#WITH A 10 FOOT SKELETON

[eonars]

Last summer I was on a very expedited acid come up at a music festival and my entirely unaware mother thousands of miles away was at costco and texted me incredulous at how they already had halloween stuff out for sale in the summer but all I saw was a message preview of a giant 10 foot tall skeleton with glowing eyes and "can u believe it??"

#at this very specific particular moment no i cannot!! #i told her about it after and she was like ohh you know you WERE really quiet that day i wondered why you didnt text back #girl i was FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE ON THE ASTRAL PLANE #WITH A 10 FOOT SKELETON

[thaliasthunder]

yeah sex is cool but have you ever thought about how we're gonna see nico- nico di angelo. the man himself. the son of hades. the ghost king and the heir of the underworld, make big power moves on screen like raising an army of skeletons from the earth, close ups to him twisting his skull ring, angrily yelling at percy, showing up in a carriot w hades and persephone and more

#god im about to puke #we're gonna see nico raising fucking skeletons on screen i'll cry #yelling at percy IS one of his power moves btw #i actually hope the directors/producers have some creative freedom in how they gonna portray nico's powers #i want COOL SHOTS of him #for example: (close up to his face deadly serious brow furrowed and chin slightly low so gaze's looking up) 'i am the ghost king' #or smthing like that *close up to his foot dramatically stomping on the floor* and then the earth shooks and 10 skeletons appear around him #everyone is shockkk #and i'll be like GO BABY #nico di angelo #percy jackson #pjo #hoo #pjo/hoo #rick riordan #disney plus #walker scobell #solangelo

[inkclover]

Day 12: Acrylics 🎨

#inktobertale2022 #inktobertale #undertale #utmv #undertaleau #fanart #sans the skeleton #inksans #doodles #ink sans #ink!sans #inktale #inky doods #inky art #my art #am kinda happy with how the colors turn out #sometimes gradient maps be miracle workers man #not captured here is Ink flinging his arms around #paint hitting anyone within a 10 foot radius with him smh

[turtletotem]

Everyone makes a very big deal out of Jod having a crown of baby finger bones, and as an aesthetic choice it certainly says… something. But there’s no reason to assume the bones came from actual babies. Harrow can take a chip of bone the size of a BB and accordion-fold a 10-foot skeleton out of it. I’m pretty sure God himself could make a couple dozen baby fingers out of any random scapula from the hundreds of donated adult skeletons sitting around the Mithraeum.

#the locked tomb #tlt #jod #emperor john gaius #harrow the ninth

[merchant-wizard-and-jerry]

(This is going to be linked as the card drawing post from now on)

(List of effects)

TP who TC Gains partial divinity

TP who TC can ask one question to the universe and gets a true answer

TP who TC is immune to all undead for 24 hours

TP who TC can ask one request of the Flock of seagulls

TP who TC gains absolute mastery of there most proficient skill

TP who TC gets there perfect ideal of a follower summoned, the follower is made of stained glass

All people who wants to attack TP who TC becomes completely peaceful

TP who TC has the vision permanently enhanced by 4x

TP who TC brain grows 10x as fast and smart for 1 hour

the next good effect drawn from TD is doubled

TP who TC has everything blue that there touching enchanted randomly.

TP who TC gains a skeleton key

TP who TC arms turned to metal (I forgot to say, for 1 hour)

TP who TC is recognised as a minor noble in the nearest nobility system

all eyes in a 1 mile radius of TD glows gold for a year

TP who LC gets magic equal TP who C's magic capabilities for 1 spell

TP who TC can see how corrupt anyone is

TP who NC has there card effect double

TP who TC can identify if it’s safe to drink any water they see

TP who TC gets 10 currency

TP who HC has control over a small company of knights

TP who TC gains scales for 1 hour

TP who TC begins to be observed by a god

TP who TC will have all cuts immediately scab over for the next month

(Automatic custom card)

TP who TC is turned into an animal chosen by TP who NC for 4 hours. TP who TC keeps their mind, unless this card is drawn again in the same time and the same animal is chosen. If it is picked again but with a different animal, TP who TC will hybridize as both animals.

TP who TC plays a game of 20 question, if you win, you get a clue finding spy glass. If you lose you lose an eye.

TP who TC next spell will go wild

all water in a 30 foot radius of TD turns into wine

TP who LC has its effect happen to TP who TC

TP who NC has TP who LC effect added to theres

TP who NC will gain the ability to know where you are at all time

TP who TC has all there hair light on fire, they are not armed nor is there hair

TP who TC experiences 1 years worth of advanced mutation that would be handy in this situation

all grass in a 3 yard radius of TD turns into a fungus based alternative

TP who TC will lose all their hair and have it regrow in a 24 hour period

TP who TC is swarmed by pollen

TD loses its magical effect for 10 minutes

TP who TC gets struck by lightning

TP who TC if they have a scarred over stump it grows cactus spines making it impossible to restore, if not you are immune to cactuses.

TP who TC loses their sense of smell for 10 min

in a 1 yard radius around TP who TC rain will clouds form and rain for 1 week

TP who TC becomes a telepathic potted plant for 1 hour. they're completely inanimate but still conscious anyone who touches them is given a random effect from these options #1. they too become a telepathic potted plant but without the secondary effect #2. they get healed a whole bunch (regenerating limbs n such. but no resurrection) #3. their clothes are replaced with grass and leaf equivalents that are not very covering.

TP who TC becomes a potted telepathic plant for a year

TP who LC attacks you

TP who TC loses all of wealth

TP who TC has there most prized possession trapped in this card for 1 year or until they tell someone a deep secret

all events that took place in the last hour reverts in a 20 yard radius of TD

TP who TC Dies

TP who NC will gain control of your body for 1 minute

(List of terms)

The person (TP)

The deck (TD)

Drew this card (TC)

Drew last card (LC)

Draws next card (NC)

Holds this card (HC)

(Rules)

You can ask pay for a card with 10 currency

When you pay you can specify our of character whether you want a random card or if you want me to make a new one for you

If I make a new one I’ll add it to the list

Also if the card calls for good or bad it is referring to thirds, the first 1/3 is good, the last 1/3 is bad and the middle in neutral, round down and give the neutral the extra cards.

