Sci-Fi Romance Request

Thea's request: "Aspirational, sci-fi romance featuring at least one pterosaur, not necessarily a main character. "

GoFundMe Link: Markie's Canadian Dinosaur Adventure

Donate $10 and I'll write you a dinosaur short story with your requested genre, dinosaurs and whatever fun, silly, ridiculous thing you want to add.

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“Nice flying out there today, pilot,” Lex’s admiral praised her as she pulled her helmet loose, letting her braid fall free. It had been tough getting through the debris floating around their command center, nestled far in the neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way.

“Thank you, sir,” she said with a smile. “All in a day’s work.”

Admiral Plume put a clawed hand on her shoulder and gave it a pat. He was graying around the edges of his beak, his proud oviraptor crest not quite as bright as it once was. The battle scars he had suffered from the long distant War of Extinction left the feathers under his right eye white and weak, but he was still strong and proud.

“You keep up work days like this, and you’ll be making Captain in no time.”

The words caused her to beam, her goal of climbing the ranks in the Human/Saurian Space Alliance was a secret to no one. She had been aspiring to become something more than a humble space pilot since she joined the force, with a dream of being the Captain of her own ship and leaving the station for adventures into uncharted universe.

Everyone knew her very noble and respectable goal, but no one else knew about what her heart had wanted. Instead of focusing on her training, on her rank tests and political standing within the social ladder of the military, she was pining after someone she had no business falling for. Her feet were moving but her mind was elsewhere, wondering quietly if she could think of some excuse to make her way to his lab, find some reason to stop in for a visit. He wasn’t on the way back to her quarters, wasn’t anywhere near the mess hall or the classrooms, but yet...she found herself standing in front of his lab’s door.

Her mouth went dry, her brain a scramble of what to do next. Knock? Just go inside? She was a mess when she was close to him, a fierce space pilot reduced to a nervous wreck outside of a door. The door slid to the side suddenly and Lex almost shouted in alarm, her breath catching in her throat with her fist still raised to knock.

“Lieutenant,” Simon blinked at her, his synthetic amber eyes focusing. Lex stared at his face, perfectly human and beautiful except for the blue hue to his artificial skin and the way his irises gave of the slightest warm glow.

“Hey,” she finally managed, clearing her throat and lowering her arm once she remembered it was there. Scales, he was so pretty it hurt. Pretty and smart. And synthetic -- an android.

Not really a person. Or so was the normal assumption of synthetics, but Lex disagreed. She was pretty sure she was in love with the guy.

“Welcome back,” he smiled, stepping aside to invite her into his bio and medical lab. “How was the mission?”

“Oh, you know...business as usual. Had to break up some rogue comets and nasty space things,” she laughed, swallowing when Simon took her jacket for her and hung it on an empty chair.

“Nothing too dangerous, I hope,” Simon poured her some tea he always seemed to have brewing even though he never actually drank tea...or anything at all. It was as if it was always just for her, or so she hoped.

“Dangerous? Nah,” she laughed, waving her hand, trying to hide her nerves. “Besides, danger is my middle name.”

“Is that so? I thought it was ‘Cera’,” he offered mildly, handing her a cup of tea.

“Oh...well….yes, it...it is. I was just…” she faulted, getting a warm chuckle from the android.

“I was joking, Lieutenant.” Simon smiled and Lex’s face burned up.

I’m an idiot.

“What’s that tattoo of, if I may?” Simon moved past the embarrassing moment, motioning to the ink that was on Lex’s right arm.

“Oh, it’s a pterosaur,” she rolled up her sleeve a little to show it off. “They were always my favorite as a kid, and it still saddens me that they didn’t make it through the Extinction War.”

“Yes, I read the history about that. It was before my time. All the Saurians, avian and nonavian alike made it through, but the pterosaurs...tragic.” Simon shook his head.

“They were beautiful. Masters of the sky,” Lex smiled, remembering watching them soar through the air when she was little, before the galaxy was pushed into war. If not for the Saurians, humans would have gone under just like the pterosaurs, and the dinosaurs would be all that was left from earth. While the Saurian nation was brilliant and welcomed humans as their very odd, distant, weird, harry cousins, synthetic life wasn’t something they thought was noble. Simon was treated well, but he wasn’t someone who was going to be more than a doctor in a lab, no one who was ever going to be in charge.

