John Orcutt & the student researchers of GU's paleobiology lab studies morphology and ecology across time (and posts more often with the same handle elsewhere)
Spokane, WA
Joined November 2021
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As a paleontologist visiting 🇦🇷, naturally I had to go to Patagonia, but I wasn't expecting to see my first fossils in the airport! The only downside is that the @mefpatagonia that made these exhibits is closed for renovation, and now I know what I'm missing!
This #FossilFriday finds me in 🇦🇷, so let's celebrate a paleontological celebrity. Megatherium, the elephant-sized sloth of the Pampas seen here in the @museodelaplata & Museo Rivadavia, inspired Darwin and was the face of paleontology long before the word 'dinosaur' was coined.
I spent this week in Chicago, so I'm celebrating #FossilFriday with the Illinois State Fossil from the @FieldMuseum. The "Tully monster" is common in the Mazon Creek lagerstätte, but what exactly is it? We still don't know, one of the many fascinating things about this animal!
When at the @FieldMuseum, it's always nice to see a fellow Washingtonian. The museum's Columbian mammoth was found in the Palouse in 1876. If you're wondering how it wound up in Chicago, Jack Nisbett's 2001 @TheInlander article tells its mammoth saga.
inlander.com/news/the-palous…
After a decade (?!?) away, it's so exciting to be back in the @FieldMuseum collections looking at predatory mammals big and small.
With @napc2024 happening in the Wolverine State, how could we not have a session on carnivorous mammals? Join us from 8-3 on Friday in (where else) the Wolverine room and at our evening poster session to hear about the latest work on everything from cats to whales to hedgehogs.
Hey, @Napc2024 attendees! If you're enjoying the fossil trading cards from @PRInstitution as much us, come find my students and I and let's make a trade! I'm looking to unload duplicates of Bivalve and Tabulate Coral at the moment!
It's always fun to find yourself in a fossil collection on #FossilFriday, especially when you stumble across a specimen as spectacular as the holotype of Sciurus olsoni, a Miocene squirrel from Nevada, in the @UMichPaleo collections!
We concluded the Spokane @geosociety meeting today with a lovely paleontology trip to the Idaho Panhandle. Thanks so much to @EwuGeology for taking the lead on this fantastic conference and the @GeogUidaho folks who put today's trip together!
It was great to see so many @geosociety conference attendees at our lab posters yesterday, and even greater to see our @GonzagaU students knock their presentation of those posters out of the park!
Today it's my turn: if you're at the Spokane GSA, drop in at 10:20 to hear me talk about some smaller (but no less charismatic!) animals in 'Reconstructing burrowing behavior in the Mio-Pliocene squirrels of the Columbia Basin.'
What do these images have in common? They all appear on posters that lab students will be presenting today at the @geosociety meeting in Spokane! If you're at GSA, swing by between 4 and 5:30 to hear about their research!
Art: Charles R. Knight
Ringtail photo: @Mammalogists
I know I speak for every natural scientist across the Inland Northwest when I say what a thrill it is to be hosting the @geosociety this week! If you're in Spokane for GSA, join us in celebrating two major Earth Systems-relevant anniversaries! (1/3)
geosociety.org/GSA/GSA/Secti…
Also, to shamelessly plug a few favorite Downtown businesses, if you're looking for:
-Books, try @auntiesbooks
-Caffeine, try @AtticusCoffee, @indabacoffee, or @revival_tea
-Gifts & souvenirs, try From Here by @terrainspokane
2024 is the centenary of J Harlen Bretz's description of the Spokane (later Missoula) Floods. These Ice Age cataclysms shaped the landscape of the Inland Northwest and your best guide to the traces they left is the map published by the @IAFIorg. (2/3)
iafi.org/features-map/
Fifty years, Spokane hosted Expo '74, the only environment-themed world's fair. Its legacy was to reconnect a city and its river, and you can appreciate the Lilac City's hydrological heritage at the fairgrounds, now the incomparable @RiverfrontSpo. (3/3)
visitspokane.com/expo-50/