If you pick random, roll for me out of the numbers and tell me what you get

#wizard island island #wizard tumblr #wizard posting #wizard #wizardposting #wizard blogging #wizard shit #magic shop #thank you

[eemolu]

we don’t talk enough about how gideon stops to take the time to describe harrows smile as “long and sweet and beautiful” while being pursued by a 10 foot tall skeleton killing machine

#tlt #gtn #griddlehark #gideon the ninth #the locked tomb #emily reread! #mine

[blueiskewl]

A 70 Million-Year-Old Titanosaur Dinosaur Skeleton Found in France

A chance discovery made in southern France has revealed a rare specimen — an almost complete dinosaur skeleton found connected from its hind skull to its tail.

The massive fossil came to light in May 2022, after now 25-year-old amateur paleontologist Damien Boschetto and his dog stumbled across something unusual while walking in a forest in Montouliers, France. Boschetto had noticed a cliff edge that had recently collapsed and decided to take a closer look, when he spotted an exposed bone sticking out of the ground, local media outlet France Bleu first reported on February 13.

The Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association at the Cruzy Museum, in collaboration with the French National Center for Scientific Research, identified the nearly 10-meter-long (32.8-foot-long) fossil as a Titanosaur skeleton upon excavation. Boschetto, who has been a member of the association for eight years, said that while unearthing dinosaur remains is “always exciting and interesting for scientific research and the understanding of the ecosystems of that time,” finding the bones in their almost original anatomical position is what makes this find extraordinary.

“From a museography point of view, it will make it possible to present to the general public animals almost complete in anatomical positions, which is something great,” Boschetto added via email.

A group of history and archaeology enthusiasts created the Archaeological and Paleontological Cultural Association in 1975 to safeguard the heritage around the village of Cruzy, with several members becoming enlightened amateurs in paleontology due to the areas’ wealth of dinosaur fossils, said Jean-Marc Veyssières, a member of the group and one of the fossil preparers for this discovery. Today, the association is made up of inhabitants of the region, including a few scientists as well as students.

“The most exciting thing was to realize that we had at least one anatomically connected animal and that it was a titanosaur, a long-necked dinosaur,” said Veyssières in an email. “(Boschetto) is an enlightened enthusiast and curious about nature, he spends a lot of time surveying the region in search of new areas. … He became an expert on the Late Cretaceous fauna of our region.”

The association has been excavating the site, which Boschetto referred to as a bone bed, a term used by paleontologists to describe a dense area of animal bones and other fossilized remains, for the past two years. And the newly announced find was not Boschetto’s first.

The recently revealed 70% complete Titanosaur skeleton was retrieved during the excavation along with several fossils of various dinosaurs and other vertebrates, including some in anatomical connection and near complete. Other remains identified included those of a Rhabdodon — a herbivore, or plant-eater, like the Titanosaur — and fragments from skeletons of carnivores such as Theropods and crocodiles, according to Boschetto.

The Titanosaur skeleton currently resides in the Cruzy Museum’s laboratory, where it will be further studied, Veyssières said.

Titanosaur found intact

Researchers estimated the age of the newly discovered fossil to be around 70 to 72 million years old, but Titanosaurs roamed around on four legs from the Late Jurassic Epoch to the end of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 163.5 million to 66 million years ago. Titanosaurs belong to a larger group of dinosaurs known as sauropods, a family of long-necked herbivores that were some of the largest dinosaurs of their time, according to Britannica.

Remains of Titanosaur fossils are widely unearthed in Europe, but few are discovered in anatomical connection, Boschetto said. Finding a skeleton in this connected state suggests that the body was buried before it had entirely decomposed, leaving “some tissues connecting the bones to one another,” said Matthew Carrano, research geologist and curator of Dinosauria at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History.

The completeness of the specimen will “make it easier to determine whether it’s a new species or a new specimen of a species that’s already known,” Carrano said in an email. “It will take time to learn all the details about this new specimen, but I’m sure it will provide important new information about this group of dinosaurs.”

The region in which Boschetto discovered the specimen is known to be rich in fossils of dinosaurs and other species living at the same time and is “building one of the largest collections of dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous in France,” he said. The association did not publicize the discovery until excavation was complete to protect the archaeological site, he added.

The association plans to continue research on the fossils and to further search the area, and the group’s members hope to obtain the funds to “create a large-scale museum that can accommodate and present these collections,” Boschetto said.

By Taylor Nicioli.

#A 70 Million-Year-Old Titanosaur Dinosaur Skeleton Found in France #Montouliers France #paleontologist #dinosaurs #fossils #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history

[epilary]

your instagram when spending christmas with long distance bf spencer reid  masterlist | requests open

Liked by Rossi and 45 others

y/n  taking a walk together <3

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→ Dr.Spencer.Reid I wish I could be there in person

     → y/n this christmas

     → Dr.Spencer.Reid This Christmas

→ prentiss I hate how cute you guys are, this feels so rude

     → y/n if i weren't with him i'd marry you in a heartbeat 

     → prentiss That makes me feel better, thank you

     → Dr.Spencer.Reid What is happening?

Liked by jareau.j and 61 others

y/n  derek sending me pictures of spencer >>>

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→ derekmorgan I’ll keep them coming, trust me

     → y/n hallelujah this day just keeps getting better

Liked by y/n and 19 others

Dr.Spencer.Reid  10 more days til christmas! (12/15/23)

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→ y/n six more days til i see you!! so i think one trumps the other…

     → Dr.Spencer.Reid You’re just excited to wrap presents with me

     → y/n what ever are you talking about 

→ Rossi Watch out for the gift I’m sending the two of you

     → y/n if you get us another stupidly expensive gift i may cry (however i still accept it)

Liked by Dr.Spencer.Reid and 63 others

y/n  someone is on their way… @Dr.Spencer.Reid (derek photo creds)

View all comments

→ Dr.Spencer.Reid Just one more plane and I’m down there

     → y/n call me before you get on your next flight hun

→ sweetums I can’t wait to see all of the pictures of you guys!!

