Denver Fowler Ph.D

News article about the Badlands Dinosaur Museum expansion (see comments for link). Exciting times! I have lots of ideas for unique takes on a dinosaur museum that I really want to implement. Just need to find funding. Do you want your name on an exhibit hall?

Here's an annotated blueprint to give you an idea of the new areas. We don't have renders of the collections space that show much, but you can see the size in the blueprint.

I've posted this image before I think. This is the new area of the prep lab. This is the architects' CAD image, colored by me. I know some of the previous renders include AI elements: this is what the architects made. Believe me, I have argued against AI in exhibits, shop, and science press releases

We're planning unique new immersive exhibits, interactive & original storytelling. These images show walling off the balcony & taking away the sandpit, breaking up the exhibit into sections, with more space for wall-cabinetry & letting visitors walk around the mounted skeletons: much more dynamic.

The building is progressing nicely. When completed (summer 2027) we will be one of the biggest fossil repositories in the region; one of the best equipped labs (with large public viewing windows); & expanded unique exhibits. These images show some of the new & renovated exhibits

thedickinsonpress.comDickinson Museum Center undergoes $6 million expansion to support research, tourismThe 12,000-square-foot expansion will provide a new paleontology laboratory, fossil storage and exhibition space while improving the visitor experience at the Badlands Dinosaur Museum.

Here's the link to the article www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/local/d...

This is a sacrum (vertebrae that fuse over the hips), from a parrot-mimic raptor dinosaur (caenagnathid, oviraptorosaur). These feathered raptors have quite fragile bones and are consequently quite rare. #dinosaur #dinosaurs #FossilFriday #fossils #SciComm

REIDENTIFICATION: This is actually the notarium form the pterosaur skeleton coming out from this site!

This bone was only dug up a few weeks ago from our site: "Jack's Bonebed", which has many different species of dinosaurs preserved in an ancient riverbank deposit. We will have much more to tell you about our fieldwork at our 10th Annual Field Report in a few months' time.

In N. America, there were three contemporaneous caenagnathids in a given ecosystem, a small, med., & large species. This is probably from the small kind (elmisaurines) and is probably either the 1st or 2nd sacrum known of its species, of only ~7-10 caenagathid sacra ever found.

24 Aug

Water spout (tornado) hit camp while we were away. Some parts of camp untouched other parts absolutely battered. It came off the lake, knocked over a tree, mauled the north side of camp, smashed its way through a hedge, then blew the metal dumpster across the parking lot!

youtube.comThis Is What Happens in Museums After DarkYouTube video by Nerdy Narratives

5 Aug

Steve and I did a hot wings interview challenge run by the guys from our IT department. We answer various questions about dinosaurs, mainly off-the-beaten track stuff I think. If you're interested: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz_3...

13 July

Metatarsal & tail vert from our gryposaurus, tibia & lower jaw from a small lambeosaur, & couple of bones from something small and fragile. And there's something way more exciting at the other end of the quarry. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs #publiclands

13 July

From US public lands. A reminder that we do all of this digging for a little over $20,000 for our field season. The dinos currently selling for millions of dollars are in my opinion, very bad value for money. They're also not all that scientifically important and don't need to be saved for science.

1 July

RAPTOR TOOTH: very large tooth from a raptor #dinosaur, Paronychodon. It's been really rainy here for a few days, but we're back in the quarries today and finding new things! Dinosaur Park Fm, 76M yrs old. From US public lands administered by @BLM_MTDKs #FossilFriday

24 June

#Tyrannosaur tooth of the day. Found by Laura. Dinosaur Park Fm, Montana. #dinosaurs #fossilfriday

23 June

#Tyrannosaur hand claw? Found 2 hrs ago, live on @Paleontologizin. From US public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. #dinosaur park Fm, 76 million yrs old, Montana. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs. Badlands Dinosaur Museum, Dickinson ND. Loads of good fossils today!

23 June

Re-identified as ornithimimid manual d1 claw

21 June

Big metatarsal from a Gryposaurus skeleton that we're digging up at Jack's bone bed. Lots of cool new bones turning up every day. This is where the raptors and pterosaur skeletons are too. Us public lands BLM #fossilfriday #dinosaurs

6 June

Trierarchuncus in Lego form!

The Dinosaur Dave@thedinosaurdave.bsky.social

The answer for #Guess that #Lego #Fossil is #Trierarchuncus. In 1980, fossils were found that were informally named as the "Hell Creek alvarezsaur" by Hutchinson and Chiappe in 1998. 1/2 @paleontologizing.bsky.social @denverfowler.bsky.social

ncl.ac.ukWorld-leading climate expert recognised with Royal Society FellowshipProfessor Hayley Fowler has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of her pioneering work on climate change impacts.

27 May

My sister was just made a Fellow of the Royal Society! Super proud of her! www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articl...

NORTH DAKOTA'S BIGGEST HELL PIG: Our brand new exhibit, a Hell Pig from right here in Dickinson! The past few months we've been piecing this together, and today we got it finished! #fossil #fossils #paleontology #hellpig #entelodont #FossilFriday #NorthDakota #dickinson

Amanda 3D scanned our existing bones for the reconstruction, then painted the restored parts. I edited and 3D printed the missing parts. Steve and I designed and made the complicated mount.

kindly donated to Badlands Dinosaur Museum summer 2025 by the Leppart family. Brule Formation, 35 million years old, Oligocene, Dickinson North Dakota. Built in house. 3D scanned using our @Revopoint3d mini2 and printed on our @Phrozen3D mega8k

The omnivorous entelodonts are actually more closely related to modern hippos and whales. However they had long striding legs for living on land in the ancient US Great plains. This enormous specimen was found in the 1970s by Gary Leppart, near Dickinson, ND.

