Liz Furman

Three years ago, my dad said that all fish are the same shape. Out of spite, I decided to draw all 478 families of bony fish listed in Nelson 2016. There's still some stuff I need to edit and some fish I want to redraw but, after 985 days, I finished my big dumb fish project last night.

Bonding with my son by sitting on the floor and doing nothing

My first scientific illustration featured in a publication! Congrats to Jack on the new paper, it was a pleasure working with you to reconstruct this impressive fish.

Hot off the presses! I reviewed the history of early ray-finned fishes, with a focus on their morphology, fossil record, and taxonomy. My principal goal is a guide for other workers to make the rich record of early actinopterygian evolution more broadly available. dx.doi.org/10.1002/jmor...

Learning R together

Recently I found this dino postcard book from 1987 at a second hand book store! I absolutely love retro paleoart, and often take inspiration from compositions and stylistic choices of the time. Here's a couple of my favorites (artists in alr text):

Highly recommend this course for artists of any experience level!

A teeny baby I found at this year's Dino Shindig! Likely a scaphitid ammonite. Finding large vertebrate bones is cool and all, but stumbling on something this small and so well preserved is just as miraculous to me. Very glad I could go volunteer at the Shindig again, hope to me back next year!

Official dino business

Back from the field on this #FossilFriday to see the humbling news that a gorgeous little Carboniferous fish bears a new name: Unionichthys friedmani. Thanks to Struan Henderson and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social for this honor. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Anyway meet my new son Smolder

When you become a paleontologist chances are you'll be assigned either a cat or a reptile (foreshadowing)

Great summary by @friedmanlab.bsky.social of why this new study is so valuable!

Big congrats to @sanaaelsayed.bsky.social on this incredible work! This study helps fill in a critical gap in fish evolution, and shows how quickly modern fish lineages diversified in the wake of the K-Pg extinction. Looking forward to reading through this! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

As someone with a bachelor's in earth science, I can confidently say this is one of the sexiest rocks I've ever seen

Weekend trip down to NJ to check out the Edelman Fossil Museum, and wow I am blown away by the quality of their models! Here's some quick sketches I did of the Hadrosaurus and Priconodon. Absolutely stop by if you're in the area. #dinosaurs #paleontology #paleoart

Arctodus simus, the Giant Short-faced Bear, dozes off in the southern Black Hills of late Pleistocene South Dakota. Illustration from 2024. Sorry for not posting for several months, I forgor #paleoart #bear #arctodus

Update: the Stoplight Loosejaw model is now functional! Later on I'll paint it and give it teeth and gills, but for now I'm setting it aside to focus on other projects. This fish is quite small, with known specimens usually not growing over a foot long, so my model is about 3-4x life size.

Please enjoy some forward-facing fish from the Biomes Marine Biology Center in RI. Species names in alt text. #fish #aquarium

Picked up these two from Barnes & Noble today! I've been meaning to read The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by @restingdinoface.bsky.social for a while now, so far it's captivating. I'm afraid I can't tag Darwin but rly looking forward to finally reading Origin too.

Working on a prototype for a Stoplight Loosejaw kinetic model! I wanted to test all the pivot points with paper before doing it with cardboard. This deep sea fish has one of the most unique and bizarre jaw arrangements, utilizing both the "true" jaw and the hyoid in its gape.

Tried drawing a generic fish skull from memory. Who needs a suspensorium anyway.

Out now in Contributions from me and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social, a deep dive into an early member of the sturgeon and paddlefish lineage. Bear with me, but there’s a long backstory highlighting uncertainty about the anatomy of living species and how well-studied fossils can still yield new insights.

Beautiful sunrise Mola mola often lay on their side at the water surface to sun themselves and warm up their bodies, earning them the common name "sunfish". I was thinking about them a lot at 2 am the other night which spawned whatever this is. #molamola #sunfish #fish

Look at my fesh #Art #SciArt

Another brilliant example that nature has never been limited by the strict human definitions of "male and female". Fish especially show a mind-blowing variety of reproductive strategies!

feesh

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

I'm making a fish-core playlist! What songs should I add? -looking for fish related lyrics or just vibes -no soundtracks please, unless you feel strongly about one particular song (I know subnautica exists, love it, not what I'm looking for here)

Who up deciphering they taphonomic processes

I've seen fossils in some remarkable places, but this takes the prize: the benthic foram Nummulites in the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. These massive blocks were quarried from the Eocene Mokkatam Formation when a relictual population of woolly mammoths still lived on Wrangel Island.

Absolutely thrilled to have seen the new Chicago Archaeopteryx exhibit. This specimen never ceases to amaze me. Featuring my fanart of said dead bird. #chicagoarchaeopteryx #fieldmuseum

SUE looking delightfully green #fieldmuseum #trex

This is one of the most absurd things I've ever seen in a crystal shop. Top tier impulse purchase.

Tomorrow :D

Reptiles doing the reptile things (Burpee museum)

Got to pet a sturgeon at the Burpee museum, my life has peaked

Hi Jane

Mahjong in Chicago with friends and my Therizinosaurus son named Chad Kroger

Flags with extinct animals on them: - California (California grizzly bear) - Chernyshevsky District, Russia (Kulindadromeus) - Doronogovi, Mongolia (sauropod) - Srednekolymsk, Russia woolly (mammoth)

Listening to Limp Bizkit while drawing fish skeletals. Not sure if this is making me feel more or less sane tbh

Gaze upon this magnificent artifact I found at the local thrift store the other day

I also checked out the new Impact exhibit at the AMNH yesterday. I didn't have too much time for an in depth look, but first impressions were good! Mixed reviews on the models and illustrations. Looking forward to more thoroughly reading through everything next time I'm there.

Practicing skeletal sketches with Stegosaurus at the AMNH yesterday!

We are NOMINATED‼️ This gonna be the LAST CHANCE for anime adaptation, and I believe we have the power to make it happen! Please VOTE for Dinosaur Sanctuary from the link below▼ anime-japan.jp/activities/a... I'll show you how to vote in the replay below.

I painted a Jurassic classic, #Stegosaurus. 💚

Result from the Mammoth Site #paleostream! This has been our first mammoth steppe formation stream, dwelling into some the classic giants of the Pleistocene. This site in South Dakota offered a unique opportunity is that is has so much stuff preserved in situ that we can...