Khôi Nguyễn 🇻🇳

I know everyone wants there to be a Giant Cretaceous Octopus but after looking at methods and tables, I really don't think this is a reality.

(1) Long 🧵 Time. Today we learned that paleontologist Jack Horner (the same guy who helped give us "Jurassic Park") is in the Epstein Files. As a paleontologist, I feel compelled to say something because this touches my field and I want to make my stance clear on this...

Here’s someone who needed funding but said no and is an absolute hero. bsky.app/profile/gutman…

Early career scientists, note all these names down.

Mongolian Titan 🦕

A group of Dorygnathus use a Seirocrinus raft as a hunting ground for fish, when a big Eurhinosaurus suddenly breaches the surface. This scene takes place in Germany during the Early Jurassic, around 180 million years ago. Digital painting by Peter Nickolaus, 2025.

oh my god

We have truly not yet figured out how to cope with a person or institution that is "aware" of climate change, "accepts the science", but then decides to continue actively worsening it anyway We don't even have a word or a phrase for this! theconversation.com/mark-carneys...

#ZAVACEPHALE IS FINALLY OUT! 🥳 Our first definitive Early Cretaceous pachycephalosaur! (~15 my older than the previous oldest pachycephalosaurs) And the first hand material for the clade! I can't tell y'all how much of a pleasure it was to review this paper! ☺️

Would you believe that we don't have an evolutionary tree for the biggest group of fossil jawless fish? UNTIL NOW THAT IS! Our new paper "A Phylogeny for Heterostraci" 10+ years in development, 100+ taxa, is finally out (thread)

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

WTF? I was quoted in this story but I have never spoken to the reporter nor would I have said those things. Is everything just generated by LLMs these days? cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans...

‘Can you tell us how he died?’: Mohamed Salah criticises Uefa over tribute to ‘Palestinian Pelé’

Pertinent editorial of conflicts between the fossil trade and conducting science stimulated by the important fossils of Shri rapax. Sadly, the distinctive skull was lost and is presumed to be in a private collection. www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.... @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social

Article 1, Section 9 & 10 have been removed from the official Govt website on the US Constitution. Among numerous points: •Section 9 forbids suspending The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus •Section 10 forbids ex post facto laws This better be a joke. Ignoring these is full blow dictatorship

A new day a new plesiosaur! The Posidonia shale is a gift that keeps on giving! Please welcome Plesionectes! An animal that looks more like a elasmosaur than an early Jurassic plesiosaur. Here is is shown with the relatives it overlapped with. Paper below

Digging their office redesign

I count 49 news headlines on the NYT mobile app home page right now, not including opinion, sports or cooking. None of them are about the massive protests yesterday.

inaturalist•org Update on June 11, 2025 9:15pm EDT “We are not giving Google special access to your iNat data, and we have no obligation to use Google's infrastructure…If the demo… is not helpful, compromises data quality, has outsized environmental impacts, or is … too flawed, we will not keep it.”

OK, this is wild. In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them. It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*. What the HELL? 1/

bringing back some #InvertebrateShitposting from the archives

I promised to tell the backstory of the world's biggest #trilobite, so here's our 1998 discovery & excavation of the holotype of Isotelus rex. Length as recovered ~68 cm; original length ~72 cm. U. Ordovician, nr Churchill, MB 🇨🇦 Now on display in the @manitobamuseum.bsky.social #TrilobiteTuesday

Well the award for most cowardly, boot-lickingest academic society has squarely gone to the American Society of Microbiology, who has taken down features of various non-white scientists. Absolutely pathetic behavior. Those articles are now coming up as “under review”. Truly sickening cowardice here.

UALVP 45014, a putative Ischnacanthus gracilis specimen from the MOTH locality in NWT, Canada. Several exquisitely-preserved MOTH specimens unexpectedly turned up during our big move last year and were promptly returned to the fossil fish collection (after I snapped a few shots). #FossilFriday

Brown CM, Bell PR, Owers H, Pickles BJ. A juvenile pterosaur vertebra with putative crocodilian bite from the Campanian of Alberta, Canada. Journal of Paleontology. Published online 2025:1-10. doi:10.1017/jpa.2024.12 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Taphonomic history of a dinosaur skeleton from the upper Cretaceous Frenchman Formation, Canada: insights from ancient rhizoetchings and invertebrate bioerosion trace fossils: Ichnos: Vol 0, No 0 - Get Access www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thrilled to see Albertan dinosaurs at the forefront of Walking with Dinosaurs's first images. We look forward to seeing sneak peeks from other folks' segments. 👀

Denmark refuses to extradite whaling activist Paul Watson to Japan, says lawyer

A good reminder for palaeontology that naming species based on specimens obtained in questionable manners and limited anatomical understanding tend to not end well.

Ischyromys from the White River Group is one of the oldest true rodents. The specimen from our teaching collection still has some nicely-preserved bilophodont molars. #FossilFriday

It's #TurtleTuesday again, and this week I'm gonna talk about one of the most bizarre of Cenozoic sea turtles: the Miocene genus #Syllomus! Or is it #Trachyaspis? Err... A thread.

There is still 30 minutes before the end of the day in my time zone, so have a replacement tooth from the holotype of Stegoceras validum for #FossilFriday.

How do we study jaw muscles in rare or extinct carnivorans? 🦁 Using CT scans to link masticatory muscle attachment areas to muscle force (PCSA), allows researchers to infer muscle data from osteological museum specimens & gives insights into masticatory evolution Ito et al: https://buff.ly/497QyTw

Finally set up a Blue Sky account in time for #FossilFriday! Hey all, I'm wrapping up my MSc on centrosaurines while searching for a PhD or museum position (visa life). In the meantime, enjoy this pretty Centrosaurus skull from our collections, the articulated neck is stuck right under the frill.