Shrike502

I think we should celebrate. Lenin appreciation thread

Josephoartigasia monesi, the largest rodent known to science. Weighing more than a ton, it reached up to 1.5 meters in height. It dwelled in South America during Pliocene and Pleistocene.

Art by James Gurney.

Today I bring you something peculiar. Meet Tupilakosaurus. It is an amphibian that dominated western Laurasia in early Triassic, as the biosphere struggled to recover after the Permian extinction.

Tupilakosaurus was a small - just under a meter long - creature, with a long, powerful tail, short limbs and (apparently) external gills, like those of an axolotl. These fine animals lived in rivers without going ashore and hunted small fish or other amphibians.

Tupilakosaurus is a curiosity due to its particular circular vertebrae (pictured below), which is uncommon for their kind of amphibians. Indeed, when first discovered they were originally believed to be fish, and later to be ancestors to Ichthyosaurs.

Despite their short existence, Tupilakosaurus had quite a sizeable habitat, ranging from modern day Greenland to western Russia, such as Vladimir oblast, Nizhny Novgorod region, and all the way to Arkhangelsk and Vyatka. It would take later amphibians millions of years to carve the same range.

I am not entirely sure what to make of it, given how shit GDP is as a meaningful statistic.

Not sure where else to post this, given the frivolous nature of the topic.

So a few days ago I accidentally got into a political conversation with a liberal colleague. The topic was the much beloved by liberals in post-soviet states matter of "singular protests with an empty paper".

For those not familiar with this brand of silliness, it's a type of performative "protesting" whereupon a person would go alone (or together with a cameraman) somewhere public and stand there with an empty piece of paper - sometimes large, sometimes just an A4.

The idea (supposedly) is to demonstrate the stupidity of the Anti-Protest laws, since in some countries (Russia, Kazakhstan) such a performance usually ends quickly with police arriving and detaining the "protestors".

The main issue in the conversation, however, was my colleague's assertion that such acts are perfectly harmless, don't disturb anyone and thus should not be interrupted. And that police detention is an absurd overreaction due to the undemocratic nature of our government. And that in democratic countries - such as France or South Korea (his examples) one could do that with no problems whatsoever.

And now I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Today I bring you Benthosuchus - a relative of the Wetlugasaurus from the other week. Another Temnospondyli amphibian, its name translates to "crocodile of the deep". It's skull was ~70 cm long with overall body length reaching 2.5 meters. As with many other amphibians of this order, its eyes were closer to the top of the skull, aiming them upwards. This indicates that the animal was an ambush predator, waiting patiently just underwater until it was ready to strike.

The typical species, Benthosaurus sushkini, was logged by Ivan Efremov in 1929, with overall genus classified in 1936.

Thus I bring you Vetlugasaurus. Despite the -saurus in the name, it is in fact an Amphibian of the Temnospondyli order, which lived in what is now Russia and Greenland during the early Triassic period.

Originally discovered and categorized in 1920-s, it is named after river Vetluga - on the shores of which the first fossil was found. The skull measures ~22 cm, with overall body length ranging from 75 cm to 3 meters.

In 2018, a full skull was found.

Bonus: artistic rendition of its looks

The gorgonopsid was named after the river Vyatka in the Kirov oblast, near which it's been found. Kirov, of course, has been named after Sergey Kirov.

cross-post from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/463061

So the Russian government is dismantling the Ukrainian power grid with one hand, and helping the EU keep the UAF war machine running with the other. Yeah.

Have this beautiful dromeosaurus I found on r/Sino

Analysis of the bone structure of Multituberculata demonstrates that they gave birth to relatively large babies, with a fairly short period of milk feeding - similair to modern day rodents.

This is in contrast to Marsupials, who birth tiny babies and milk feed them for quite a long time.