Lex was clawing her way to the top, fighting to be a human among the ranks of the great Saurian soldiers, but what she was feeling for the handsome android in front of her was career suicide.

“They were special to you…?” Simon asked gently, his hand resting on top of hers in a sweet gesture. It gave her goosebumps how his palm was artificially warm.

“Very special,” she whispered, daring to meet his beautiful eyes. For just a moment, the universe shrank around them, and it was just the two of them standing in his wonderful lab, watching each other for movement.

“Hey, Lieutenant.” A voice broke the amazing moment, prompting Lex to pull her hand away out of an instinct she hated herself for. The voice belonged to Pod, a kind but ill timed brachiosaur who ran tech diagnostics and played a lot of Dungeons and Dromaeosaurs.

“Coronal is looking for you. Apparently we have some inbound boges that need shooting. Pew, pew!” Pod didn’t have hands so he couldn’t motion the appropriate finger guns to go with the sound effect, but it was implied.

“Thanks, Pod.” Lex pushed to her feet and tried not to smile like a dork with Simon handed her the flight jacket.

“Be careful, Lieutenant,” Simon offered as always, a soft smile on is pleasant face.

If Lex could have manipulated time and space, she would have arranged the whole universe as they knew it to leave them alone for a day and probably somehow make pterosaurs not be extinct. Since it was beyond her abilities, Lex just slumped away to go save the day once again and keep pushing towards her goal of Captain.

It was more than just a couple stray asteroids and debris this time around, and Lex had her work cut out for her. The mission stretched from hours into days, as she had to travel towards the outposts stationed on ice clusters and comet cores mines. The hail storm of what seemed like whatever the universe could throw at them lasted forever, and Lex came close to taking major hull damage to one of her fighter ships. The thought of needing one of her limbs reattached from a breach like that had her musing about being partially synthetic and wondered if that would be enough to make her romance with Simon justifiable to society.

Probably not. But it was a nice daydream.

After what seemed like an eternity, Lex finally made it back to the main command center for some much needed rest and medical screening. She was a little bruised from being tossed around space, and was happy for the excuse of seeing Simon. His smiling face did not disappoint, but it seemed that he was nervous...which was something she didn’t think androids could be.

“You alright, Simon? You seem...jumpy,” she peered at him as he fretted about his lab, glancing towards the entrance habitually.

“Could you...lock the front, Lieutenant?” he whispered finally, taking her off guard. She hesitated a moment before sealing the lab doors and securing them with her authorization code.

“What’s going on, Simon?” Lex finally asked, following him towards his work table that had a large box on it, covered with a cloth. Simon took a deep breath, which was all show since he didn’t breathe, and pulled the cloth away from the object. It was a cage, lined with soft fabric and a makeshift nest that housed a small, dimorphodon chick sleeping inside. Lex’s hands flew up to her mouth, a silent gasp freezing her throat.

“Holy coprolite,” she hissed. “Is that--”

“I wasn’t sure which was your favorite...so I just picked one,” Simon smiled, opening the cage to pull the drowsy chick out. It peeped at them, its snout lined with little sharp teeth, soft brown downy fluff covering it from head to its diamond shaped tail. When it looked at her, its eyes glowed just slightly.

“It’s synthetic…” Lex whispered. “You made a synthetic pterosaur…!”

“Yes. I couldn’t bring them back to life for you, Lieutenant, but I made it as real as I could. As real...as I am,” he whispered, his voice gentle as the fragile little pterosaur in their hands. It was the sweetest, most amazing thing Lex had ever seen, had ever heard uttered from any creature who could speak. She kissed him, social barriers be damned! She was in love with this amazing android who made her a pterosaur!

“I’m afraid this will complicate your Captinhood, Lex,” Simon warned, not wanting to move away from her embrace. Lex smiled brilliantly and stroked the little dimorphodon’s fuzzy head.

“One battle at a time, my sweet synthetic darling,” Lex said as she kissed him again. “One battle at a time.”

True Crime Request

My mom's request was something true crime since that's her favorite thing ever.

GoFundMe Link: Markie's Canadian Dinosaur Adventure

Donate $10 and I'll write you a dinosaur short story with your requested genre, dinosaurs and whatever fun, silly, ridiculous thing you want to add.