     → sweetums it’s insane just how amazing the two of you are together

     → y/n i love you so much omg <3

Liked by jareau.j and 20 others

Dr.Spencer.Reid  First day out! (12/21/23)

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→ y/n the reindeers were so sweet!! i can’t wait to light the tree

     → sweetums i can’t wait to FaceTime the two of you and see how insane you’re making your apartment look

     → y/n i may have talked spencer into two trees… so we’ll see what happens 🤭

Liked by prentiss and 67 others

y/n  i get two trees, he gets a skeleton.. this is my life (along with a kitten that knows no bounds)

View all comments

→ Dr.Spencer.Reid It was a fair trade, honestly

     → y/n i don’t know, does a seven foot tall skeleton scream christmas?? not really, but i love you

     → Dr.Spencer.Reid I’ll take the I love you

→ derekmorgan No one ever estimates how crazy he can be, no one

     → sweetums sometimes you just have to embrace it

Liked by prentiss and 84 others

y/n  mwahahah it’s christmas wrapping time baby

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→ prentiss I don’t understand how you enjoy wrapping things THIS much

     → y/n it’s called commitment MWAHA

→ Dr.Spencer.Reid I love it when my girlfriend evil laughs cause of Christmas :D

Liked by y/n and 25 others

Dr.Spencer.Reid  Merry Christmas from me and my love (12/25/23)

View all comments

→ y/n i love you so much honey

     → Dr. Spencer.Reid I love you too, now help me get the presents into the car

→ jareau.j The boys can’t wait to see you next time you visit (let’s just say Henry may have a gift planned)

     → y/n i love them so much, can’t wait to see everyone

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid instagram #spencer reid social media au #social media #social media au #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds instagram

[theoutcastrogue]

What's your favorite sneaking around music (e.g., Pink Panther theme, Mission: Impossible theme)?

Great question!

I'd say Mission: Impossible is not sneaking around music, it's heist music, and mmmaybe taking itself a bit too seriously. Too much competence implied for my tastes, too much action and epicness, and way too much (and fully underserved, since this is some Cold War bullshit) self-righteousness. A great and iconic theme, just not for our purposes.

Meanwhile, The Pink Panther Theme is 100% trickster music. I don't think there's even been another melody that captures so perfectly the concept of sneaking, but who's doing the sneaking? A trickster, for sure! So the music is all sleight, playful and light-footed and irreverent, and at no point is it remotely tempted to take itself seriously. And if you hear it and expect the graceful and precise balancing act of the most elegant jewel thief in the world to be immediately followed by a fucking piano falling on the hapless Inspector Clouseau's head like some Looney Tunes shit, well the theme did its job, because that's what it's supposed to evoke. 10/10, insurpassable.

I've always said that Henry Mancini was a genius (also notable for the Peter Gunn theme and Victor/Victoria). That said, Lalo Schifrin is also brilliant (he scored Cook Hand Luke! and Bullitt! and Enter the Dragon!), so yay for both of them.

Finally, I think we should give an honourable mention to The Pirates of Penzance where WITH CAT-LIKE TREAD UPON OUR PREY WE STEAL *keeps singing at the top of her lungs*

With cat-like tread upon our prey we steal In silence dread our cautious way we feel No sound at all, we never speak a word A fly's foot-fall would be distinctly heard

So stealthily the pirate creeps While all the household soundly sleeps

Come friends who plough the sea Truce to navigation, take another station Let's vary piracy with a little burglary

Here's your crowbar and your centre bit Your life preserver, you may want to hit Your silent matches, your dark lantern seize Take your file and your skeletonic keys

With cat-like tread upon our prey we steal In silence dread our cautious way we feel No sound at all, we never speak a word A fly's foot-fall would be distinctly heard

Come friends who plough the sea Truce to navigation, take another station Let's vary piracy with a little burglary

WITH CAT-LIKE TREAD UPON OUR PREY WE STEAL IN SILENCE DREAD OUR CAUTIOUS WAY WE FEEL

COME FRIENDS WHO PLOUGH THE SEA TRUCE TO NAVIGATION, TAKE ANOTHER STATION LET'S VARY PIRACY WITH A LITTLE BURGLARY

WITH CAT-LIKE TREAD UPON OUR PREY WE STEAL IN SILENCE DREAD OUR CAUTIOUS WAY WE FEEL

#The Pink Panther #Mission: Impossible #Henry Mancini #Lalo Schifrin #The Pirates of Penzance #Gilbert and Sullivan #correspondence #prison ballads #heist #stealth #rogues in fiction #The Pink Panther Theme #With Cat-Like Tread #trs #trickster

[mh-dreamscape]

Fun fact brought to you by a marine biologist/marine affairs major!

Part 3: Creature from the Black Lagoon Edition!

Sooooo I ended up getting her and when I finally got to look at her details up close, I got inspired to do another one of these! Now that I’m graduated, I’ll most likely be taking her out of the box at some point! This will also be a little bit of a review too!

In my previous post, I rated her a 9.7/10 because I was confused by some design choices, like the harpoons in her heels. I feel that would’ve looked better with some type of shoe unless her feet are supposed to be like boots? Anyways, I’ll be going from head to feet with aquatic biology and my feedback!

The Fin Headpiece:

Most fins have multiple lines or filaments like that and tend to start with either a darker color or color that matches their body on the inside. That color starts to fade out the further on the fin we go because the material is a lot thinner. They can appear to have a sheen look sometimes because they can be shiny and reflect light a little!

The Face:

Probably the most informative part, the face has many qualities to it! Makeup? Iconic. Flawless. The only thing I might change about it is maybe a not-as-bright lip color, but I think I feel that way about many designs and might just be a personal preference so I’ll let it slide. Aquatic factors? To. The. MAX!

Unless a fish has a protruding lower jaw, they don’t typically have an upturned smile. Body shape and mouth position can be linked together too. Bottom feeders, like catfish and sturgeon, are usually wider and flatter with an inferior mouth or a mouth that’s toward the bottom of their face or completely under it. Fish with superior mouth types (“a” in the picture and towards the top of the body) and terminal (“b” and towards the middle). As you can see, either way, the fish will have a downturned mouth and I just love that quality on this doll. This follows with her nose as well! Her nose does stick out like a normal monster high doll. It’s flattened a bit and has wider nostril sides which goes along with the snout on fish.

Now, I know most of her design is literally based on the Creature of the Black Lagoon so I’m probably just listing facts about him too, but let’s talk about the sides of her face, the part I highlighted the most in this 3/4 perspective!

Probably the most prominent features on her head sculpt: Gills! They generally follow the rules of anatomy having the the arches and filaments, but she is missing an operculum, which is a protective covering for the gills made by a series of bones. This doesn’t mean she’s entirely inaccurate though as only bony fish have operculums!

The Hands:

While it isn’t related to fish much, I wanted to admire her hands too! On Mattel’s page for her, they mentioned amphibious a couple of times so I thought I should show that. This is a comparison to frogs hind leg and foot (I couldn’t find a good picture of a “hand” or front leg).

The Body/Clothes:

As mentioned above, this piece was called “Pearlescent amphibious body armor” and while it does resemble a frog-like skeleton a bit, I felt it looked more like a fish! The top part that rests on her shoulder reminds me of the head portion of the skeleton.

