Caitlín R. Kiernan
@caitlinrkiernan.bsky.social
Paleontologist & two-time World Fantasy Award winning F&SF author. McWane Science Center & University of Alabama research associate (mosasaurs, turtles, PETM). Humanist. Classical liberal. Irish Appalachian. Math nerd. Anti-fascist. LGBTQ+ They/them.
A beautifully preserved bothremydid turtle from the Late Cretaceous Mooreville chalk of west Ala. We collected it in the late 1990s, and it's now on display at @Mcwane
w/many more wonderful fossils. (The specimen was found lying on its back plastron up.) Splendid specimen.
w/many more wonderful fossils. (The specimen was found lying on its back plastron up.) Splendid specimen.
August 3, 2025 at 1:57 PM
A beautifully preserved bothremydid turtle from the Late Cretaceous Mooreville chalk of west Ala. We collected it in the late 1990s, and it's now on display at @Mcwane
w/many more wonderful fossils. (The specimen was found lying on its back plastron up.) Splendid specimen.
w/many more wonderful fossils. (The specimen was found lying on its back plastron up.) Splendid specimen.
Quite small in most mosasaurs, in Plioplatecarpus the frontoparietal formamen is HUGE. What exactly were these beasts up to with that so-called "third eye"? Very much at the center of my current research.
July 5, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Quite small in most mosasaurs, in Plioplatecarpus the frontoparietal formamen is HUGE. What exactly were these beasts up to with that so-called "third eye"? Very much at the center of my current research.
"Yes, you did! Yes, you did, Brett!" (Where's Jules Winnfield when you need him?)
July 3, 2025 at 3:17 PM
"Yes, you did! Yes, you did, Brett!" (Where's Jules Winnfield when you need him?)
Marvelous healed injuries on the skull of the holotype of Ectenosaurus tlemonectes, indicating the muzzle having been bitten and the whole skull being subjected to considerable toque. Photo shows anterior of a dentary, severely injured. These paethologies were discussed in the first paper.
July 1, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Marvelous healed injuries on the skull of the holotype of Ectenosaurus tlemonectes, indicating the muzzle having been bitten and the whole skull being subjected to considerable toque. Photo shows anterior of a dentary, severely injured. These paethologies were discussed in the first paper.
Trying to finish my 2nd paper on Ectenosaurus tlemonectes, which I named in 2023. This study will look closely at the basicranium and explore the possibility, suggested in the holotype description, that the specimen represents not E., but a closely related taxon. Exciting stuff.
June 29, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Trying to finish my 2nd paper on Ectenosaurus tlemonectes, which I named in 2023. This study will look closely at the basicranium and explore the possibility, suggested in the holotype description, that the specimen represents not E., but a closely related taxon. Exciting stuff.
A cool bit of biology. Only recently did I learn my green eyes were scarce.
June 22, 2025 at 2:44 PM
A cool bit of biology. Only recently did I learn my green eyes were scarce.
Don't miss out on the BRIGHT DEAD STAR special running in our shop. Books + monster doodles! Only two sets remaining! Figbash says "Snoozers are losers."
dreamingsquidsundries.bigcartel.com/product/brig...
dreamingsquidsundries.bigcartel.com/product/brig...
June 21, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Don't miss out on the BRIGHT DEAD STAR special running in our shop. Books + monster doodles! Only two sets remaining! Figbash says "Snoozers are losers."
dreamingsquidsundries.bigcartel.com/product/brig...
dreamingsquidsundries.bigcartel.com/product/brig...
"Nature has no reverence towards life. Nature treats life as though it were the most valueless thing in the world. Nature does not act by purposes."
~ Erwin Schrödinger
~ Erwin Schrödinger
June 20, 2025 at 5:13 PM
"Nature has no reverence towards life. Nature treats life as though it were the most valueless thing in the world. Nature does not act by purposes."
~ Erwin Schrödinger
~ Erwin Schrödinger
Mosasaurs are showing up everywhere!
June 17, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Mosasaurs are showing up everywhere!
Just because my thing is Cretaceous marine reptiles, namely mosasaurs and turtles, doesn't me I can't have some love for the Pleistocene megafauna. Here, remains of a Megalonyx jeffersonii I helped excavate from a cave in NE AL. way back in 1983. We found at least a dozen sloths in one cave.
June 9, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Just because my thing is Cretaceous marine reptiles, namely mosasaurs and turtles, doesn't me I can't have some love for the Pleistocene megafauna. Here, remains of a Megalonyx jeffersonii I helped excavate from a cave in NE AL. way back in 1983. We found at least a dozen sloths in one cave.
