Paleobotanist 🍃🌲🌿⚒ Digs plants dead or alive; fossils, evolution, past ecosystems, nature stuff. Curator of Paleobotany @PerotMuseum of Nature and Science
Dallas, TX
Joined June 2013
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Palms in southern New Mexico during the Late Cretaceous (~75 million years ago)! Featuring a large Sabalites leaf during field excavation and a palm stump🌴. Fossils located in what is now the Chihuahuan desert 🌵. Life was different 🌴🌴🌴😃🥰 #FossilFriday #PlantFossil #Palm
Dori Contreras retweeted
Paper with @DLContreras and Chris Noto out in @JVP_vertpaleo for #FossilFriday! Say 'hello' to the left dentary of #Ampelognathus, a new, small, 96 million-year-old, plant-eating #dinosaur from north Texas. #paleontology #fossils @PerotMuseum
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…
Cool new fossil discoveries are just the tip of the iceberg of what modern paleontological research offers. Check out this article to get an idea of how studying the history of life on Earth is relevant to us today!
scientificamerican.com/artic… via @sciam
Dori Contreras retweeted
Back just in time for #FossilFriday after a dash to New Mexico with @DLContreras to check out #Cretaceous #fossil plant sites. Great prospects for future work. Plus, it's hard to beat the view when you unzip the tent door at sunrise! #paleontology @PerotMuseum
Dori Contreras retweeted
Conifer cones, a few cone like galls and seedpods of alnus, platycarya and casuarina
Dori Contreras retweeted
After 3 months of careful prep, this side of the new #Tylosaurus jaw is done just in time for #FossilFriday. Gorgeous #teeth and details preserved. On to the next block of this big #lizard ! #paleontology #fossils #mosasaurs @PerotMuseum
Dori Contreras retweeted
A @KU_EEB and @kunhm professor’s discovery of an 80-million-year-old fossil plant extends the record of nearly 40,000 species of flowering plants including modern-day staple crops like coffee and potatoes.
news.ku.edu/2023/02/07/fossi…
Dori Contreras retweeted
One of the most astounding features of the Clarkia Fossil Beds are its fossilized leaves momentarily retaining their autumn color. Once the leaves are exposed to the surface, the colors oxidize and fade.
#ClarkiaWeek #Paleontology
Dori Contreras retweeted
Webinar alert! Join @BioCollNetwork & @USCCN3 for a joint discussion on Feb 7 on the need for a Specimen Management Plan requirement in research proposals that generate living or preserved specimens. Register here: aibs.org/news/2022/221207-sp…
(Hosted by @AIBSbiology & @NSCAlliance).
Dori Contreras retweeted
What does it take to find fossils in the wild?
Follow along with Perot Museum paleontologists @Paleo_Tykoski and @DLContreras as they set out for Big Bend National Park in hopes of scientific discovery.
Full video below!
Dori Contreras retweeted
This #FossilFriday introducing Jarudia: Rethinking the corystosperm concept. @FieldMuseum #Paleobotany doi.org/10.1080/14772019.202…
Dori Contreras retweeted
The oldest walnut fossils come from the Clarno Nut Beds in Oregon. Juglans clarnensis dates to the Eocene time period about 44 million years ago.
#FossilFriday #FirstWeek
Check out these massive #Fossil logs that we ran across last week in Big Bend NP! 🌲 These giant trees lived near a river channel during the Late Cretaceous (🦖Aguja Fm). Here @Paleo_Tykoski records log size and geologic context. #FossilFriday #FossilPlants #Geology @PerotMuseum – at Texas, USA
Dori Contreras retweeted
Happy #FossilFriday y'all! Let's take a trip to the Permian Waggoner Ranch Fm site aptly nicknamed "blue truck site"
Originally collected by @NMNH and recently visited with @PerotMuseum, this site produces some real cuties - compressions/impressions as well as iron concretions
Dori Contreras retweeted
This big #hadrosaur tail vertebra was just one of a ton of fossils (mostly petrified wood & #dinosaurs) found by @DLContreras and me in the upper Aguja Fm of @BigBendNPS over the past couple of days! #FossilFriday #paleontology #fossils @PerotMuseum
Dori Contreras retweeted
Gone fishing for #FossilFriday. An amazing, 3-dimensionally preserved partial #Pachyrhizodus from the Britton Fm (Eagle Ford Group) south of Dallas, TX. In pretty good shape for being 93-94 million years old! Exhibited in @PerotMuseum. #paleontology #fossils #fish
We finally had a cool* morning so it was a great day to do some quick local fieldwork on the way to the lab. Among the things found was this adorable Cretaceous plant fossil! #FossilFriday #DFW #plantfossil @PerotMuseum
(*cool = below below 90° 😁)
Dori Contreras retweeted
80 million years ago, mosasaurs were the 'great white sharks' of the dinosaur era. The 30-foot marine lizards ate turtles, sharks and each other.
Last month, @PerotMuseum paleontologists excavated mosasaur bones from a creek bed 80 miles from Dallas.
dallasnews.com/news/2022/08/…
Dori Contreras retweeted
Featured today from #AppsPlantSci's Methods for Plant Leaf Measurements collection: #Paleobotany meets #digitization with this #fossil leaf #imaging workflow by @DLContreras bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.… #iamabotanist @wileyplantsci @PerotMuseum #botany
ALT The graphic shows a close up of a leaf, showing the primary and secondary venation. The text reads: “Methods for Plant Leaf Measurements: A curated collection of articles from Applications in Plant Sciences.” The Applications in Plant Sciences and Botanical Society of America logos are at the bottom of the graphic.