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“Well, I’ll be damned.” Detective Garrett peered at the excavated crime scene with his brow furrowed. It wasn’t often that a man with almost twenty five years of experience in seeing the very weird ways people die gets a call he’s never seen before. Routine murders were a cakewalk, hell even most not routine ones had a pretty clear pattern to him, but this one was a genuine surprise.

While bulldozing the site for construction, a member of the crew noticed something strange sticking out from the dirt that he thought looked like a bone. He wouldn’t have thought much of it except the bone was massive, so he called in the local amature fossil hunting club to come check it out. The club was thrilled to get to work, but as they uncovered more of what seemed like a fantastic specimen of a tyrannosaur, there was something puzzling inside of its ribcage.

A human skeleton was sitting inside of its ribs, seeming to have been swallowed whole by the prehistoric beast.

“This is going to make the creationists throw a parade,” Garrett’s partner, Detective Andrews, chimed in from beside him. The younger man cocked his head to the side and squinted from the sun, putting his hands on his hips after motioning towards the scene. “What are your thoughts on this?”

“Well,” Garrett started carefully, squatting down to take a closer look. “There’s a reasonable explanation we’re just not seeing yet.”

“Reasonable,” Andrews snorted. “A trex swallowing a human millions of years before we’re supposed to have existed is...reasonable?”

“We’re sure they were buried at the same time?” Garrett asked, his eyes still drinking in the sight of the skeletons together.

“Yep. Crime scene said it seems like they were buried the same time and the fossil club says the rock layer matches with the time period the dinosaur is from. We’d need a better carbon date on the fossils to make sure but…” Andrews started with a shrug, totally at a loss.

“Dinosaur bones are too old for carbon dating. It’d work on the human though, because there’s no way in hell that guy was around during the Cretaceous,” Garrett pushed to his feet and shook out his legs to get the blood back in them.

“You’re so sure about that?” The younger detective argued gaining an annoyed glance from Garrett.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Did you not take sixth grade science, Andrews? We’re separated by 65 million years. Learn your epochs and read a damn geology book.” Garrett huffed and made his way to one of the fossil club members who had hung around to help their case. The woman was wearing their local fossil group’s shirt and an uncomfortable look of worry as she watched the skeletons in the pit.

“What can you tell me about the dinosaur miss…?” Garrett asked, extending his hand in greeting.

“Sarah. Nice to meet you,” she took his hand with a good shake and exhaled a little shakily. “I’ve just...never seen anything like that. I was so sure it was a hoax or...I-I dunno.”

“Tell me what you can,” Garrett prompted, letting the woman take a breath and compose herself. She moved some stray hairs that got blown loose from her long braid, tucking them behind her ear.

“It’s a juvenile trex, almost fully grown. Probably late Cretaceous. The odd thing about it though is...how complete it is,” she said with a confused head shake.

“What do you mean?” Garrett looked back at the skeleton in question. The massive body lay on its side, jaws open in a silent roar, legs extended out and a long tail behind its body. It was remarkably intact.

“You don’t see that in fossils. Normally you’ll get bits and pieces, half of a torso if you’re lucky and rarely the whole head. This was an extraordinary find before we found the human skeleton!” Her eyes were wide with amazement and excitement.

Garrett drummed his fingers on his hip as he thought, his eyes focused on the crime scene. “What about the bones themselves? Anything different about them?”

“No, not really, but to be fair we did come to a stop once we found the human skeleton, but even that has the same black coloration as the fossils,” she explained.

“That doesn’t mean anything. Human bones are subject to the same discoloration as any other bones buried in soil. They turn colors pretty fast, but I’m sure a fossil hunter knows that,” Garrett smiled some at her as he spoke so she knew he wasn’t poking fun or being sarcastic.

“Right. That’s why I’m thinking this has to be some type of really weird mistake, but I just can’t figure it out.” Sarah exhaled, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “The Natural History Museum’s paleontology expert is coming down to take a look. He might be able to tell us what’s going on.”

There was something the scene wasn’t telling Garrett and it was buzzing around his head like an annoying mosquito. A complete skeleton from a species that lived millions a years ago was apparently already almost impossible, and now the damn thing had a homo sapien lodged in its belly. The trex was on its side and the human seemed to be on its back with his arms up slightly like in defense. It did almost seem like the human was gulped down like an afternoon snack. Maybe he was too big and it caused the trex to choke or have killer indigestion. Garrett decided he needed a closer look.

