyle, and injuries of these animals. (🧵) (Troodontid art by Henry Sharpe )
It was an absolute dream come true being involved in this project alongside an awesome crew and seeing our Albertosaurus specimen brought to life! I hope you all love it!
youtu.be/VAVp_1-Aqc8?...
😁
Excited for you all to meet our lovely Albertosaurus friend! ❤️
Colour pencil portrait of a Velociraptor looking to the left with the same colour and pattern as a greater roadrunner on a white background
Velociraptor mongoliensis - colour pencils and gel pen on paper
Pattern and colours based on the greater roadrunner (my favorite paleoart trope)