Now, let’s take a look at her tail/fin which I believe is made of some type of tulle, but please correct me if I’m wrong! I don’t know much about fabrics.

The way the tulle sticks out in the first set of body pictures (middle one) reminds me of a caudal peduncle which as described in the picture above, connects the main body and the caudal (tail). The way the tulle is spread, it looks like it would be a truncate tail. Tail shapes are connected to the maneuverability and speed of a fish and each in the third picture shows how they could work. I know it probably doesn’t lay that way when she’s taken out of the box, but it was a cool design choice!

The Feet/Shoes:

I haven’t taken her out of the box yet, meaning I don’t have any good pictures of her feet or the stand so I’m using the stock photos from Mattel’s site. The fins follow fish biology with them being a lighter or different color and the tops and bottom of her feet/shoes resemble a more amphibious or reptilian nature. Taking a closer look at it, I can now see that the harpoon is attached to a rope that wraps around her ankles! I wish they colored it differently so we could distinguish that (or maybe I was the only one who thought they just stuck harpoons in her heels lol). After finding that out, I don’t have much complaints. I think it’s kind of cool they made the feet into boots!

The Stand:

I adore the stand! I love when stands can add a bit of background or a pop of color to the doll! The kelp/seaweed was a great idea to hold her up and there’s detail on the sea floor as well! My only tiff is that I don’t quite know how stable this will be. With the usual stands, the clamp in the back holds their waist up while the bottom gives their feet something to rest on. It makes it stable in general posing of dolls. These pictures show her feet barely resting on it and I’m sure you could probably stretch her one foot out to land on the higher part of the terrain, but it wouldn’t quite look as good as the stock.

I tried making a quick edit of another way to keep the pose. I originally wanted it to be a harpoon and harpoon gun but I felt that was sort of off brand with Mattel and Monster High so I instead lifted that anchor from the terrain, colored it differently to look like it was covered in algae, and rested it in the seagrass! The only drawback would be that it requires a bit more plastic for each stand and may make it a little more clunky. Like I said, I haven’t taken her out of the box yet so I don’t quite know how stable the original stand is, so this is more so brainstorming!

Overall:

Making this post made me glad I got her and appreciate her design more. I got her about a month before graduating and it seemed fitting for my final doll delivered at college to be one that’s similar to my major (er I guess I should start saying degree now huh 😅)! I know this was such a long post and I’m sorry for it but I figured combining my “Fun Fact” series and an observational review of her in-person would be great! Her rating still stands at a 9.7/10!

What do you guys think? Do you like her design? What’s your favorite or least favorite part? What would you change about her? Should I keep doing this series??

#monster high #monster high art #monster high design #monster high edit #draculaura #frankie stein #lagoona blue #ghoulia yelps #monster high lagoona #monster high oc #mh skullector #monster high dolls #monster high skullector #mh fanart #skullector #mh creature from the black lagoon #creature from the black lagoon #fang club #mh fang club #monster high fanart #monster high fandom #mh collector #monster high collector #mh edit

[condoriano-67890]

The Legend of the Girl with the Golden Silk Hair

Pairing: Sanji x fem! Reader

Summary: The legend is known all over the world of a girl with hair that shines like golden silk. And, one day, Sanji realizes that girl.. is you.

Warnings: None!

You were a Strawhat Pirate, and had been since the beginning. Luffy had snagged you from an island with a cold, and cloudy climate— No, not Drum Island. Some other island. You just accepted it, happy to have some friends. After all, your dream was to travel the world.

Of course, Sanji had taken a liking to you. Everyone thought he was a pervert, so a lot of ladies were scared of him— but you were not. You knew him well enough to trust him to bring you home if you were ever too drunk to come home by yourself. He may be a bit.. creepy, but he wouldn’t dare ever do something to a woman without her consent. He would rather die.

You enjoy how he treated you like royalty. Even though you were an advocate for gender equality… you didn’t mind being treated like royalty every once in a while.

Recently, however, while the Strawhats were on an island, and Sanji was out buying groceries, he overheard some locals talking about a legend.

A legend of a young lady, who had hair so luscious and shiny that it could be mistaken for golden silk. And, for some reason, she only showed up on certain islands, just before a large battle broke out.

Immediately, Sanji was fascinated. “She must be the most beautiful woman in the world!” He gushed, dancing around a bit as you helped him make dinner. You snickered at this, before Sanji looked over. “Oh— not that you’re not one of the most beautiful women in the world, of course!” He smiled at you, which made you laugh harder.

Soon, dinner was ready, and all of the Strawhats came pouring into the dining room, getting their dinner before sitting down.

You absolutely loved the diversity of the crew members. Luffy would pick anyone— no matter if they were a man, a woman, a skeleton, a talking reindeer, a fishman, or even a 10-foot tall cyborg. He didn’t care, and you loved that.

And Sanji’s food was amazing, as usual.

After dinner, you all went back to doing whatever you were doing. You went to go take a bath, before going to bed— you were the kind of person that preferred going to bed early, getting up early.

This time, you woke up just as the sun was rising. You got dressed, and brushed your hair, doing so quietly, as not to wake Nami and Robin. Then you came out to watch the sunrise.

So, you walked out, into the fairly chilly air, before heading over to the railing and staying put, watching the Sun peek up from the horizon, bathing the world in a golden shimmer.

You took a deep breath of the fresh air, enjoying the peace and quiet, before you heard the kitchen door open. Sanji came out, taking a few seconds to notice your presence. When he did, he stopped in his tracks.

“…Y/N—“ he stammered, making you look up at him. “Good morning, Sanji. What is it?” You asked, trying not to laugh at the look of shock on his face.

“Your— your hair!” He exclaimed, coming down the stairs now and approaching you.

“What about my hair? Did I not brush it well enough?” You asked, as Sanji pointed. “It’s golden!”

“Well, yeah, I know that? Everyone knows I’m blonde.”

“No, no, it’s— it’s shining—“

You stared at him for a moment, before you brought a strand of your hair in front of your face to get a good look at it.

It was golden like silk, bathed in the light of the sunrise.

“Woah..” you muttered, staring at it.

“You’re the girl in the legend, Y/N.”