The bones were buried about six feet down from ground level, so it wasn’t too difficult for him to jump down and take a peek. Getting back up was going to be a little more difficult, as the detective didn’t stay up on his fitness like his wife always told him to. He already had to put up with kale breakfast smoothies and low sodium food, so he was usually too annoyed to go for a run. Inside the pit the bones lay frozen in time and still half submerged in rock.

Garrett squatted down and peered at the bones. He could tell the human had been buried for at over a decade, judging by the lack of clothing around it and the deep, dark coloring of the bones. The body was male, maybe about mid twenties, good health, good teeth...not something he’d expect to find in a “cave man” or someone who didn’t have modern medicine. There was a shift in material towards the back of the human’s skull on the right side. Gently, Garrett brushed some dirt away to see a small metal plate, probably from a surgery, implanted against the bone.

This guy was definitely not a thing of the past. So what was this dinosaur? Garrett stood and glanced over the dinosaur, before moving up towards the head.

“What are you doing?” Andrews called from above, watching Garrett pacing around the bodies. “You have that Sherlock Holmes look in her eye.”

Garrett kneeled down beside the massive jaws of the tyrannosaur and felt its long, steak knife type teeth. The edges were rough and serrated like knives and were about the size of a banana, making Garrett shiver at the idea of something like this hunting down a human. Poor guy wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell. The teeth seemed secure in the head as he tried to wiggle one loose, finally giving up and glancing up at his partner.

“Toss down a hammer or something,” he called up, squinting from the bright sky. Andrews lifted his eyebrows in surprised but complied, tossing down a hammer and pick by Garrett’s feet. It took Garrett a couple tries to get the tooth to crack loose, using the hammer and pick to finally remove the big spike from the mouth.

“It’s fake,” Garrett announce, peering at where the tooth had separated from the skull.

“What do you mean fake?” Andrews quizzed, his surprise evident in his tone.

“It’s elementary, Watson,” Garrett quipped back with a smirk. A man with a beat up, straw cowboy hat leaned over the pit wearing a tie-dye shirt and jeans, leaning on a cane.

“What makes you think it’s fake?” the cowboy hat man asked, obviously wanting to jump down into the pit himself. Garrett walked to the edge where they were and tossed it up, the man catching it and squinting at the tooth..

“It looks like plaster or something,” Garrett said. “Are you the paleontologist from the museum?”

“Dr. Roberts, yes. And you’re right. This isn’t bone,” his voice sounded grave, his eyes moving to the human skeleton and his mouth set in a firm line.

“The human skull has a metal plate on it…” Garrett said, watching the man’s face blanch. “You know who this is, Dr. Roberts?”

“David Mope,” Dr. Roberts shook his head with a scowl, pulling his cowboy hat off his partially bald head. “That damn fool. The stupid thing killed him.”

Garrett hauled himself out of the pit with the help of his younger partner and dusted the dirt from his knees. “Care to explain?” he asked the paleontologist.

“About twenty five years ago, we found a trex skull...me and David. He was a fellow paleontologist who helped with the site. After we got the skull out, we wanted to open a park in the area to show the sight off and maybe get some more grants to dig, so the museum funded  a replica trex skeleton to be made.

“Well, me and David had a falling out, and right after the skeleton was made and brought to the site to be erected, it disappeared along with David. I always thought he somehow made like Hoodini and made the thing vanish. Never figured out how he did it. Until now.” Dr. Roberts let out a long sigh, his eyes going from pensive to mournful.

“Guess the damn thing fell on him when he was trying to move it. How did it get buried?” Garrett mused.

“There was a big storm that rolled in. The whole area was flooded with mudslides. Poor idiot,” Roberts shoved his hat back over his head. “I always told him the metal in his head made his brain short circuit when he got a bad idea.”

“Well, at least we know we didn’t have some type of ground breaking, reality shattering discovery the was going to prove the creationists right,” Andrews said with a laugh. Garrett rolled his eyes, shooting his partner a look.

“It was never going to be that. I’m going to assign you some homework, kid,” Garrett spat, turning back towards Dr. Roberts and shaking his hand in thanks. “Sorry for your loss, doctor.”

“Thank you. At least he died doing what he loved. Being an idiot and playing with bones.” He gave a weak smile and limped off back towards his truck.

