AshPoust

Unpacking the new selmaurin mosasaur @mcwanescience.bsky.social ! On loan from the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Ft. Hays, Kansas. This is oldest known selmasaurin by several million years.

🦖 Tooth pendant set in gold Etruscan · 4th century BCE Purchase by subscription, 1895 #Paleontology #Fossils #Evolution #Prehistoric #AncientLife Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/246036

Many museums are currently under threat of being closed. The Academy of Natural Sciences, the oldest natural history museum in the US, is no exception. Please take the time to read our statement on this matter.

This is good. Still, whether or not this stands, we need to all find a way to be proactive to let everyone know museums are precious to communities and natural history collections are not replaceable.

Very grateful for a full weekend of learning at Castle Rock State Park and Nachusa Grasslands. Friends of IL Nature Preserves brought 14 volunteers together to meet with ecologists and leaders who have spent decades stewarding these lands. Hopefully more pictures of plants to come!

Very sad to hear about the passing of ERIC BAUZA, the modern day voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and many other beloved characters. Here he is working his magic...

#museummonday a diorama set during the Miocene of western North America when multiple species of three-toed horse coexisted. Was part of a traveling exhibit on horses at the San Diego Natural History Museum. #sandiegonaturalhistorymuseum #horses #paleontology #fossil

215 million years of dinosaur evolution, made for an info screen in science center @heureka.fi ’s new exhibition, The Evolution of Dinosaurs. Left, Tawa hallae, a basal dinosaur from the Triassic Ghost Ranch location in the US. Right, the common crane, a beloved species of living dinosaur.

Been a couple days since I posted a dinosaur

Unlike other parts of the museum’s collection, the dioramas are near-immovable historic artifacts. Preserving them would require significant time, labor, and money, perhaps millions of dollars.

Earth provides a canvas on which life leaves its traces. Mike Benton introduces 'Ichnology' the study of trace fossils in this primer form our Life&Earth special issue 🐾 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Photos I took at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly, two weeks before it closed (🧵)

The @burkemuseum.bsky.social is offering funds to support graduate and postdoctoral research visits to the collections, including our University of Washington Herbarium! Please help us get the word out! More information is available here: www.burkemuseum.org/collections-...

I've been thinking a lot this year about human-driven extinctions and the modern biodiversity crisis (for public outreach & an upcoming museum exhibit), and I can't escape the overwhelming cosmic sadness I feel for those species no longer with us.

This is a very cool job - I wish our museum could create a position like this.

Everybody knows Charles R. Knight's paleoart, but fewer people know he got his start with depictions of modern animals — including the bison on this US $10 bill issued in 1901. Anyway, it's his birthday today, and I'm hosting a special stream this afternoon discussing his art, life, and legacy 🎂

The hobbit book is finally real and you can preorder it, which feels completely wild. Coming August 2027.

Wild! I love nature. I literally thought this was mythical. Some real Pecos Bill-type shit

We had a wonderful National Fossil Day at the Sternberg Museum on Sunday, welcoming almost 800 guests! There were collections tours, special exhibits, activities, and more! Importantly, we used our paleo collections to discuss the importance of collections and ethics of the public trust.

'Owl', Elisabeth Frink, 1967 #OwlishMonday

Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First https://theonion.com/protestors-criticized-for-looting-businesses-without-fo-1843735351/

My latest @newscientist.com cartoon

No ISBNs in Canada for AI writing. This is a fantastic policy, and every country should do the same. www.canada.ca/en/library-a...

Atop a methane seep from the Cretaceous seafloor, looking out at other methane seeps, made of clams and tube worms 75 million years ago at the bottom of the Western Interior Seaway

This jaw named in 1929 and has gone back and forth as synonymous with Platybelodon or not. Current consensus has it likely distinct. Check out the asymmetric wear on the lower incisors. This and other specimens to be conserved during the reconstruction of Elephant Hall. news.unl.edu/article/morr...