“I suppose I am…”

#one piece #black leg sanji #op sanji #sanji #vinsmoke sanji #opla sanji #sanji x reader #straw hat sanji #with: sanji #one piece sanji #one piece fanfiction #one piece x reader

[bethanythebogwitch]

Last week on Wet Beast Wednesday I covered some of the biggest animals ever so this week I'm going to do a complete 180 and talk about the smallest animals in this series so far. Not so small as to be micro-animals (I'm sure I'll get to tardigrades eventually) but pretty small. Meet the hydra, a genus of freshwater cnidarians that can be found in temperate and tropical water worldwide. There's a lot of neat stuff about these tiny critters. Such as the fact that they're immortal, but we'll get to that in good time.

(image id: several hydras attached to a rock. Each hydra is a long, anrrow tube that branches at the top into 4 or more thin tentacles. They are milky-white in color. Source: Jan Hamrsky)

Hydras are visually similar to tiny anemones, but they're more closely related to siphonophores and jellyfish. Their bodies are pretty simple, consisting of a tubular body. On one end of the body is the basal disc, a simple foot that adheres to substrate. On the other end of the tube is the mouth, which leads into the gut. Ringing the mouth are tentacles that are covered in stinging cells. The gut is pretty simple and like other cnidarians, it doesn't go all the way through. That's right, when a hydra poops it comes out the same way it went in. A typical hydra consists of 50,000 to 100,000 cells and I hope for their sake that none of them are used for taste. Hydras are diploblastic, consisting of two layers of cells. For comparison, all vertebrates are triploblasts, with three cell layers. The hydra's layers are the epidermis on the outside and the gastrodermis making up the gut. Separating the layers is a gelatinous matrix called the mesoglea that functions as a hydrostatic skeleton. Hydras can contract their bodies and will do so if disturbed. When fully extended, they reach no longer than 10 mm (0.4 in). Hydras are in the cnidarian subphylum medusozoa. Other animals in this subphylum go through two stages of their lifecycle, a polyp that attaches to some substrate and a free-swimming medusa. In most, the polyp is a larval stage that will metamorphose into a medusa during maturation. Hydras instead stay as polyps their entire life. This could be a form of neoteny, the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood. Like other cnidarians, hydras are radially symmetrical. What is most impressive about hydras are their regenerative abilities.

(image id: a drawn diagram of a cross-section of a hydra with labeled anatomical features. source)

Hydras are masters of regeneration. It is this trait that earned them their name, a reference to the hydra of Greek mythology, who would grow two new heads whenever one was severed. Chop a hydra in half and each will grow into a new hydra. Chop a hydra into many pieces and you will get many hydras. Their regeneration is so impressive that if you chop one up into many cells and put them next to each other, the cells will reassemble themselves back into the original hydra. Similarly, hydras primarily reproduce asexually through budding, where one hydra will grow a new hydra out of its body. The daughter hydra will eventually split off from the parent and go on to live independently (unlike certain people I knew in high school). The daughter hydra is a genetic clone of the parent. A hydra living in good conditions can make a new clone every few days. In some species, sexual reproduction is also possible and usually only done when conditions are poor. Depending on the species, individuals can be either hermaphrodites or dioecious (either male or female). Gametes are released into the water to fertilize. Imagine if you wanted to make a baby and to do so you took a handfull of sperm or eggs and threw them all over the place, hoping that someone else also did the same thing in the right time and place. Broadcast spawning is weird.

(image ID: photos of a hydra in the process of regeneration. The hydra is green. It is cut in half, creating a head and foot end. Additional photos taken over time show each end growing into a new hydra. source)

(image id: a pale white hydra growing a bud. the bud emerges from below the head and appears as a small tube. The head of the tube is branched into 5 small nubs that will grow into tentacles. )

Hydras are predators that feed on insect larvae, tiny invertebrates, and small enough fish larvae. They use their basal discs to attach to a hard surface like a rock or branch and extend their tentacles into the water. When something brushes against the tentacle, it triggers the stinging cells. These stinging cells are called nematocysts. Each nematocyst can release what is essentially a tiny harpoon that injects neurotoxin into the target. Nematocysts fire so fast that the harpoon can experience up to 40,000 Gs of pressure. Because nematocysts are tiny, an animal that touches a tentacle will be injected with venom from many of them, getting poisoned even more as they thrash about and get tangled up. The tentacle will then transfer the prey to the mouth. Hydras can swallow pretty large prey, expanding and contracting to fit the prey animal into them. It's kind of like a snake swallowing an egg bigger than its head. While typically sessile, hydras can move around. They can slither around on their basal discs, but when they need to move fast, they summersault. When summersaulting, a hydra will reach down and grab the ground with its tentacles. It then detaches the disc and moves it to a new position. This repeats until the hydra finds itself in a good spot. A speedy hydra can move a food few inches in a day. Hydras can also secrete gas bubbles from their basal discs to float around, upside-down, in the water. A hydra will usually only move from its spot in response to pressure such as predation, competition, or lack of food.

(video: a video of a hydra capturing and eating a mosquito larva. It starts with the mosquito touching a tentacle, which adheres to and stings it. Once the larva is dead, the hydra pulls it in and gradually engulfs it. Despite the larva being larger than the hydra, the hydra can stretch its body to fully swallow the mosquito)

So about that immortality thing. Yeah, it's not just that hydras can regenerate from just about anything, they also don't age. They're kind of like Tolkien's elves in that while they won't die on their own, they can be killed. No undying lands for hydras though. As far as we know. It has been found that hydra stem cells can infinitely renew the body, preventing the effects of aging. This means that a hydra living in a place with no threats could theoretically just keep going forever. They can still die due to predation, disease, starvation, poor environment, and all the other usual suspects. We actually know the gene sequence responsible for this. I tried to read up on it, but genetics is way over my head and it literally game me a headache trying to read. Along with their longevity, hydras also have an incredible ability to repair damage to their DNA. This is important as damage or mutations in DNA accumulate with age. This is why cancer is primarily a disease of old age. As damage accumulates past the body's ability to repair it, eventually a mutation that causes cancer will come along. The longer you live, the more time this mutation has to occur. The hydra's ability to repair its DNA keeps them from all inevitably getting cancer. Naturally, scientists are hugely interested in hydra regeneration, DNA repair, and immunity to aging. If we could figure out how these things work and apply them to humans it would be huge. Expanded, perhaps even indefinite life spans with reduced effects of aging are obvious, but there are other applications. Better DNA repair could vastly reduce the chances of getting cancer or other genetic conditions while regeneration could potentially allow people to regrow limbs or organs. This is obviously still in the realm of speculation, but it's exciting to think about. In conclusion, all hail our immortal overlords, the hydras.