Buddy Cop Request

Request from Shen: "Dinosaur buddy-cop story and they love sushi"

GoFundMe Link: Markie's Canadian Dinosaur Adventure

Donate $10 and I'll write you a dinosaur short story with your requested genre, dinosaurs and whatever fun, silly, ridiculous thing you want to add.

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“I’m telling you, all sauropods are pacifists,” Stan said, snagging a piece of Fern Roll from the sushi boat. It was Sushi-boat-Friday at Fukuiraptor’s and Stan and his partner Elliot never missed Sushi-boat-Friday.

“That’s kind of a blanket statement about an entire species, man,” Elliot responded flatly, a salmon piece stuffed into his mouth. The massive pentaceratops officer shrugged his shoulders, his face impassive.

“You ever see a sauropod mixed up in anything beyond bickering civil stuff? They’re just peaceful people. It’s not a bad thing.”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s a bad thing. You shouldn’t make broad strokes about species. Like, everyone says ceratopsians are inherently grumpy,” Elliott said with eyebrows raised, pointing a chopstick at his partner’s always mildly grumpy, bored face.

“We are,” Stan said dryly. “And velociraptors aren’t funny.”

“Ha. Ha,” Elliott snorted. “You believe this guy, Fuku-san? Calling us raptors not funny.”

Fuku-chan glanced up from where he was prepping more of his masterpieces, his feathers graying around the edges but his eyes still sharp. “He said velociraptors aren’t funny.”

“Ha!” Stan barked, cracking a smile.

“Traitor,” Elliot mumbled at Fuku-san, who shrugged and passed off a roll to be delivered before pointing his sushi knife at Stan with an eyebrow cocked.

“And sauropods are peaceful until you cut them off in traffic, officer. Watch yourself.”

“Fair enough,” Stan conceded, going for another piece of Fern Roll when their radio came to life.

“All units, we have a robbery in progress at Hell Creek first national,” the dispatcher’s voice rattled off, causing the duo to glance at each other over their lunch.

“That’s us, big guy,” Elliot grinned, putting his chopsticks down and nodding a thanks to Fuku-san. The old raptor was already moving their plates out of the way and telling them to be careful as the officers headed for the door.

Stan clipped his flashing light to his tall frill, the pulsing blue bulb fitting just below the dip lined with sloping spikes. Elliot leaped onto his back as his pentaceratops partner took off towards the bank. Since Stan knew Saurian City inside and out, he fired through the side streets to make record time, weaving past the passing food vendors and tiny mammal tourists. Officer Bruce, a tough ankylosaur cop, was standing out front with his rookie, a nervous hardosaur who’s name escaped them.

“What do we know so far?” Stan asked as he trotted up beside Bruce, who was shaking his head with a scowl, his armored plated brows furrowed.

“At least two inside and the staff is being held hostage,” Bruce growled. “No idea if they’re armed, but I think it’s safe to say they must have something lethal.”

“Probably a safe bet.” Stan scanned the big building with windows lining the sides and top of the building and glanced at his partner. “Elliot, you up for a little gliding practice?”

The raptor groaned and flexed his arm feathers. “You know these aren’t meant for that, Stan.”

“You can get up there better than I can, and we don’t have any pterosaur officers here yet. You up for it?” Stan nodded towards the windows, eyeing his wary, small, feathered friend. Elliot was tiny compared to his huge partner, and they often used his smaller size to their advantage in fights and sneaky tactics. One such tactic was to launch Elliot through the air like a feathery torpedo to reach higher vantage points to get a good sight on a situation.

“Up for it. Hilarious.” Elliot pouted, climbing onto Stan’s frill and patted one of his big brow horns when he was set. With a well practice flick of his neck, Stan threw his partner into the air, aiming at the higher windows on the building. Elliot stretched his feathery arms, using them to steady himself just enough to keep from falling or smacking too hard into the glass. Inside, the frightened staff of the bank was huddled together as two masked dinosaurs raided the place. One big theropod, probably a teenaged tyrannosaur from his size, held a gun in his tiny arms, aimed at the hostages who stayed closed together. Inside the vault, a pachycephalosaurus was stuffing money into a large bag. Elliot could tell the robber’s species by the short, sharp horns that poked through the mask around the back and sides of his head.

