Post Aq3WfAXt4RymdGWHJ2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
(DIR) More posts by futurebird@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #Aq3WfAXt4RymdGWHJ2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T00:22:05Z
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"Endoskeletons are best!""Exoskeletons are best!"(image via "fossilguy" https://www.fossilguy.com/gallery/vert/placoderm/dunkleosteus/index.htm)
(DIR) Post #Aq3ZEh8i4xtnlRoKmG by Makyris@friendsofdesoto.social
2025-01-14T00:50:49Z
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@futurebird Both sounds good!
(DIR) Post #Aq3ZQC3jScZMqTxvVY by quinsibell@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T00:52:58Z
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@futurebird I keep my nervous system inside my skeleton, and I've wrapped some of my more important organs in a kind of bone cage, but then I layered muscles and skin over the skeleton. I call it a mesoskeleton. It works pretty well.
(DIR) Post #Aq3akkfcaRu3w53S7c by mark@mastodon.fixermark.com
2025-01-14T01:07:52Z
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@futurebird Oh God, it's following me now.Visited the Cleveland Museum of Natural History for the first time this weekend and they have fossils of that fish in five different places. It's IIUC the state fish fossil.I swear, every time we turned around, it was staring at us. I'm going to remember "The Dunkleosteous had a self-sharpening beak" like I remember the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
(DIR) Post #Aq3av2WT4DfaCRg9Qm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T01:09:44Z
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@mark Think of all of the horrible scraping sounds in the Devonian seas!
(DIR) Post #Aq3bWIun5FgfkopC3E by ephesossh@mastodon.online
2025-01-14T01:16:26Z
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@futurebird @mark I remember straight-up developing a lifelong case of thalassophobia from one illustration of a dunkleosteus in James Gurney's Dinotopia books, and I'm so glad now that child-me never considered the sound... this tanky lad terrified me lol.
(DIR) Post #Aq3dwYeFPVrHzGjWeO by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-14T01:43:37Z
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@futurebird so, why? What thing in its environment made 'eye armor' a thing worth the energy. Was the sea made of cookie cutter sharks?When a thing looks terrifying, think about what IT is afraid of. Whatever else roamed that ocean is even more dangerous than this. Or maybe whatever it ate, what it had to eat, was really good at fighting back. A meal that can take an eye out before it gives up.
(DIR) Post #Aq3tfQ77UCwDrW5WT2 by thegarbagebird@theblower.au
2025-01-14T04:39:47Z
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@futurebird we love uncle dunkle
(DIR) Post #Aq3znzYEDNMHoJEq1o by ubi@ecoevo.social
2025-01-14T05:48:35Z
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@futurebird If you imagine Dunkleosteous with lips it just looks like a normal fish.
(DIR) Post #Aq4DOEFIMApVDKzYpc by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T08:20:50Z
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@futurebird Dunkleosteus and its close relatives only armored the front of the body. Turtles and Ankylosaurs armored the whole body! (also, armadillos, pangolins, aetosaurs ...)
(DIR) Post #Aq4ZdoTE9cmQtlLRdw by Gorfram@beige.party
2025-01-14T01:56:00Z
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@Urban_Hermit @futurebird Something very, very(!) large & very bitey; or a great many things small & very extremely stingy?
(DIR) Post #Aq4ZdpgjctBAfwfkKu by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-14T02:19:19Z
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@Gorfram @futurebird I think small and bitey. Too small and numerous to bring active defenses like those jaws to bear. Something that didn't kill and eat you, something that ate pieces of you whenever it could, and it went for anything it could get, even the eyes.That is terrifying. That ocean was a terrifying place for long enough for this thing to evolve eye armor. For its young, that didn't have hard to eat eyes, to not make it to reproductive age.Well fuck! No more carefree time travel.
(DIR) Post #Aq4Zdqljbmly1k1Flg by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T08:22:36Z
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@Urban_Hermit @Gorfram @futurebird see my earlier toot about sclerotic rings: https://sauropods.win/@llewelly/113825719423618998
(DIR) Post #Aq4Zdrr5ZMeLOdX2ki by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-14T12:14:00Z
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@llewelly @Gorfram @futurebird I disagree lightly. This thing's entire head is armor plated, including the eyes. The thin little bones in the eyes of birds that are anchors for muscles may be related, but do not serve the same function.I am realistically thinking that this thing ate exclusively squid or octopuses that had murder hooks instead of suckers, like a few modern species. If I remember correctly, the second half of the body is no where near armored up like the head is.
(DIR) Post #Aq4ZdtRzddlQLNo1ui by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-14T12:21:24Z
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@llewelly @Gorfram @futurebird I worked in the ornithology lab at Cornell while I was briefly there. The bones in all bird's eyes is so delicate that it is rarely recovered.The swarms of cookie cutter sharks was in jest, over exaggeration of a horrible scenario. This thing would have armored its anus and entirely belly if that was true. But being an exclusive predator on newly evolved squids, that have hook suckers to defend themselves because they are too flexible to evolve their own armor 👍
(DIR) Post #Aq4ZduWHfAn3eyoyEy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T12:30:03Z
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@Urban_Hermit @llewelly @Gorfram I keep thinking “cookie cutter sharks” are these very preppy, precocious little sharks who are very particular about how they swim and how they bite and who have a tendency to put little bows on everything because “it looks nicer that way”
(DIR) Post #Aq4e9oRMCYIBt7z4ts by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-14T13:20:43Z
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@futurebird @llewelly @Gorfram the most stomach churning picture I ever saw was of the wound a Hawaiian long distance swimmer got from a cookie cutter shark. It left a round whole in the side of his calf muscle 2 1/2 inches in diameter and an 1 1/2 deep, and the hospital let skin grow in to cover it, but it was still that deep, and under a thin layer of skin the muscle bundles were still visible.I am actively mad at the hospital for that guy. Picture not included on purpose.
(DIR) Post #Aq4ew8nFpdykudGryq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T13:29:30Z
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@Urban_Hermit @llewelly @Gorfram So … no little bows?
(DIR) Post #Aq4fei347FLuzmv0j2 by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T13:37:24Z
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@futurebird @Urban_Hermit @Gorfram After cruelly biting his victim, the cookie cutter shark got out his guitar, and put a little bow on it, sarcastically pretending to play a violin for the pain of his victim. What a jerk!ok, ok, I'm sure cookie cutter sharks don't really behave that way ...
(DIR) Post #Aq4hCOD6To4ZGjEmwK by Urban_Hermit@mstdn.social
2025-01-14T13:54:40Z
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@futurebird @llewelly @Gorfram after he eats a piece of you he always sends a get well card because his mama taught him right. 😸
(DIR) Post #Aq5OKathUPbYxkJw92 by david@fouroclockfarms.club
2025-01-14T21:58:05Z
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@futurebird @Urban_Hermit @llewelly @Gorfram The Wikipedia page for this shark — which I thought was a joke — shows the horrific teeth. Yeeeeesh… and it’s a little bitty shark.
(DIR) Post #Aq5OUFOCJLJx9VBjhg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-01-14T21:59:54Z
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@david @Urban_Hermit @llewelly @Gorfram But they have found a sustainable way to be a carnivore!
(DIR) Post #Aq5OtXnwypbBVRIRXM by david@fouroclockfarms.club
2025-01-14T22:04:26Z
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@futurebird @Urban_Hermit @llewelly @Gorfram Gotta give them that, letting the food beast live to take another chunk out of it next week.