(image id: a hydra growing on the shell of a dead snail. The hydra is a pale yellow color and contracted, causing its midsection to bulge out. A bud is growing from one side of it. Source: Jan Hamrsky)

#wet beast wednesday #hydra #hydra animal #hydrozoan #cnidarians #biology #zoology #ecology #freshwater ecology #freshwater biology #aquatic biology #biological immortality #immortality #regeneration #not like doctor who #Youtube

[thecreaturecodex]

Stegon

"Stegon render" © deviantArt user SuperSamYoshi, accessed at his gallery here

[Stegon is a Return of Ultraman kaiju that seems to be an homage to original Ultraman monster Seabozu. Both are skeletal dinosaur kaiju that are treated sympathetically, and Stegon uses a modified version of Seabozu's roar for a sound effect. This is somewhat striking because Stegon definitely kills people. Like, we see construction workers get melted. So I wanted my flavor text to pay homage to that, and to be a technically-against-the-rules-in-PF1e neutrally aligned undead. I'm also including a reference to a thematically similar kaiju who appears in the same series that I'm also intending to stat up in this project.]

Stegon CR 17 N Undead This creature resembles the skeleton of an oversized reptile, its stance quadrupedal. Its skull has a pointed snout and projecting teeth. Its bones are embedded in a tarry mass, giving the creature a bulky body.

A stegon is a chimeric undead creature made out of the bones of dinosaurs and other ancient megafauna. These bones are suspended in a black tarry mass, something like asphalt. When a bone bed is disturbed, not to uncover its secrets and learn about its former inhabitants, but in order to exploit the land, a stegon may rise to avenge the desecration of its grave. These grave sites are sometimes those guarded by an oxter, which can lead the two monsters to collaborating in their destructive vengeance. Once it has avenged itself, stegons tend to roam widely and target land developments, strip mines and other massive construction projects that devastate the land. As such, stegons are among the few undead creatures that are respected in druidic traditions, although a druid would be likely to try to lay the animal souls to rest after they have completed their mission.

Stegons typically attack their targets using their breath weapons and trampling feet. They can breathe a cloud of acidic mist. This acid is much more potent against flesh and bone than metals and minerals, and the gear of stegon victims may litter its lair. If creatures fight back, or attack it, it fights with its teeth and tail if cornered, but is just as likely to try to walk away, trusting to its natural armor and resistances to shrug off attacks.

Stegon CR 17 XP 102,400 N Colossal undead Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +24, scent Defense AC 31, touch 2, flat-footed 31 (-8 size, +33 natural) hp 300 (24d8+192) Fort +17, Ref +8, Will +16; channel resistance +2 DR 15/magic and bludgeoning; Immune acid, force, undead traits Offense Speed 50 ft. Melee bite +27 (2d8+16/19-20 plus 4d6 acid), tail slap +24 (3d8+8) Space 30 ft.; Reach 20 ft. Special Attacks breath weapon (60 foot cone, 18d6 acid, Ref DC 29, 1d4 rounds), trample (Ref DC 38, 2d6+24)  Statistics Str 43, Dex 10, Con -, Int 2, Wis 10, Cha 25 Base Atk +18; CMB +42 (+44 bull rush); CMD 52 (56 vs. trip) Feats Awesome Blow, Blind-fight, Great Fortitude, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Multiattack, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Perception), Toughness, Weapon Focus (bite) Skills Climb +22, Perception +24, Swim +19 SQ organic acid Ecology Environment any land and underground Organization solitary Treasure incidental Special Abilities Breath Weapon (Su) When a stegon uses its breath weapon, the cone of acidic mist condenses into a 20 foot radius cloud at its origin point. This cloud obscures vision as a fog cloud spell and deals 2d6 acid damage every round to creatures and objects in the area (no save). This cloud lasts for 1d4+1 rounds before dissipating, and can be dissipated with strong or stronger wind. The save DC is Charisma based. Organic Acid (Ex) Acid damage dealt by a stegon’s breath weapon and bite deals minimum damage to creatures or objects made of stone or metal. It ignores the hardness of creatures or objects made of organic materials, such as wood or bone.

#pathfinder 1e #ultraman #return of ultraman #stegon #kaiju #undead

[mariacallous]

The title card that opens 1979’s original Mad Max places the action in a very near future, looming just “a few years from now.” George Miller’s cult action-thriller captured the edginess of a world teetering on the brink. The film depicts a not-quite-postapocalyptic Australia, where gangs of high-octane galoots rove the roadways on motorbikes and souped-up muscle cars, attempting to outrun the last of the lead-footed policemen: Mel Gibson’s Max Rockatanksy. Revisiting the film is exceptionally rewarding—and not just because of the grit, oddball humor, and verve of Miller’s directing. It reflects something of the ambient tensions of a world of potentially perilous fuel shortages, which threatened the whole petrol-and-plastic framework of our modern world.

Miller recalls this era with no particular fondness. He remembers, in the mid-’70s, all of the gas stations in Melbourne shutting down. Save for one. The mood was sour. The tension was thick. “It only took 10 days,” Miller says, “in this very peaceful, benign city for the first gunshot to be fired. Someone got ahead of a long queue, that went on city blocks, to get fuel. If that could happen in just 10 days, what would happen in 100 days?”

Across five films, including the new Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Miller’s franchise tracks this decline. In the original picture, the world is still fairly intact. There are diners and hospitals and happy families. People even dress more or less normally. It can feel a bit like our world: one which is collapsing but hasn’t yet totally buckled. By the time of 1982’s Mad Max 2 (released in the US as The Road Warrior), any vestiges of civilization have been blown away by an accelerated period of resource warring, nuclear conflict, and ecocide. Humanity survives in clans and roving bands, dressed in feathers and dusty leathers.

By 1985’s Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, civilization relies on bartering for commerce, harvesting pig shit for methane, and conflict resolution by way of gladiatorial combat. In the smash hit 2015 long-gap sequel, Mad Max: Fury Road (which recast Rockatanksy, putting Tom Hardy in the lead), things were almost cartoonishly bad: Fertile women were ferried across vast wastelands in tanker trucks, access to fresh water was hoarded by tyrannical dictators in skeleton half-masks, and all of humanity seemed to exist in a state of berserk, whooping madness. If that first film was warning—against the fetish for speed and power, against excessively extracting precious riches from a planet that could scarcely afford to give them up—the newer pictures feel not so much prescient as present: sado-comic visions of our own maddening, resource-starved world.