Elliot motioned down his his partner: two suspects, one armed, Tiny Arms and Baldy.

Back up was on the way, and the officers knew they needed to get inside before things got too scaly, so they made their move. Bruce used his club tail to knock in the doors, Stan rushing inside with his horns pointed forward.

“Freeze, coprolite!” Stan commanded, his booming voice bouncing off the walls. Bruce came in as backup, his rookie pale but holding his weapon in his shaky hands. Elliot creeped in from above, perched up on the window ledge high above to wait for his opening.

“D-Don’t move! I--I’ll shoot!” the teenager trex yelled under his mask, his eyes wide with fear. Elliot had been right, he was just his kid, and it made Stan ease up a little.

“Put the weapon down, son,” Stan said calmly. “You don’t wanna do this.”

“Don’t listen to those lizards!” the pachy barked, slinging the back of money over his shoulder, the smile evident in his voice even if they couldn’t see his ugly mug. “Don’t make another move, or he’ll shoot the hostages!”

The bank staff sniffled and whined in fear, causing Stan to grit his teeth. The trex’s terrified eyes darted between his boss and Stan, wide and scared which was so unlike his species normal bold facade. This poor kid was barely out of the egg and it broke Stan’s heart.

“I-I…” the trex stammered, his little arms shaking almost as much as the hardosaur rookie in the background. The pachy scowled at his hesitation and marched forward, snatching the gun from his tiny hand and shoved him away.

“I’ll do it myself!” he yelled, taking aim at the cops and cackled triumphantly. Stan lowered his big frill and took a stand in front of Bruce and his rookie, trying to shield them from the line of fire.

“YAAA!” Elliott yelled as he leapt from the window’s edge, soaring through the air and landing flat on the pachy’s face in a flutter of wings and claws. The masked, round domed robber yelled in alarm, firing a shot in the air as he tried to swipe the tiny raptor off of his face. The hostages screamed, the rookie hadrosaur cried out as the bullet bounced off Bruce’s hard armor, and Stan charged forward with his horns and tackled the raptor-faced pachy to the ground. Taking a pentaceratops to the ribs left the pachy winded and bruised, Stan making sure his horns didn’t stab him but just pin him in place.

Elliot quickly cuffed the pachy and Stan hauled the suspect to his dizzy feet.

“Did you have to yell a battle cry when you jumped at him?” Stan asked amused as they lead the pachy outside to the waiting backup.

“Uh, yeah. Otherwise it’s not heroic,” Elliot scoffed like it was obvious. “It’s like you’ve never watched action movies before.”

Stan shook his head, as he shoved the defeated pachy into the back of the squad car. “Wanna go back to finish out Sushi-boat-Friday?”

“You bet your horns I do,” Elliot said gleefully, hopping on the back of his friend to hitch a ride. “Hey, what did the sushi say to the soy sauce?”

“Oh god,” Stan groaned, already not liking where this was headed. Elliot snickered happily before answering.

“You’re my soymate!” he snorted.

“Scutes, don’t start with the puns, Elliot,” Stan pleaded, his grumpy nature reappearing.

“Hey, hey. You need to control your tempura!” the little raptor cackled at his partner's distress.

“You’re not funny, Elliot.”

“No, I’m punny,” he corrected.

“Please stop.”

“That’s just how I roll. Get it...like sushi?!” Elliot howled in laughter.

Welcome Home!

My Tiktaalik Made It!

He's even more adorable than I could have thought. 

I had such a long day at work yesterday. I just started a new shift and adjusting to it has been very rough. I went from working 3PM-11PM Monday-Friday, to 7AM-3PM Thursday-Monday. 

Yeah.

Needless to say, I worked a long stretch from when my new shift started after the old one ended, and had to completely redo my sleeping habits. I've also been training someone at work, which has been trying but he's getting better, but it adds to be already exhausted state. I ended up having to stay 4 extra hours at work yesterday, having been up since 4:30AM and on the edge of sanity I was a touch grumpy.

Meeting my Tiktaalik definitely made my day all worth it.

A Freaking Dream Come True

Plushie Tiktaalik

I finally get a huggable Tiktaalik.

For those you may be unfamiliar with this sweet, lovable face, I posted about Tiktaalik before on my blog back in 2015, which you can check out here. Since there's a whole post dedicated to why I love Tiktaalik so much, I won't eat up this post about how great he is.

