Jon Tennant

Rogue Palaeontologist, studying crocodiles, dinosaurs and mass extinctions. Freelance science communicator and open scholarlship consultant. Founder of digital publishing platform, paleorXiv, and the Open Science MOOC. Author of kids book, Excavate Dinosaurs!

34 million year old carnivore named after the Egyptian god of the Underworld

Posted January 26, 2018 by Jon Tennant in Jon Tennant, Mammals

0000-0001-7794-0218Naming a new species is a wonderful thing to do. It’s a statement that you’ve discovered an entirely new organism to science, and naming it is a personal touch about how you perceive the importance

Top 10 Open Access Fossil taxa of 2017: Borealopelta markmitchelli

Posted December 27, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Dinosaurs, Top 10

0000-0001-7794-0218The second ankylosaur in our Top 10 of 2017, Borealopelta markmitchelli, comes in at spot number 2! Weighing in at around 1300kg, about the same as an adult rhino, Borealopelta is one of the first

Top 10 Open Access Fossil taxa of 2017: Zuul crurivastator

Posted December 19, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Dinosaurs, Top 10

0000-0001-7794-0218“There is no Net Neutrality, only Zuul.” – Ajit Pai, December 2017. Tied in 4/5th place with nothing less than the world’s oldest fossil mushroom comes Zuul crurivastator, first named and described by by Victoria M.

Top 10 Open Access Fossil Taxa of 2017: Daspletosaurus horneri

Posted December 12, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Crocodilians, Dinosaurs, Jon Tennant, Top 10

0000-0001-7794-0218Tyrannosaurs – the weird lovers we always wanted them to be? Coming in at a tied 6/7th place for the Top 10 Open Access Fossil Taxa of 2017 is a dinosaur that needs no introduction. —————- Crocodiles

Top 10 Open Access Fossil Taxa of 2017: Isaberrysaura mollensis

Posted November 30, 2017 by Andrew Farke and Jon Tennant in Dinosaurs, Open Access, Top 10

0000-0001-7794-0218We’re continuing with our countdown of the Top 10 Open Access Fossil Taxa of 2017…here in the Number Nine Slot, we’ve got the dinosaur Isaberrysaura! This taxon was covered back in March by our own Jon

Was the ancestor of the giant sauropods a predator?

Posted October 9, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Dinosaurs

0000-0001-7794-0218How cool would it be to go back in time and see how dinosaurs behaved in real life?? I think most people who’ve seen Jurassic Park (the original one…) would agree this would be pretty

Life after death: Largest discovered Ichthyosaurus preserves a fossilised embryo

Posted September 18, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Marine Reptiles

0000-0001-7794-0218Ichthyosaurs, meaning ‘fish lizards’, are a bizarre group of ancient marine reptiles that went extinct around 90 million years ago. They looked suspiciously similar to dolphins, but are only very, very distantly related to the

South American caiman ancestor gulped its prey like a pelican

Posted August 29, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Archosaurs, Climate Change, Crocodilians, Jon Tennant

0000-0001-7794-0218Modern crocodiles and their ancestors, the crocodyliforms, have a weird and wonderful evolutionary history. If you look back in time through the fossil record, we see that we have a huge diversity of species with

Giant, bone-crushing croc was the top predator of its time

Posted July 10, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Crocodilians

0000-0001-7794-0218Imagine an armoured crocodile, 3 times the length of a human adult, and with a bulky head filled with razor sharp, bone crunching teeth. Now imagine that thing was very, very real. But thankfully, only

Let sleeping dragons lie

Posted May 17, 2017 by Jon Tennant in Dinosaurs

0000-0001-7794-0218Mistaken identity In Palaeontology, there is perhaps no greater story of an accidental mix-up than the story of Oviraptor. When this dinosaur was first discovered back in 1924, it was alongside a clutch of fossilised

Biology & Life Sciences

Earth & Environmental Sciences

Multi-disciplinary Sciences

Medicine & Health

Research Analysis & Scientific Policy

PLOS Paleo Community

Posts by Author