Jeanne Timmons
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mostlymammoths.bsky.social
Jeanne Timmons
@mostlymammoths.bsky.social
2.2K followers 420 following 4.4K posts
Freelance writer (she/her) interested in paleontology and archaeology. Avatar by Natalia Jagielska.
https://mostlymammoths.wordpress.com/freelance-work/
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mostlymammoths.bsky.social
Some of the many visitors to the feeder (and make-shift bird bath) outside my window at work 🪶🐿️
A downy woodpecker peeks around the side of the green cylindrical feeder in a bush. The branches have no leaves, so the ground below is visible. A squirrel caught in the midst of curling back up the branch near the feeder (it was hanging upside down two seconds before the shot). Two blue jays - one perched on the side of a glass bowl filled with water, some of it ice; the other standing near the bowl.
November 20, 2025 at 2:16 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
I adore chickadees. ❤️🪶
A black-capped chickadee perches on a green cylindrical feeder hanging from a Buch. The picture was taken through a screen window, so there are traces of the screen throughout the picture.
November 19, 2025 at 12:17 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
Where I would like to be now 🚲
An expanse of blue sky and lots of clouds over a field and distant forest on the side of a bike path. (Taken when there were leaves still on the trees.)
November 18, 2025 at 12:56 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
The team also found evidence of metabolic cell stress in Yuka's muscle tissue, which seems to support being attacked by large predators, but how Yuka died is still unknown. 🦣
Screenshot of text: Screenshot of text: What the team saw in Yuka's muscle RNA reflects the potential horror of its last moments. Mármol Sánchez explained that they uncovered "molecular evidence of metabolic cell stress in Yuka's muscle," which corresponds with what a separate scientific team described in 2021. In that study, the researchers noted many claw marks that may have been made by cave lions (Panthera spelaea), as well as bite marks from smaller predators on the mammoth's body and tail. But whether Yuka was hunted and killed by large predators or simply scavenged after death is unknown. The researchers do not know what caused the cell stress observed in the RNA.
November 14, 2025 at 10:54 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
Yuka--named for the people who discovered it from the village of Yukagir--produced the best results. Remarkably, their research contradicts what its physical attributes suggests: male genetics, but possible female morphology.

(📸. from: www.livescience.com/48625-mummy-...)
The somewhat squashed-looking carcass of Yuka, a well-preserved juvenile mammoth with ginger-colored hair on its legs, but not much of its torso in this picture.
November 14, 2025 at 10:48 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
A better picture of a downy woodpecker when leaves were still on the bush. 🪶
A beautiful black and white downy woodpecker (with a speck of red on its head) hangs from the bottom of the feeder in a bush. Nearby leaves are mostly greens, with a few pink. Pink leaves blanket the ground below.
November 13, 2025 at 1:57 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
I see you, downy woodpecker.🪶
Peering out behind a green cylindrical feeder is the head and torso of a downy woodpecker. A large part of the window frame is on the right.
November 13, 2025 at 1:55 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
There were six blue jays outside my window at work at times throughout the day. I couldn't get a picture of all of them (they moved too fast, hopping across the ground, leaping from branch to branch and feeder and then to the ground again). 🪶
A blue jay perched on the green cylindrical feeder hanging from a branch in the bush, and another blue jay on a nearby branch. The bush is almost bare of leaves. Two blues jays eat the seeds and nuts scattered on the ground.
November 13, 2025 at 1:54 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
First light flurries of the season today (which didn't stick and aren't visible in these shots). ❄️