Welcome to #gomphtober2026 . Kicking things off is the lower jaw of Torynobelodon, a shovel-tusker found in Cherry County, Nebraska. On diaplay at the University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln. #fossilfriday #universityofnebraskastatemuseum #prehistoricnebraska #elephant

It didn't feel like an American museum with everything behind glass. It had a huge collection of mammoth and mastodon material. #FossilFriday

Fossil Friday! Here's a 500-million-year-old brachiopod from the Cambrian Marjum Formation of Utah, with its delicate chitinous setae preserved 😍. Specimen discovered by @cambriannelids.bsky.social during our latest field campaign in September. ⚒️

I'll lways repost a @paleoparadox.bsky.social video. Fun tour - the Alf is great.

Happy National Fossil Day! UCMP is celebrating the educational value of fossil collections! Here are some examples of Pleistocene megafauna from Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument, similar to those found in White Sands National Park. Bison humerus, Camel lower jaw, and Tetrameryx teeth.

Posting some beautiful beetles in support of ANSP’s museum, collections, and staff! Bc eastern PA deserves a world class natural history museum too. @savetheacademy.bsky.social

This is Dubreuillosaurus. Known from one fossil, the holotype. Described in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2002. Accessioned into France's national collection, the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, as MNHN 1998-13. Now up for auction. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Happy #NationalFossilDay 2026! Fossils connect us to the lands we live on and the ecosystems we're a part of. They show us that everything around us is part of a 3.5 billion years story that's still ongoing. I just think that's magical. ☮️❤️🦣🦕

Wildlife overpass in Colorado reduces collision rates by 91%, amazing! #NaturalHistory #SmartEngineering #WorkWithNature h/t @jeridansky@sfba.social coloradosun.com/2026/10/14/i...

It's #NationalFossilDay in the US! This year the site of interest is White Sands National Park in New Mexico, US, where human footprints document the earliest confirmed record of people in the Americas. Not coincidentally, a new paper on these fossils is just out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪

To celebrate #NationalFossilDay we're sharing the story of our paleontology intern Kyra Mauntel & a #research trip she recently participated in. Because the only thing better than #fossils, is sharing science with students and the public. @ashpoust.bsky.social news.unl.edu/article/nebr...

I recognize this replyguy is showing a particular kind of toxic benevolent prejudice. But it's also sexist against men? Sheridan le Fanu, Ted Chiang, Terry Pratchett, Kazuo Ishiguro? Sex is a poor heuristic.

There's a guy in my replies who says he doens't read women because they write well about emotional conflicts and unrequited love and that's not what he wants. He reads sci fi he says. Can you imagine reading sci-fi and not reading Octavia Butler? Or Ursula K Le Guin? Or NK Jemisin?

Along the foothills of the great mountain, a Tromerosaurus chases ghosts. #sciart #paleoart

❤️ The Cohoes mastodon at the NY State Museum.

#FossilFriday: The front and hind limbs of the early whale Ambulocetus. On display at the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution, Paris, France.

#FossilFriday student highlight! 😀 Easten Jenn is an intern in the UAMRC paleontology collection with me this semester. One project is cleaning and piecing together bones of Alabama's state fossil, the Eocene whale Basilosaurus cetoides! 🐋 Here are some of the ribs he worked on.

I cannot approve the message of this thread more whole-heartedly

And last (for now) but certainly not least, is this great piece on our study from science writer Asher Elbein for the esteemed yellow rectangle, National Geographic. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

Got some exciting new mosasaur research out today in Current Biology! How fast could these predators burst? www.cell.com/current-biol...

Hey, if you're looking to be part of something positive consider helping us get this upcoming book into as many hands as possible. Gorgeous paleoart and good science. It really is a lovely story. Help us support literacy and museums! 🦕🦣🧪📚 (Warning: contains overly-animated paleontologist cameo)

A lot of what’s happening doesn’t seem to be spreading anymore by mainstream media. A tree that stood for an estimated 150–250 years was destroyed today to make way for Trump’s border wall.

Accurate tooth placement!