Declan Rourke

A fun piece of Trivia about Coelophysis is it’s one of two dinosaurs that has been to space

Happy #FossilFriday here is Coelophysis! A genus of Triassic dinosaur that lived in what is now New Mexico. Coelophysis is one of the best sampled dinosaur genera with dozens of individuals discovered from the Ghost Ranch locality in New Mexico.

Happy #fossilfriday here is the spectacular Dire Wolf wall at the La Brea Tar pits Museum

Very sad news in Paleo, Hans Dieter-Sues passed away today. Hans was a phenomenal Paleontologist and wonderful person who will be dearly missed

Terrible news that Hans-Dieter Sues has died. Way too young.
Hans (on the right) & Sasha Averianov (left) invited me to study Timurlengia with them. I'll always appreciate it.
Hans was eminent, always nice and cheerful to me, a man of ethics and faith. RIP.

Art by Julius Csotonyi

Happy #FossilFriday here is Microraptor a genus a Dromaeosaur from the early Cretaceous of China. A unique feature of Microraptor is the presence of flight feathers on the legs in addition to the arms.

Earth-size planet spotted with yearlong orbit

Astronomers are planning ambitious telescopes to search for signs of life on distant planets.

A newly discovered world might just be the perfect target. Learn more: https://scim.ag/3Z75OMi

Happy #FossilFriday here is Mesosaurus tenuidens a genus of Aquatic para reptile from the early Permian of South Africa and South America. Mesosaurus fossils were instrument in proving continental drift as remains were found in two widely separated regions

Happy #FossilFriday here is Beelzebufo ampinga an extinct genus of Hyloid frog from the late Cretaceous of Madagascar. Beelzebufo was the largest frog to ever live with an estimated size of 42 cm and likely preyed on juvenile dinosaurs.

Exciting work, congratulations!

A shake-up of the dinosaur family tree! Rhabdodontids are not ornithopods. They are ceratopsians.

There were horned dinosaurs in Europe! As shown by a new fossil of Ajkaceratops from Hungary!

Check out our new study, led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social ⤵️

A #PrehistoricPlanet Christmas, borrowed from jurassic_world_clipz on TikTok :) Merry Christmas everyone!

Sketch showing a pair of undetermined microraptorine dinosaurs perched on a branch with some snow falling down

I want to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays with this quick sketch of two Microraptorine dinosaurs in the snow ❄️. I hope everybody is having a great day and enjoying the presents! 🎁 🎄 🎅

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Second #FossilFriday post, I also got to see the very cool Polycotylid Plesiosaur that is on display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles county that has a fetus preserved (see the second photo for a closer look

Happy #FossilFriday this week I got to visit the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County to look at the Maastrichtian Struthiomimus that is on display. I also got to see the rest of the dinosaur gallery which is spectacular!

Volume renderings of CT scan data of the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus lancensis (CMNH 7541). The top image is mostly a left lateral view. The bottom image is a ventral view showing the caudal half of the hyoid bone preserved in place.

Additional images (all in ventral view) of the holotype skull of Nanotyrannus lancensis (CMNH 7541). The top right image is from the original 1946 article by Charles Gilmore showing the full ceratobranchial hyoid bone in place. The bottom photograph (that I snapped in 2005 when I had the skull on loan for study & CT scanning) shows the caudal half of the hyoid bone preserved in place. The top left image is similar to the bottom image but is grayscale except for the hyoid bone.

The main photograph (again, that I snapped in 2005 when I had the skull on loan for study & CT scanning) shows the caudal half of the hyoid bone of Nanotyrannus (CMNH 7541) preserved in place, but it's more of a front view. Notice the broken end of the ceratobranchial in a close-up in the inset.

#FossilFriday The awesome new article in Science by
@griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social et al. adds more evidence for the validity of Nanotyrannus by showing that the hyoid bone in the holotype has adult bone histology. Here are some more images showing the ceratobranchial bone in place in the skull. 🦖

Image credit Apple TV

Female Dinornis on the right. Male Dinornis on the left

Happy #fossilfriday here is Dinornis a genus of Giant Moa that lived in New Zeland until as recently as the 1500s. Dinornis itself was the tallest bird to ever live with females standing 10 feet tall, a phenomenon known as reverse sexual dimorphism. #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge

#FossilFriday here is a Triceratops skeleton on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum

Another SVP meeting in the books. It was a success and a great time #2025svp

Thanks to everyone who turned up bright and early for my #2025SVP talk. Glad to see some love for the gomphs!

Thank you to everyone who visited my poster yesterday. Looking forward to a great rest of the conference! :) #2025SVP

Plastic by New Order

Happy #FossilFriday Here is Temnodontosaurus trigonodon a genus of Ichthyosaur from the Early Jurassic of Europe. A notable feature of Temnodontosaurus was its incredibly large eyes the largest of any known vertebrate.

Here you go. Note: it is still the unformatted version!
Zanno, L.E., Napoli, J.G. Nanotyrannus and Tyrannosaurus coexisted at the close of the Cretaceous. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

For those who are attending SVP this year. Feel free to stop by my poster #SVP2025

Anyways that’s all for now. Figured I’d add an introduction. #paleontology

I mostly joined Bluesky just for networking purposes since a fair number of paleo people tend to use to use blue sky as well as Twitter (or in some cases use bluesky more)

Hello! My name is Declan Rourke I am a Paleontology Masters Student in the Currie lab at the University of Alberta. I currently study North American Ornithomimid Taxonomy. Some of you may already know me from Instagram (@rourkedeclan) and Twitter (declan@ualberta).