Great time to get in a bike ride. 💙🚲
November 11, 2025 at 8:02 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
Love this and the video and text on the link provided. ❤️🦏🦓
Screenshot of text: The unlikely pair bonded instantly. Notty and Tytan do everything together: They have their bottles side by side, they browse quietly in the forest as a duo, they even sleep in adjacent stockades. When Tytan has his mud bath — an activity he enjoys enormously — Notty stands off to the side, basking in the muddy spray. Where one goes, the other follows.
November 9, 2025 at 4:10 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
“While some species evolved defenses to avoid these insects, others took the opposite approach — if you can’t beat them, eat them.” @haidomyrmex.bsky.social 🐜
Screenshot of text: Today, ants and termites number over 15,000 species with a combined biomass exceeding all living wild mammals, but in the Cretaceous, they made up less than 1% of insects on Earth. Numbers did not reach modern levels until the Miocene ~23 million years ago, when they rose to 35% of all insect specimens, Barden says. “It’s not clear exactly why ants and termites both took off around the same time. Some work has implicated the rise of flowering plants, along with some of the planet’s warmest temperatures during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 55 million years ago,” Barden explained. “What is clear is that their sheer biomass set off a cascade of evolutionary responses across plants and animals.”
November 9, 2025 at 3:33 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
SO OFFENSIVE
Screenshot of text: On Thursday, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen had downplayed the impact of paused SNAP benefits on families in his state, saying, “Nobody’s going to go hungry.” Pillen, a Republican and multimillionaire, said food pantries, churches and other charitable services will fill in the gap for SNAP recipients.
November 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
"They are very comfortable bedfellows because once you have created a culture in which all expertise is denigrated and removed from the equation and considered nonessential, you create the circumstances in which AI can flourish." @maggietokudahall.bsky.social
Screenshot of text: “One thing that I try to make clear any time I talk about book bans is that it’s not about the books, it’s about deputizing bigots to do the ugly work of defunding all of our public institutions of learning,” Maggie Tokuda-Hall, a cofounder of Authors Against Book Bans, told me. “The current proliferation of AI that we see particularly in the library and education spaces would not be possible at the speed and scale that is happening without the precedent of book bans leading into it. They are very comfortable bedfellows because once you have created a culture in which all expertise is denigrated and removed from the equation and considered nonessential, you create the circumstances in which AI can flourish.”
November 7, 2025 at 12:34 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
❤️🦣🐘🦥🦏 The trailer for Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7kv...
An adult or a subadult proboscidean w/a baby in tow in a jungle. Baby mammoth being caressed by the trunk of an adult woolly. The background is an icy, snowy landscape. Giant ground sloths with lots of white/brown hair in the snow. one is sliding down on its back; the other is walking down hill with a baby clinging to its back. Woolly rhinos in a snowy forest.
November 7, 2025 at 12:05 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
"...the fed gov is 'directing states to use the most complex & labor-intensive approach possible,' according to a bluntly worded letter sent...by Pennsylvania Human Services Secretary Val Arkoosh to [USDA]..." - Kate Giammarise @wesa.fm

www.wesa.fm/politics-gov...
November 6, 2025 at 11:41 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
"Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett had nothing — not a word — to say about [the harm this will inflict] when allowing the Trump administration to implement its policy." @chrisgeidner.bsky.social
Screenshot of text: Cases, including the classwide injunction at issue here, followed, with the policy being blocked in two different courts — due to the strength of the legal case made by the trans and nonbinary plaintiffs and the harm they showed they would face if Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department were allowed to enforce the policy. And yet, on Thursday, at least five of the six Republican appointees on the court — none of the six wrote anything, or stated their vote publicly — rejected all of that in an appallingly dismissive, horrifyingly abrupt order.
November 6, 2025 at 11:32 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
GORGEOUS artwork by Guilherme Gehr.

