What's the Story Behind Your Screen Name

[Crusty_Crab]

Crabs are hilarious. If there is a grand design to life, the first step to understanding it is carcinization. I've always loved crabs because they made me laugh. Most animals walk along the Anterior-Posterior axis (front-back). Crabs generally don't. And they do it while holding up ridiculously menacing claws to warn you off laughing at their wildly comedic stance. The fact that nature has done this independently at least 5 times makes sure you know they have a sense of humor and its not an accident. I find nature more comforting and relatable knowing it has a sense of humor. 

[Wrangellian]

I'm a denizen of the Wrangellia (pronounced with a hard 'g') terrane, one of the 'exotic' terranes that were not geologically part of North America originally, until it got stuck on about 100M years ago. It's named for the Wrangell Mtns of Alaska which are part of it, but the biggest chunk of it is Vancouver Island, and is clearly distinct in a geological map like the one in my avatar. We're all still a little different here on V.I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangellia_Terrane

[Nimravis]

I collect Mazon Creek, but I also collect White River Oligocene fossils. 30 some odd years ago I came back from a trip to South Dakota with a portion of a lower jaw of a mammal with one tooth. I took it to the Field Museum and a member of the paleontology department ID’d it as belonging to a “false” saber cat, “Nimravus”. I really liked the name and decided to use it for the Forum. Unfortunately, I did not notice that I had spelled it wrong (Nimravis) at the time that I joined. I just decided to leave it be.

[Baking Geologist]

3 hours ago, Crusty_Crab said:

Crabs are hilarious. If there is a grand design to life, the first step to understanding it is carcinization. I've always loved crabs because they made me laugh. Most animals walk along the Anterior-Posterior axis (front-back). Crabs generally don't. And they do it while holding up ridiculously menacing claws to warn you off laughing at their wildly comedic stance. The fact that nature has done this independently at least 5 times makes sure you know they have a sense of humor and its not an accident. I find nature more comforting and relatable knowing it has a sense of humor. 

I don’t know, the crabs in that Australian commercial did a good job on the seagull 🤣

[Caverat]

Caverat comes from an experience I had in Mammoth Cave National Park. I was (am) part of the Cave Research Foundation. We do cave research mostly in the United States, but elsewhere in the world as well. I was on a trip into Floyd Collins Crystal Cave in the park. The entrance was gated with the original oak door and a steel chain from its early commercial cave days - the National Park Service owned the land and closed it to all except authorized research. Our trip was doing some mapping and the trip leader placed the gate key under a piece of breakdown. When we returned after several hours exploring and mapping, the key was no longer there! We searched the breakdown and nothing... then we saw a packrat (caverat) sitting on its haunches watching us. We tried to find its nest, but only found old nests with tinfoil, flashbulbs, anything shiny! It had taken the key and we were stuck inside the cave at 2:00 AM until one of the surface folks (who knew trip's objective) wondered why we weren't back! I decided on a self rescue and used a two inch pocket knife to whittle the door frame to release the chain. It took three hours, but at least we got out at dawn. The park service replaced the gate with a steel door. I've always associated that caverat with trying to anticipate the unexpected. 

[Mikrogeophagus]

Formerly EPIKLULSXDDDDD....

 

This thread got me thinking it's about time I ditched my old name for a better one. I originally chose it bc I was just looking for something dumb 😕.

 

My new user, Mikrogeophagus, is a lot better. The centerpiece fish in my aquarium belongs to this genus. As the name suggests, he goes around nipping and sifting the substrate, looking for little morsels of food. It recently occurred to me that I might like watching him so much bc I do the same thing. I am a micro collector, so picking up chunks of matrix and sifting for the tiny little good stuff is a favorite pastime. So, I thought the title of little earth eater would be a fitting one.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Now this is a fun thread!

 

When I had to pick a user name for TFF, I wanted a name that both expresses my love for and interest in marine reptiles, as well as one that wasn't a simple association with any single one of them in particular. As I found myself thinking about how to come up with a fictive marine reptile name, I realised that there's a rather high degree of recurring particles in real marine reptile names - especially in sauropterygia and ichthyopterygia, my two favourite grouping of marine reptiles. The most obvious particle to include was "odon", from "TemnODONtosaurus" and "LiopleurODON" fame, meaning "tooth" in Greek, as I'm primarily a tooth collector. "Pleuro" came rather naturally from "LioPLEUROdon" after that, through simple association. Which happened again with "pachy" coming from "PACHYpleurosauria" - with a nice addition being that it also refers to the pachyosticity of marine reptile bone. So now we have "pachypleurodon", which to my mind sounded too much like either a misconstrued "pachypleurosaur" or "liopleurodon". Thus, I added the "whatnot" and dashes to emphasise that my name is comprised of multiple commonly used particles found in binomial names, and that there are many others out there that could equally be used.

 

And, yes, I probably did spend an excessive amount of time coming up with this one 🫣

[ClearLake]

Very entertaining and informative thread!!  Mine is pretty simple, it’s the name of a place I have enjoyed and found totally relaxing since I was a kid. Now that I’m retired I can spend almost all summer there. My avatar is just a satellite photo of the lake. It really has nothing to do with fossils, but a lot to do with one of the other things I find enjoyable in life. 

[FF7_Yuffie]

I like Final Fantasy, and Yuffie was my favorite character lol.

 

Hated the remake version though.

[Psittacosaur9]

I named myself after Psittacosaurus as it is one of my favourite prehistoric animals, as I find its evolutionary position in the Ceratopsian family tree interesting, and the amount of knowledge we have about its soft tissue structures to be incredible. I honestly don't know exactly why I picked the number 9.

[DPS Ammonite]

12 minutes ago, Psittacosaur9 said:

I honestly don't know exactly why I picked the number 9.

Maybe you were the only fan of the Beatle’s song Revolution 9.

 

[musicnfossils]

I make music, and collect fossils. My two main hobbies. Seemed fitting to combine them as a username 

[Psittacosaur9]

1 hour ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Maybe you were the only fan of the Beatle’s song Revolution 9.

 

Funnily enough, I've never even heard of that song.