🚨BREAKING NEWS:
We got our first glimpse of the poster of #EvolutionWithChrisPackham !

Natural History Museum most popular tourist attraction in 2025 The venue broke the record for the most visitors to any museum or gallery in a single year.

Wonderful to see the Natural History Museum is as popular as ever! 💚

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A marketing poster showing illustrations of Jurassic monsters with text that says "Jurassic Oceans, monsters of the deep. How do you measure up against these life-size ferocious predators?"

Think you know the Jurassic period? Think again. 🌊

Announcing our new exhibition, Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep, opening 22 May 2026.

Find out more info and book your early bird tickets here: brnw.ch/21x0MBt

Few spaces left now so do hurry if you want to get involved in some #palaeontology fieldwork in the UK! This #Carboniferous site is already yielding great floral fossils & we’re hopeful to find some more faunal fossils soon!🤞

See below for more details ⬇️

#Fossils #Science #Research #Geology

Evolutionary radiation of large‐bodied gorgonopsians from the lower Abrahamskraal formation of South Africa The middle Permian represents a critical interval in therapsid evolution, when gorgonopsians emerged as some of the first specialized apex predators within terrestrial ecosystems. Despite their signi...

Macungo et al. present a new middle #Permian gorgonopsian, Jirahgorgon ceto, from the Abrahamskraal Fm of South Africa 🇿🇦 - its large size suggests the emergence of large #gorgonopsians earlier than expected!

🔗 anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

#Paleontology #Science #Synapsid

Delighted to see this paper from my former MSc student Elías Warshaw now published - Big Congrats to him on getting his dissertation published!👏👏👏
The study explores how constraints & ecology shaped Permian #synapsid skull #evolution ⬇️

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s42...

#Paleontology #Science

Excellent, very glad to hear that!

Thrilled to have been a scientific advisor for Netflix’s new show: #TheDinosaurs 🦖🦕

Grand to see it out & the positive reception - 💯% on Rotten Tomatoes shows the enduring appeal of dinosaurs & their ability to inspire interest in #Paleontology, #NaturalHistory & #Science.

#FossilFriday #SciComm

NHMLA has a student collections study award (deadline April 1) - nhm.org/student-coll.... NHM has great paleontology collections, AND it's near many other museums (Alf, San Bernardino Co. Museum, Western Center, Cooper Center, San Diego NHM), so a SoCal paleo trip can cover a lot of institutions!

Here’s the website with the event details:

www.geocollections.org/events/190-m...

Circular for new symposium on marine reptile palaeontology to be held at the Oxford Museum of Natural History between 7-8th October 2026. Abstract submission deadline: 1st June 2026.

🚨 Call for Abstracts 🚨
Abstract submission now open for a symposium meeting on #MarineReptile palaeontology hosted at @morethanadodo.bsky.social from 7-8th October 2026.
Abstract deadline: 1st June 2026

#Palaeontology #Science #SciComm

Osteology and relationships of a new shuvosaurid (Pseudosuchia, Poposauroidea) from the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation of Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, U.S.A. Shuvosauridae is a clade of pseudosuchian archosaurs currently represented by three named species characterized by a body plan strikingly convergent with that of ornithomimid theropod dinosaurs. Th...

Smith & Sidor present a new shuvosaurid, Sonselasuchus cedrus, from the Late #Triassic Chinle Fm. in Arizona 🇺🇸 & a mass assemblage of at least 36 individuals. Seems these crocodile-line ‘dinosaur mimics’ were quite abundant! ⬇️

#Paleontology #Fossils #Science

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

An aberrant stem tetrapod from the early Permian of Brazil Abstract. Early evolutionary history of tetrapods is typically divided into two major phases: an initial diversification of archaic stem tetrapod groups, a

Pardo et al. report a new stem tetrapod, Tanyka amnicola, from Brazil 🇧🇷 that survived into the early #Permian, with interesting implications for faunal #evolution across the Permo-Carboniferous in the Southern Hemisphere. ⬇️

#Paleontology #Fossils #Science

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

CRUROTARSI🐊 these are only a few examples of how diverse the lineage Crocodiles come from used to be 🐊 #crurotarsi #pseudosuchia #paleoart #purussaurus #deinosuchus #postosuchus #plesiosuchus #arizonasaurus #phytosauria

Drawing showing biodiversity from the Carboniferous of Puertollano, which includes plants, arthropods, fish and tetrapods. From left to right, top to bottom: - The giant millipede Arthropleura walking through the forest floor, next to an amphibian (maker of the Puertollanopus tracks) and insects - General view of the swamp landscape, with a volcano erupting in the background - A early synapsid, maker of possible Dimetropus tracks - Pecopteris monyi, leaves of a tree fern - A pair of Acanthodes swimming through vegetation and smaller fish - The temnospondyl Iberospondylus schultzei swimming next to some platysomid fish - Small clam shrimp Euestheria - Two lycophytes Omphalophloios puertollanense next to some swamp creatures - The xenacanth Orthacanthus hunting in the murky waters - Juvenile shark Lissodus hiding from the fish Progyrolepis speciosus - Puertollanichthys richtei, a small fish, swimming through the vegetation

🌴🦈Carboniferous Puertollano🐸🌋
In the lands of La Mancha, fossils from the Late Carboniferous known from old coal mines reveal a tropical coastal swamp ecosystem, rich in aquatic and plant life
#paleoart #FossilFriday #Carboniferous #Puertollano
🧵Thread for additional explanation

Early synapsids from the Cisuralian (lower Permian) Pedra de Fogo Formation, Parnaíba Basin, Brazil: the first definitive South American “pelycosaurs” The paleotropics of Euramerica provide nearly our entire picture of Permo–Carboniferous terrestrial tetrapod evolution. The geographic sampling bias inherent in this record obscures important event...