#ichnology #Brasil
From paper: Fig. 3 - Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Botucatu paleodesert (Early Cretaceous, Berriasian-Barremian). The trackmaker of Farlowichnus rapidus Leonardi et al., 2024 has found a prey, namely, a specimen of the Brasilichnium elusivum Leonardi, 1981c trackmaker, which had unwisely ventured out of its den. The scene is depicted as occurring under the moonlight, as the best tracks were likely impressed at night, when the substrate was slightly moist with dew. Art by Guilherme Gehr.
November 6, 2025 at 2:24 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
California voters approve new US House map to boost Democrats in 2026

apnews.com/article/cali...
Screenshot of text: LOS ANGELES (AP) — California voters approved new congressional district boundaries Tuesday, delivering a victory for Democrats in the state-by-state redistricting battle that will help determine which party wins control of the U.S. House in 2026 and, with it, the power to thwart or advance President Donald Trump’s agenda. The approval of Proposition 50 gives Democrats a shot at winning as many as five additional seats, just enough to blunt Texas Republicans’ move to redraw their own maps to pick up five GOP seats at Trump’s urging. Texas’ move and California’s response have kicked off a flurry of redistricting efforts around the country, with Republican states appearing to have an edge. Deeply blue California is Democrats’ best opportunity to make up seats.
November 5, 2025 at 4:10 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
From trace to trace maker: Oligocene–Miocene coprolites of southern #Poland and their potential producers

Tomasz Brachaniec​, Dorota Środek, Mateusz Salamon, Michał Bugajski, Piotr Duda, Adam Danielak, Magdalena Janiszewska, Grzegorz Sadlok, Wojciech Kuśnierczyk

peerj.com/articles/202...
From paper: "Figure 5: BSE images showing unidentified fossil bone remains embedded with in coprolite matrix from Miocene of the Menilite-Krosno Series of the Outer Carpathians (GIUS 10–3796/M/33 and 34 respectively). (A) T he coprolite/matrix boundary and the surrounding sediment, with bone fragments visible in both. (B) Remains of different morphology. (C–E) Close-ups of selected fossilized fragments. Scale bars 200 um."
November 4, 2025 at 12:50 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
💙🚲
The curve of a bike path with trees on either side (mostly bare or pine) and a view to the river below. The sun is shining in a deep blue sky with clouds, seen through the tree branches.
November 4, 2025 at 3:34 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
“Each type of fossil has a different story to tell, and these stories complement each other, helping us to reconstruct a more accurate picture of the past. Paleontologists need all these pieces to reconstruct the history of life.” @alinemghilardi.bsky.social
Screenshot of text: “We do not know the identity of the producers of these pellets,” said Alberto Collareta, a co-author and paleontologist at the University of Pisa, “but we know that their behavior has proved quite successful.” In other words, the same type and shape of micro-coprolites have been found in similar tight spaces for hundreds of millions of years. Although large fossils get considerable attention in paleontology, “fossils of tiny organisms, however, often have much more to say,” said Aline Ghilardi, a paleontology professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil who was not involved in the research. She says that smaller creatures and what they leave behind — burrows or bodily waste — can provide detailed stories about environmental changes over time. “Each type of fossil has a different story to tell, and these stories complement each other, helping us to reconstruct a more accurate picture of the past,” she said. “Paleontologists need all these pieces to reconstruct the history of life.”
November 3, 2025 at 11:47 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
💙🚲
Bike path filled with dead leaves surrounded by mostly golden-leaved trees
November 3, 2025 at 12:38 AM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
💙🚲
Leaf-littered path the curves to the right. Trees with brown/yellow/orangey leaves are on the right, a reddish-pink bush and pines are on the left. Cloudy blue sky above.
November 1, 2025 at 8:34 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
Today's bike ride. 💙🚲
Bright blue sky with clouds over a bike path littered with fallen leaves. The trees with leaves remaining are brownish orange. A reddish pink bush is on the left. Looking up at a row of tall pines with blue sky and clouds behind them. View to a small, sloping mountain in the distance (with colorful trees--largely yellows and oranges mixed in with pines). A green field is in the foreground (along with bare trees). The blue sky with big white clouds is above. View to the river below through largely bare trees. A forest is on the other side.
November 1, 2025 at 8:31 PM
mostlymammoths.bsky.social
The view outside my window at work: lots of pink!
An open window onto a bush with red and pink leaves and a green cylindrical bird feeder hanging form the branches. Red and pink leaves blanket the ground outside.
November 1, 2025 at 1:46 AM