I just tested the links on that post, and everything is still there and working, which is awesome. 

According to the email I got from Palaeo Plushies, my order should be at my door step between 5-7 business days, which is impressive considering he's coming from Scotland.

I'm also highly considering recording myself opening it, because I'm just too damn excited, but know that no one is going to super care.

BUT IMMA DO IT ANYWAY.

There might be a video uploaded later of me being a rabid fan girl about a stuffed, ancient fish. So, you know....be on the look out for that.

More Eggs, An Owl Dinosaur and #SquadGoals

This week has been awesome. Since starting this awesome adventure of helping out with a dinosaur related non-profit organization, I've stumbled on some really kick ass dinosaur art and a neat dinosaur article.

I'll start with the article, which I found at Science Daily, about the study to find out how long it took dinosaur eggs to hatch.
According to the research done, they examined jaws of fossilized dinosaur embryos to look at the "growth lines" in their bones. Growth lines are formed in the bones of animals during their lives and are sort of like lines in a tree. You can count the rings to determine how old an animal is by the growth lines in their bones. From these lines, research has shown that it took 3-6 months for the sample species to hatch, which is an insane amount of time in the animal world. Can you imagine having to guard a clutch of eggs that long?

To give you perspective, I did a brief Google search on how long it takes a couple different reptile and bird species to hatch their eggs:

Crocodiles: 80 days
Snakes: 45-60 days (depending on the species it seems)
Turtles: 70 days
Crows: 18 days
Finches: 12-14 days
Eagles: 35 days

Looks like on a reptile scale, 3 months is about average, but anything longer than that seems crazy. I looked into what's known about dinosaur egg incubation, since I remember there being an article about egg pores being studied last year.
I ran across this on Earth Sky, which talks about how certain species of sauropods and earlier therapods probably buried their eggs like crocodiles, while later raptor species of therapods probably left their nests open like birds.
Which makes sense.
The dinosaur embryos in the Science Daily study was that of Protoceratops and Hypacrosaurus, a ceratopcian and a hadrosaur respectively.

• Favorite Paleo-Art of the week:

Cryolophosaurus from prepetualartistblock 

Probably not what this handsome devil looked like, but holy crap I still love it. Cause he's an owl dinosaur. :3


Badass dinosaur art that's now my phone background by lioninthetrees

Citipati covering her nest by Julio Lacerda

This is especially cool because the holotype fossils for this dinosaur was found covering its eggs during death. It's pressumed that she was guarding her eggs when she and her babies died. She's been dubbed "big mama" because of this.
Sad story, but great picture.

Sleepy Alioramus by prepetualartistblock 

I really love the color scheme of this dude, plus he's adorable sleeping in the shade. Look at his little arms. SO CUTE.

Chris Pratt with accurate raptors by Lexicon Megatherium.

#SquadGoals

New adventures!

      Holy crap. I actually get to do something dinosaur/paleontology related beyond my goofy little blog that only my friends read. Finally, the free time I murder scrolling through the internet reading science articles and looking at paleo-art will be put to good use!
      It's like a dream come true.

     A couple of days ago I was contacted by a paleontology institute asking if I'd like to volunteer for them as their Twitter Manager. I'm surprised I didn't squeal outright when I was asked, because I about fell over from excitement. I haven't been really part of the field I wanted to go to school for since 2008, when I volunteered at a dinosaur dig closed to my home town. Since then I've been keeping up with the news, doing my own studies and made this blog as my vent for my extreme dinosaur nerdiness.
     Since I have to Tweet once a day about dinosaur/paleontology stuff that's related to Mongolia, this blog is about to get swamped with cool stuff related to the stuff I find. I guess I'm going to do like a Friday recap with all my stuff I found, most of it being Mongolian.
      Not that I'm super complaining, since I adore the hell out of Roy Chapman Andrews and his discoveries out in the Gobi, this is all just more candy for me.

     Since I've only been doing this a grand total of 3 days, I don't have a lot to post about, but I'll share the art that has been my favorite so far and gotten me the most retweets and such.
     For those who read this, I'll post Friday or Saturday with the tweets I put out for the week and the cool stuff I've been digging up. (Haha...digging up.)


     Until then!

Citipati covering her eggs before a sandstorm.
Later her fossils would be calls "big mama"