The Mad Max films are driven by a guiding incoherence. They offer a critique of car culture, resource scarcity, and the very things that may well have our world motoring toward its own demise, no matter how many EVs we buy. Denizens of the desolate wastelands exalt automobiles, motorbikes, engines, and especially gasoline as fetish objects. But at the same time, the films’ pleasures are guilty of this same exaltation. The thrills derive from high-octane racing, dangerous automobile maneuvers, body-mangling crashes, and the whole vroom-vroom of it all. They’re like war movies that ask us to thrill at the violence and daring of combat, while all the while muttering, “This is actually really awful, you know.” There is no effort to reconceive a world doomed by its pathological obsession with machines chugging on crude oil. Rather, the apocalyptic backdrop only furnishes fantasies of further decline.

Perhaps it’s a mistake to take films with characters called “Pig Killer,” “Rictus Erectus,” and “Pissboy” too seriously. But the Mad Max pictures underscore a deeper absurdity that undergirds the genre of postapocalyptic, ostensibly environmentalist (or at least environmentally sympathetic) entertainments that are often referred to as eco-fictions, or cli-fi, for “climate fiction.” “The climate crisis and grotesque climate inequalities are things that we are really struggling to process,” says Hunter Vaughan, an environmental media scholar at Cambridge University. “These films are touching on our collective inability to adapt to this crisis.”

Vaughan is the author of Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret: The Hidden Environmental Cost of the Movies. His text analyzes the environmental impact of the film industry, from early Hollywood to the present. Understanding the industry as inherently (and devastatingly) resource-reliant, he has come to view the very idea of “environmentalist movies” as a bit of an absurdity. “Films like Mad Max and Avatar,” he explains, “are just doing what Hollywood has always done, which is rely on choreographed violence and the enticement of spectacle. But they get to offset that to some degree by coming across as having some sort of environmentalist message.”

The whole notion of “cli-fi” as a genre suggests something a bit ominous: that the well-meaning parables of early climate fiction have now become subservient to the demands of the genre. Take Denis Villeneuve’s Dune pictures. While perfectly competent as pricey pieces of blockbuster cinema, they barely engage with the novel’s ecological concerns. Author Frank Herbert was originally inspired by the historical ability of certain indigenous civilizations to live in harmony in even the harshest environments—a noble idea that, in the Hollywood version, takes a backseat to woolly ideas around interstellar jihad and the sheer pageantry of the proceedings. Likewise, Mad Max's original warning siren has waned a bit, as the films developed their own generic language. The collapsing world is now just a canvas across which (wildly entertaining) action scenes unfold.

However absurd it may seem to scholars, Miller seems to come by his environmentalist sympathies honestly. Even outside of the Mad Max movies, many of his pictures touch resonant themes about global warming (Happy Feet), vegetarianism (Babe and its sequel), and the essential destructiveness of the modern world (Three Thousand Years of Longing). These realities have directly impacted his films. Fury Road’s production was long delayed, in part, because the Australian desert where Miller planned to film was suddenly swamped—a direct result of unpredictable climate patterns. “I see it myself,” the director says of climate change. “It’s all around us. I’ve seen both the hard statistics, and just in my own experience. So it can’t help but seep into the story.”

Furiosa is unique among the Mad Max films in that it offers an alternative to the arid, violent, boiling wastelands that dominate the franchise’s topography. The origin story of Charlize Theron’s fierce road warrior from Fury Road, the film opens in “the Green Place”: an Edenic garden governed by a tribe of warrior-women, which stands out as a lush oasis in the desert. For Miller, Furiosa offered an opportunity to one-up himself. Fury Road proved he could make a hit Mad Max movie without Mel Gibson. Now, he hopes to show he can make another without Max (though he does appear, very briefly). “If you just do the same thing again and again, there’s hardly any point,” he says. “There’s an inherent cynicism to it.”

Snatched from safety, Furiosa (played by Ayla Browne as a child and Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult) is raised among a motorcycle death cult, led by the madman-prophet Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, sporting an impressive prosthetic schnoz). In time, she’s traded away to Immortan Joe, Fury Road’s big bad, and learns to survive and thrive among his clan of face-painted, aerosol-huffing cultists. Building out the world of Fury Road, Furiosa traces the fragile trade dynamics between three strongman leaders, each hoarding a key resource: fresh water, fuel, and bullets. As Furiosa navigates these violent trade routes, she hatches her own plan to avenge herself on Dementus and burn rubber back to the Green Place.

In actually bothering to imagine what some alternative to the wasteland might look like, Furiosa moves past the typically narrow horizons of most cli-fi. Nicole Seymour, who teaches environmental literature at California State University, Fullerton, notes that most environmentalist narratives stop short of actually conceiving of what a new, better world might look like. “I think that would require you to do more implicating, and more work,” she says, “which no one wants to do.” She notes that most utopian environmentalist literature tends to buck the mainstream, foregrounding more diverse characters. “Do they want to make a movie about a Puerto Rican transgender person who time-travels?” she asks. “I would watch that!”

There’s a shopworn quote attributed to the late critic and theorist Mark Fisher, about how “it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Certainly, in the Mad Max movies, the basic systems that led to our destruction—resource hoarding, the primacy of tribal violence, the fetish for power and speed—remain intact. The sinister logic imparted to the audience is that, well, ecocide is inevitable, and so there’s little left to do than revel, laughing mad, in the explosive spectacle of our own destruction. To which an admirer of these films (like this writer) may sensibly, or cynically, respond: OK, sure … but what a spectacle.

For his part, Miller maintains that there’s a deep humanism at the core of these films, buried beneath the scrap heaps of twisted metal. “I’ve been to places where there is a lot of trauma and poverty,” he says. “I’m always impressed by the ability for survival. This is about our survival.”

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Monday Musings: Sauropod Phylogeny

I know, it has been a bit since my last post. It is preparation time for field season! I am so excited to get out and start digging again! That is why I decided this month would be all about sauropods. (And I apologize, this is going to be a long post). We might have a few at the site I work at so it seems very appropriate. Sauropods are some of the most easily recognizable animals dead or alive. Massive bodies with long necks and tails and pillar-like legs, they are often the eye-catching centerpiece of museum dinosaur exhibits.

Barosaurus at the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU)

Sauropods are part of the saurischian or "lizard-hipped" dinosaurs along with theropods. The phylogeny or evolutionary history of sauropods starts with a group called sauropodomorphs or "lizard-footed forms". This group includes sauropods and all ancestral forms often called "prosauropods".