My very first dinosaur. On a second-grade field trip in 1972 to what was then the Jacksonville Children’s Museum (now MOSH) I saw this Allosaurus skeleton. I was already in love with paleontology, but this specimen might have sealed he deal. I believe it's still on display.
June 7, 2025 at 5:13 PM
My very first dinosaur. On a second-grade field trip in 1972 to what was then the Jacksonville Children’s Museum (now MOSH) I saw this Allosaurus skeleton. I was already in love with paleontology, but this specimen might have sealed he deal. I believe it's still on display.
The largest mosasaur I have ever personally found. A single caudle vertebra from a VERY large Tylosaurus (Mooreville Chalk Fm., Greene County, Ala.). Me, for scale.
June 6, 2025 at 1:33 PM
The largest mosasaur I have ever personally found. A single caudle vertebra from a VERY large Tylosaurus (Mooreville Chalk Fm., Greene County, Ala.). Me, for scale.
I spoke yesterday of the beautiful symmetry of the squamate quadrate. At the moment, plioplatecarpine quadrates are very much front and center in my research. A fine selection from Alabama (though the two plaster casts is a Kansas specimen).
June 4, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I spoke yesterday of the beautiful symmetry of the squamate quadrate. At the moment, plioplatecarpine quadrates are very much front and center in my research. A fine selection from Alabama (though the two plaster casts is a Kansas specimen).
I feel as if this really is a golden age of popular paleontology books. Too many to name them all, but here are five of my recent favorites.
June 4, 2025 at 4:45 PM
I feel as if this really is a golden age of popular paleontology books. Too many to name them all, but here are five of my recent favorites.
New short-story collection BRIGHT DEAD STAR out from @subpress.bsky.social. As is often the case there are questions about why I chose a title. Direct inspiration was a track off Current 93's The Light Is Leaving Us All, also a line from Donna Tart's Secret History (quoted in the book). & astronomy.
June 3, 2025 at 6:06 PM
New short-story collection BRIGHT DEAD STAR out from @subpress.bsky.social. As is often the case there are questions about why I chose a title. Direct inspiration was a track off Current 93's The Light Is Leaving Us All, also a line from Donna Tart's Secret History (quoted in the book). & astronomy.
Splendid geometric symmetry in the quadrate of mosasaurs, key to the anatomic marvel of streptostly. Ubiquitous in mosasaurs & enabling, in combination w/cranial kinesis, mandiblular retraction, assisting in forcing prey into throat "w/out the aid of gravity, claws, or some solid point of leverage."
June 3, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Splendid geometric symmetry in the quadrate of mosasaurs, key to the anatomic marvel of streptostly. Ubiquitous in mosasaurs & enabling, in combination w/cranial kinesis, mandiblular retraction, assisting in forcing prey into throat "w/out the aid of gravity, claws, or some solid point of leverage."
I'd planned my next paper to be a description of a new plioplatecarpin, but my beloved Ectenosaurus tlemonectes is calling me back for a closer look at its neurocranium & teeth, plus a reassessment of its taxonomy & phylogenetic position. I hope ms. will be done by the end of '25 & appear in '26
June 2, 2025 at 5:56 PM
I'd planned my next paper to be a description of a new plioplatecarpin, but my beloved Ectenosaurus tlemonectes is calling me back for a closer look at its neurocranium & teeth, plus a reassessment of its taxonomy & phylogenetic position. I hope ms. will be done by the end of '25 & appear in '26
My two most recent books, the collection Bright Dead Star and the novella Zoetrope Bizarre, are now available from Subterranean Press: subterraneanpress.com/kiernan-bds/ Not too late to order your copies.
June 1, 2025 at 7:45 PM
My two most recent books, the collection Bright Dead Star and the novella Zoetrope Bizarre, are now available from Subterranean Press: subterraneanpress.com/kiernan-bds/ Not too late to order your copies.
Little mosasaur premaxilla I collected Tombigbee Sand (latest Santonian-earliest Santonian) at Catoma Creek, Montgomery AL. Either halisaurimorph or plioplatecarpine. Found at the Eotrachodon type locality. Mosasaurs, elasmosaurs, dinosaurs, marine and freshwater turtles, sharks & bony fish, crocs.
June 1, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Little mosasaur premaxilla I collected Tombigbee Sand (latest Santonian-earliest Santonian) at Catoma Creek, Montgomery AL. Either halisaurimorph or plioplatecarpine. Found at the Eotrachodon type locality. Mosasaurs, elasmosaurs, dinosaurs, marine and freshwater turtles, sharks & bony fish, crocs.