When I say "Birds are Dinosaurs" and you say "No you know what I mean, when we say dinosaurs we mean Something Else" I think like... you don't know what I mean.

There's sort of a constructed category of dinosaurs as these scaly, powerful, outdated animals, and birds as these delicate modern animals, and I want you to understand that these ideas are based on outdated science and human biases. That birds can and have grown huge and predatory, that dinosaurs were a hugely diverse group that had grazers and small arboreal animals and fast intelligent ones.

Birds are a category of dinosaur, the only one we have left around. Appreciate them, demythologize dinosaurs, and destroy the boxes you put nature into.

Two hundred years ago, the wetlands of Japan rustled with pink-tinged feathers. Tall, pale birds stepped carefully through reeds and iris, hunting small fish, crabs, and frogs. 

Nipponia nippon, it would be dubbed by the national ornithological society, a bird emblematic of its country. The Crested Ibis. The Toki. The Peach Flower Bird.

Marshes slowly changed to rice fields, with farmers who resented the toki for ruining crops; to kill the birds was outlawed, so children chased them from the fields, singing warnings.

The doors of the country were pried open. Laws changed. Farmers bought their first guns, their sights set on birds who were no longer protected. The toki, the red-crowned crane, and many others began to suffer. But the worst was yet to come.

Pesticides are indiscriminate killers. The poison sprayed to kill a beetle can travel up the foodchain, toppling a cascade of larger animals, or affecting their ability to reproduce. It was reckless pesticide use that nearly wiped out the Bald Eagle. In the rice fields, the peach-flower-bird had little chance. 

In 1981, Japan’s last five living toki were removed from a wild that had become too dangerous for them.

I tell a lot of sad stories here, about mistakes we’ve made and animals we’ve lost. This isn’t one of those. This is a story about one of those precious times when we were able to fix the things we’d broken. 

A joint effort between Japan & China, and the discovery of seven more birds in that country, led to a successful breeding program, which in 2008 saw the first ibises fly free again in Japan. Today, at least 5000 toki exist in the world.

The last wild-born toki, one of those captured in 1981, lived almost long enough to see her species’ return. Reaching the equivalent age of a centenarian human, she died in 2003—not of old age, but injury after throwing herself against her cage door. 

Her name was ‘Kin’. ‘Gold’. 

Mended things can never be as whole as they once were. There will always be cracks that show, weak spots that remain vulnerable. Yet, like the shining seams of a kintsugi piece, these scars speak an important truth: here is a thing that someone chose to save; handle with care.

The title of this painting is ‘Restoration’. It is gouache on 22x30 watercolor paper

Below the poll is a series of animal images labeled A through J. A is the least close to the birds we have today; J is the closest. If you encountered these animals in the wild, which would you call birds? If you pick a higher up option, then that means you consider all the below ones birds as well - so if you pick A, then BCDEFGHIJ are all birds. If you pick J, only J is a bird.

A:

B:

C:

D:

E:

F:

G:

H:

I:

J:

PLEASE REBLOG THIS SO IT CAN LEAVE PALAEOBLR. I NEED PEOPLE WHO DON'T RECOGNIZE THESE ANIMALS ON SIGHT TO VOTE.

I apologize to all of y'all with vision impairments for whom this poll is inaccessible. Alas, this is an experiment, and I cannot name the taxa. Thank you.

All alt text includes artist attribution; I did not make these pictures myself.

I have begun a playlist of PaleoCore music, feel free to suggest additions. Some things had to be one video (like the walking with soundtrack, that's all in one thing), but when I could I made sure they had chapter markings

Rock on! Literally

Only day you can rb this

One hundred and four days’ duration 'S the length of our summer vacation So finding good ways To spend all those days 'S the problem of our generation. Like building a rocket for fun And fighting a mummy when done Or maybe we'll climb Eiffel Tower this time And stand at the top in the sun. Discovering something that’s not In existence (or that’s what we thought) Or scrub and then scour A monkey in shower, Give tidal wave surfing a shot. Or locating Frankenstein’s brain Or nan'bot creation attain Or continent painting Find dodos remain(t)ing Or driving our sister insane You see that the list is quite tall Of things to be done ‘fore this fall So with no more fuss Just stick here with us Cause Phineas and Ferb do it all!

The thing society as a whole doesn’t understand about nature is that absolutely nothing is just a worm or just a bug or just a plain little fish that does nothing but swim around and eat until it dies. Every single animal has a complicated life and habits. Minnows make nests out of pebbles. Slugs have courtship rituals. Fruit flies have territorial battles and when they can’t get laid they become alcoholics all in those few days that they even exist on earth. Just the functions of the different body parts of a dust mite can fill a lecture and we still don’t completely understand everything about its life habits or its biochemistry.

Every time someone refers to dinosaurs as "lizards", when a) dinosaurs are archosaurs, not anywhere closely related to lizards in the slightest (birds, however, ARE a form of dinosaur) and b) lizards are their own uniquely adapted thing that isn't just "generic reptile", I take 260 million points of damage you know, the amount of time its been since dinosaurs and lizards shared a common ancestor

I think that's my cue...

What I Read: DEI

My Rational Brain: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The Rest of my Brain: ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪

Prehistoric Planet S2 was amazing. Everything I could have hoped for after s1. I literally only have two critiques:

which, in the grand scheme of the universe, is a very reasonable request list

I’m memorizing the Greater Bug Phylogeny. the sister group to insects has 60 legs and only lives in saltwater caves. the sister group to insects + 60 legs guy is water flea (crowd cheers)

"Do you ever dream of land?" The whale asks the tuna.

"No." Says the tuna, "Do you?"

"I have never seen it." Says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it."

"Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it."

"There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." Says the whale.

"They will disappear." Says the tuna, "one day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."

"Maybe I don't want to forget," Says the whale, "The forests were once my home."

"I have seen the forests." Whispers the salmon, almost to itself.

"Tell me what you have seen," says the whale.

"The forests spawned me." Says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."

"Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" Asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own."

"You forget," says the salmon, "That the oceans were once their home."