New paper by Angielczyk et al. reports new #synapsids from the early #Permian tetrapod fauna of the Pedra de Fogo Formation, Brazil 🇧🇷 - South America’s first pelycosaurs! ⬇️

#Paleontology #Fossils #Science

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Really sad news. Hans worked on an incredible diversity of vertebrate groups but in particular made huge contributions to our understanding of the Triassic.

Scimitar-crested Spinosaurus species from the Sahara caps stepwise spinosaurid radiation We describe a close relative of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, the sail-backed, fish-eating giant from nearshore deposits of northern Africa. Spinosaurus mirabilis sp. nov., discovered in the central Sahara...

Nice to see more spinosaur skull material published. Sereno et al. present a new species of #Spinosaurus, S. mirabilis - with a snazzy cranial crest.

#Paleontology #Science #Dinosaurs

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Brymbo Fossil Forest is offering students the chance to get involved in palaeontological excavations of a Carboniferous fossil forest in North Wales. QR code on image directs to further details.

🚨 UK Student Palaeo Research Opportunity 🚨

Brymbo Fossil Forest are offering students the chance to get involved in active palaeontology research & excavations ⚒️ at a unique #Carboniferous fossil site in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 - See below for more details ⬇️

#Paleontology #Geology #Fieldwork #FossilFriday #ECR

Revealing the hidden patterns of shark and ray diversity over the past 145 million years Gardiner et al. reconstruct the diversity of sharks and rays across the past 145 million years using deep learning and an extensive dataset. Their results unveil previously hidden patterns, including ...

Revealing the hidden patterns of shark and ray diversity over the past 145 million years: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Dicynodonts survived multiple environmental upheavals & mass extinction events but finally met their end in the End-Triassic Mass Extinction (~201 Ma). Why they finally went extinct remains somewhat unclear - perhaps due to their increasing niche specialisation through the Late Triassic?

🧵 End.

#Ischigualastia was among the largest of known dicynodonts & one of the last, evolving in the Late Triassic as the group declined. Nonetheless, despite becoming rarer, these latest dicynodonts grew larger, with the youngest species, #Lisowicia being the largest (rhino-sized).

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#Dicynodonts were notably able to survive the worst mass #extinction event in history: the End-Permian event (~252 Ma). Despite this evolutionary bottleneck, they were able to diversify & regenerate a comparable level of diversity in the Triassic to their pre-extinction levels in the #Permian.

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These herbivores possessed a unique beaked jaw & jaw adductor muscle arrangement that produced powerful & efficient cropping bites. They also had a rolling jaw joint that enabled them to effectively break down plant matter when eating. It’s thought these features contributed to their success.

4/

#Dicynodonts were an ancient & successful group of #synapsids that lived from the middle of the #Permian to the end of the #Triassic. They were among the largest terrestrial animals of their time, only really surpassed when large dinosaurs began to evolve in the Late Triassic.

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This specimen was found on a 1964 expedition that took BYU's James A. Jensen & a Harvard team of paleontologists to the #Ischigualasto Formation of Argentina. This formation has yielded an amazing array of animal & plant fossils from the #Carnian stage of the Late #Triassic (237-227 Ma).

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The lateral view of a skull of the dicynodont, Ishigualastia jenseni, on display at the Brigham Young University Museum of Paleontology in Provo, Utah. This skull was discovered in 1964 from the Ishigualasto Formation, Argentina.

Presenting a skull of the #dicynodont, Ischigualastia, at the BYU Museum of Paleontology in Provo, Utah 🇺🇸 for this #FossilFriday. This ancient, beaked herbivore was the size of a cow & lived in Argentina 🇦🇷 during the Late #Triassic (~230 Ma).

#Paleontology #Science

🧵 1/

I need a mood booster, let's talk about capybaras.

Here's a capy demonstrating one of MANY ways they can move through the water: running along the bottom.

They're 'semi-aquatic' mammals, just like hippos, seals & beavers. They LOVE water.

(📷: Fernando Maidana)

Sketches showing reconstructions of Dimetrodon limbatus (top), D. loomisi (center) and D. limbatus (bottom)

Sketches showing reconstructions of Dimetrodon angelensis (top), D. milleri (center) and D. grandis (bottom)

Reconstructions of all Dimetrodon species shown in previous plates in scale next to silhouettes of a ca. 1.8 m tall human

Selected species of Dimetrodon.

Here are various sketches showing some species of Dimetrodon, which was a quite diverse genus during the Early Permian. The genus includes about a dozen of species

#paleoart #sciart #synapsids

Just in time for #FossilFriday