Discovery reveals giant flying squirrel once soared over Southern Appalachia
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-discovery-reveals-giant-flying-squirrel.html paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10914-025-09751-w

"A giant #FlyingSquirrel—about the size of today's house cats—once soared through the skies over what is now Southern #Appalachia, gliding above #rhinos, #mastodons and red #pandas... closest relatives are the giant #FlyingSquirrels in Japan, China and Indonesia... somehow they crossed the Bering Land Bridge alongside other #mammals about 5 million years ago."

A Monochrome Wash Highlighted #IndianMiniaturePainting with Gold & Touches of Body Colour, known as #NimQalam style (Half-pen), of '#Mughal ruler #Akbar on a Hunting Trip' in this c1600 #Painting from #Agra #India & now at Victoria & Albert #Museum London and unfortunately, not on view at their exhibition 'The Great Mughals...'
#MughalEAzam

Max’s Mobile Museum #M3 is out for the 2nd time in two days, this time at San Jacinto Elementary. We’re showing the differences between American & Pacific mastodons. The femur of Pacific mastodons (on the right) are visibly more robust than in American mastodons (on the left).

It's the penultimate day of our focus week. Today we ask for your #animals in archives! Bonus points if you have any mastodons...

To kick us off here is a lovely cat called Bunch looking after Alice Laden, who worked as the housekeeper for playwright (and co-founded of LSE) George Bernard Shaw.

#EYAanimals #animals #cats #dogs #elephants #mastodons @histodons @archivistodon #libraries #archives #GLAM

Eeek. It’s depressing how quickly #Bluesky is becoming transphobic af ngl. Soooo many trump supporters are flooding in.

This is why I prefer #Mastodons way of federation. I’ve literally only come across 3 or 4 MAGA fuckwits in the last 2 years, let alone the last day.

From last October. The pods were still hanging on the honey locust tree because the large Ice Age mammals that used to eat them and spread the seeds just never come around anymore. I read but haven’t tested it that the stuff inside the pods around the seeds is sweeter than honey (not recommended b/c I don’t know if it’s toxic). Someone had a sweet tooth and it seems to be mastodons. Traces of these pods have been found in their manure. 1/2 #mastodons #mastodons #trees #anachronisms

A little known piece of John Mastodon lore; before he got into social media,
he took his shot at competing with the Ninja Turtles with
'Mastodons: The First Encounter' on VHS in 1997.

https://youtu.be/AXU3BC9Zie4?si=dBcj5YPlv6w68Td7

A word on my avatar: it's a Rock #Hyrax. Hyrax species are common in the ME and east & southern Africa. They are mentioned in documents from 2,000 years ago, including the Hebrew bible.

While they might look like marmots, they are more closely related to #elephants and, yes, #mastodons. They even have little tusks! They are herbivores with 3 stomachs, and they gain their digestive microbiome as babies by consuming the droppings of the adults.

More hyrax fun:

https://www.wired.com/2014/01/the-creature-feature-10-fun-facts-about-the-rock-hyrax-or-are-you-ready-to-rock-hyrax/