Panphagia, possibly the oldest sauropodomorph from Argentina 231.4 million years ago in the Late Triassic.

Distinguishing features known as synapomorphies are used to place animals (and plants for that matter) into various related groups. For sauropodomorphs, those synapomorphies are: large nares,

Plateosaurus skull with external nares circled.

the distal part of the tibia is covered by an ascending process of the astralagus,

Plateosaurus with distal tibia and astralagus circled.

short hindlimbs compared to torso length,

Massospondylus

three or more sacral vertebrae,

Mussauraurus with sacral verts circled.

thin, flat, spatulate teeth with serrated crowns

Camarasaurus with large, spatulate teeth.

Riojasaurus with 10 cervical verts circled.

25 presacral verts (all vertebrae before the hips)

Anchisaurus with presacral verts circled.

and finally a large digit one on the manus (hand).

Plateosaurus manus.

Sauropodomorphs appeared in the Late Triassic Period and as such, are some of the oldest dinosaurs in the fossil record. They started out relatively small but as we follow the phylogenetic tree we reach the clade sauropoda itself and see a drastic increase in size. Synapomorphies of sauropoda include four fused sacral verts and a straight femur.

Diplodocus sacral verts.

Sauropod femur at Dinosaur National Monument.

These features show a marked shift in the post cranial skeleton caused by massive weight. The hind feet were broad and most species had three claws.

Hind foot of Rhoetosaurus.

The front feet were arranged in fully vertical columns with extremely reduced finger bones.

Diplodocus manus (front foot).

Next comes the clade eusauropoda meaning "true lizard foot". Synapomorphies of this clade include incorporation of the first two dorsal vertebrae into the cervical column plus two additional cervical vertebrae along with retracted external nares.

Eusauropod, Jobaria with large external nares shifting up the skull (retracting).

Mamenchisauridae is a family within eusauropoda. This family is found exclusively in Asia (and possibly Africa but that is still up for debate) and it possessed extraordinarily long necks, some making up over half the total body length and relatively short tails making them look a tad bit lopsided.

Mamenchisaurus

Following eusauropoda comes neosauropoda or "new lizard footed". This clade is distinguished by a preanorbital fenestrae (a hole in front of the antorbital fenestrae which is a hole in front of the eye socket or orbit) on the ventral side of the skull, a lack of denticles on teeth,

Ankylosaur teeth with denticles pointed out.

two or fewer carpals (hand bones), metacarpals bound to create a digitigrade posture (walk on toes)

and a wedge-shaped astralagus (ankle bone).

Neosauropoda is broken up into the superfamily diplocoidea and the clade macronaria. Diplocoidea is in turn broken up into three families: rebbachisauridae, dicraeosauridae, and diplodocidae. Rebbachisaurs appear to be the most primitive, lacking the bifurcated neural spines in the cervical verts of the rest of the superfamily.

Some rebbachisaurs even have a dental battery like ceratopsians and hadrosaurs.

Nigersaurus dental battery.

Dicraeosauridae, the sister group to diplodocidae, are characterized by their relatively small body size and short necks.

Suuwassea, North America's only dicraeosaur found in Morrison Formation in Montana.

Diplodocidae is by far the most well known family thanks to the incredible amount of material in the Morrison Formation of the western U.S. Some of the most famous sauropods belong to this group such as Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus, Supersaurus, Barosaurus, Diplodocus, and Seismosaurus. Some of their distinguishing characters include dorsally facing external nares and 70-80 caudal vertebrae giving them whip-like tails.

Diplodocus with nares on top of skull.

Macronaria is another well-known clade that has three families: Camarasauridae, Brachiosauridae and Titanosauria. Some of the synapomorphies of macronaria include crests forms by large protruding nasal bones, robust, spatulate and broad-crowned teeth,

elongate metacarpals,

and forelimbs longer than hindlimbs.

Camarasauridae currently only contains several species of Camarasaurus, the most common sauropod in the Jurassic Morrison Formation. There is some debate about it being in the African sister formation, the Tendaguru and possibly that Lourinhasaurus in the other sister formation in Portugal is also in this family.

Brachiosauridae is a distinct family that literally stands out from other sauropods. Their necks were built to be able to lift their heads up to browse treetops and their teeth could slice through tough plant matter.

Giraffatitan skull.

Finally, there are the titanosaurs. An intriguing group, there has yet to be a complete titanosaur found. This clade also has the largest range in body size. Skulls are poorly known but some resemble brachiosaurs while other resemble diplodocids. They had an average length for necks and whip-like tails though much shorter than diplodocids. Unlike other sauropods who have pneumatized (full of holes) cervical vertebrae, titanosaur cervicals are solid. Their spinal column was also more flexible than other sauropods. One of the most characteristic traits is the ball and socket articulations of the procoelus caudal vertebrae. Some even have osteoderms.

Ampelosaurus with spiked osteoderms.

And now you have a pretty good idea of how various saurpods are related and how we've put them together. Neat, huh?

#paleontology #fossils #dinosaur #fun facts #sauropod #late jurassic #late triassic #late cretaceous #early cretaceous #mesozoic #phylogeny #morrison formation

[mudwerks]

(via Bent nails at Roman burial site form “magical barrier” to keep dead from rising | Ars Technica)

...Perhaps the best known examples of this kind of superstitious funerary practice are the so-called "vampire" burials that occasionally pop up at archaeological sites around the world. In the early 1990s, children playing in Connecticut stumbled upon the 19th-century remains of a middle-aged man identified only by the initials "JB55," spelled out in brass tacks on his coffin. His skull and femurs were neatly arranged in the shape of a skull and crossbones, leading archaeologists to conclude that the man had been a suspected "vampire" by his community. They have since found a likely identification for JB55 and reconstructed what the man may have looked like.

In 2018, archaeologists discovered the skeleton of a 10-year-old child at an ancient Roman site in Italy with a rock carefully placed in its mouth. This suggests those who buried the child—who probably died of malaria during a deadly 5th-century outbreak—feared it might rise from the dead and spread the disease to those who survived. Locals are calling it the "Vampire of Lugnano." And last year, archaeologists uncovered an unusual example of people using these tips in a 17th-century Polish cemetery near Bydgoszcz: a female skeleton buried with a sickle placed across her neck, as well as a padlock on the big toe of her left foot.

#Bent nails #Roman burial site #magical barrier #superstitious funerary practices #science #tech #archaeology