Excited! I just found out that the FOSSIL BAT jaw my dad found 20 yrs ago was described in 2024! We'd collected macromammals from Boldnor, Isle of Wight (Oligocene) for over a decade, but in 2000, I discovered a rich concentrate of microverts in situ at the top of the beach /1

tandfonline.comtandfonline.com

Reference 1: Hooker, JJ (2021) The Mammals of the Late Eocene – Early Oligocene Solent Group Part 1, INTRODUCTION AND EUARCHONTA: NYCTITHERIIDAE. Monogr. Palaeogr. Soc., 175 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

tandfonline.comThe Mammals of the Late Eocene - Early Oligocene Solent Group. Part 2, Euarchonta (Nyctitheriidae and Primates), Lipotyphla, Chiroptera, Pseudorhyncocyonidae, Pantolesta, ApatotheriaIn part 2, the description of Nyctitheriidae is completed with newly found postcranial bones. These include pisiform, magnum, unciform, entocuneiform and first metatarsal. The last two demonstrate ...

Reference 2: Hooker JJ (2023/2024) The Mammals of the Late Eocene - Early Oligocene Solent Group. Part 2, Euarchonta (Nyctitheriidae and Primates), Lipotyphla, Chiroptera, Pseudorhyncocyonidae, Pantolesta, Apatotheria. Mon Pal Soc 177 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

There were hundreds of teeth in our picked concentrates so I'm guessing that a few other teeth in these monographs were from our samples (none are specifically labeled). So cool. Bats & hedgehogs, rodents, all the little guys were in that concentrate! My dad would be so proud. /5

20 years later... Yesterday I was looking to see if Jerry had published anything new & found his 2021 and 2024 monographs... and there in the second part was the jaw! It looks like it is maybe only the second jaw known for the taxon (Quinetia misonnei), a long-eared bat! /4

In 2006 I collected another sample, dried it in my mum's oven, and got my dad to pick it. He had a great time, and when I was going through his discoveries I saw this spiky toothed jaw. I sent the photos to Jerry and he said it was a bat, and that he'd describe it. /3

The 1st sample was processed my fellow Bristol Uni Palaeobio students in 2000, & donated to the NHM, so Jerry Hooker could study them. Among that batch were some spiky-crowned forms which Jerry told me were insectivores, including the earliest hedgehogs - interesting! /2

11 Apr

Made this nice Compsognathus. Adapted it a bit for our exhibit. Thinking of writing about how Compsognathids are a fake clade created by ontogenetic clustering (Cau's work). Cool stuff. model by Nova. #fossilfriday #dinosaurs

novastudios.bePachycephalosaurus skullThe Compsognathus was a small, bird-like dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period, approximately 150 million years ago. With its sleek, agile frame and sharp teeth, it was a fearsome predat...

11 Apr

This is the model. Nova said they'll adapt it to be up to date scientifically (simple changes to h the feet and hands) I'm really pleased with how it turned out . www.novastudios.be/product/comp...

RECONSTRUCTING A HELL PIG: This really big entelodont snout is possibly the biggest found in North Dakota! To reconstruct it, Amanda laser scanned a smaller skull, then we scaled it up, and 3D printed the missing back half #fossilfriday #scicomm #museums #mammals #fossil

Collected many decades ago by Gary Leppart in the badlands of the Brule Formation near Dickinson, and kindly donated by his family in 2025. Next step is painting and mounting, but we should have it ready to go in the exhibit for the summer season.

Entelodonts were large omnivorous mammals that lived from 38-15 million years ago. Although they look a bit like a pig, they're more closely related to whales. We think this specimen belongs to Daeodon, although it could instead be a very large individual of Archaeotherium.

27 Mar

Ooh, diagnostic.

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This fossil may look small - that's because it's from a salamander, but what a salamander! It's actually very large and surprisingly complete for the late Cretaceous of North America. From US Public lands administered by the BLM. #FossilFriday #fossils #scicomm #salamander #microfossil

Cleaned by Deanna. Jack's Bonebed found by J Wilson. We're microprocessing the matrix from this site: all kinds of cool things are coming out. The richest and most exciting bonebed I have ever worked

The lines at the top of the jaw are tooth sockets for the tiny teeth! We think it looks close to Scapherpeton. Undoubtedly, this fine specimen will be useful to scientists who study these little creatures.

13 Mar

Today, Amanda is 3D scanning our Hell Pig (Entelondont) skull (usually in the lobby display). We're going to use the 3D scan to restore the enormous snout kindly donated 2025 by the Leppart family. Here UV light shows the skull is ~60% real. #FossilFriday #fossils #scicomm

13 Mar

Specimen in the UV photo is Archaeotherium sp., from the historical League collection. Originally found in South Dakota White River Group, 32 million years old. Plus a reminder photo of how MASSIVE the Leppart skull is (AND it's from North Dakota)

BABY DUCKBILL: Steve just finished cleaning this super cute jaw, with rows of tiny teeth! This matches another jaw, femur, and vertebrae that we collected from the same site. A baby dino skeleton is coming out! #fossilfriday #dinosaurs #dinosaur #scicomm #fossils #publiclands

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SITE: "Jack's Bonebed", Dinosaur Park Formation, ~76 Million Years old, Montana. Site found by Jack Wilson on US Public Lands administered by the US Bureau of Land Management MT/Dakotas. Permanently reposited at Badlands Dinosaur Museum, Dickinson, North Dakota.