Result from the Zechstein sea #paleostream! This famous deposit from the late Permian of Central Europe (mostly Germany) has a special place in paleontology history and incidentally has a locality not even a km from where I sit right now.

And with the tiniest little scleral ring I ever did see 🥹

Painting of the Karoo paleoenvironment (~262 Ma), by Maggie Lambert-Newman. Animals depicted include Tapinocephalus (Dinocephalia), Glanosuchus (Therocephalia), Robertia (Dicynodontia), Bradysaurus (Pareiasauria), Rhinesuchus (Temnospondyli), and Eunotosaurus (Sauropsida). Plants depicted include Glossopteris and horsetail ferns (Phyllotheca australis and Schizoneura africana). See the supplemental material of Bordy & Groenewald (2026) for a more detailed image analysis.

🎨 "Karoo Life in the late Middle Permian", by Maggie Lambert-Newman

📄 Bordy & Groenewald (2026): "The Karoo Supergroup: Modern insights from the ancient archive of Gondwana"
doi.org/10.25131/saj...

Eunotosaurus reconstruction by Andrey Atuchin

Eunotosaurus has a plesiomorphic inner ear shape & few distinct traits that could link it to turtles specifically. Our dataset shows inner ear shapes contain phylogenetic signal, but also many shapes that likely evolved convergently. @olorotitan.bsky.social created this beautiful reconstruction

3D models of the inner ear of Eunotosaurus

Eunotosaurus specimen from the BPI collections at Wits in Johannesburg

New paper: we describe the inner ear anatomy of Eunotosaurus africanus, based on a specimen that has not been published previously. Open access @journalsystpal.bsky.social:

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

Cambrian on my mind #sciart

Partially cropped photograph of the "Berlin Specimen" of Archaeopteryx at the Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin, Germany), a nearly complete, articulated skeleton with visible feather traces. The arms are splayed outward and the neck pulled back in the characteristic fossil 'death pose'. The fossil exhibits the same pale-brownish hue as the surrounding rock matrix.

Berlin Archaeopteryx pilgrimage complete 🪶

@mfnberlin.bsky.social

Fossil X-ray Reveals New Species of Baby Dino Named after Iconic Korean Cartoon | Blog Named Doolysaurus huhmini, this baby dinosaur was discovered on South Korea's Aphae Island.

🦕 A new species of baby dinosaur discovered from South Korea's Aphae Island has been named after one of the country's most beloved cartoon characters: Dooly.

🔗 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭: blog.pensoft.net/.../fossil-x...
➡️ 𝐒𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲: fr.pensoft.net/article/1781...

Thought I'd do a thread of some of my favorite #paleoart - inspired by watching an old Skeleton Crew podcast episode

"Sinopteroberries" - uncertain pterosaur, possibly Nemicolopterus, but probably a juvenile Sinopterus enjoying some red podocarp berries (John Conway)
#sciart

'Peculiar' crocodile ancestor started life on four legs before learning to walk on two A "peculiar" ancient relative of the crocodile which experts believe began life on four legs before, in adulthood, it learned how to walk on just two has been revealed in a new study.

Fossil evidence suggests Sonselasuchus cedrus, an ancient crocodile relative, transitioned from walking on four legs as a juvenile to bipedal locomotion in adulthood during the Late Triassic. doi.org/hbrtbx

Results from the #paleostream!
Arctognathus with Arctops, Tanyka, Nannippus (with giant puffer fish) and Caninosaurus.

Contribute to PhyloPic—researchers use it a lot! www.phylopic.org/images/6a38b...

Scientists find 2 marsupial species, thought to have gone extinct 6,000 years ago, living in the forests of New Guinea The pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider, two marsupials believed to have died out thousands of years ago, are still alive in Papuan Indonesia.

Scientists find 2 marsupial species, thought to have gone extinct 6,000 years ago, living in the forests of New Guinea www.livescience.com/animals/land...

New paper! How weird could Permian animals get? Turns out, pretty weird. Meet the stem tetrapod Tanyka amnicola from the Pedra de Fogo Formation of northeast Brazil

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Pencil sketch. Foreground: two dacentrurine stegosaurs drinking from a stream in front of an embankment covered in a Gleichenia thicket. Equisetum grow by the streamside. In the background an adult and juvenile Stegosaurus wander through osmundaceous ferns. A Ptilophyllum-type bennettite stands from among the ferns.

Sketch: dacentrurine and stegosaurine stegosaurs coexisting in the Morrison Formation

Just published: A very unusual fish, described here as a new genus and species of loach, and the first groundwater-dwelling fish reported from Northeast India. Meet 𝑮𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒌 𝒏𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒏𝒂! Open access article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Did some work for Dr. Dan Ksepka on some neat fossil birds. Nice to see the creative way the team that just published this paper put these two together.

"I believe In evolution, except for the whole Triassic period"

Hooray for clever scientific names inspired by Greek mythology! ✨

Very cool specimen with exciting implications. 🐦

New stem lepidosaurs from Vellberg, Germany: implications for palaeoecology in the early diversification of Lepidosauromorpha Lepidosauromorphs account for roughly a third of the living diversity of land vertebrates and yet their origin and early evolutionary history remain highly contentious. The fossil record of early l...

New paper alert! 🚨🥳 New lepidosauromorphs from Germany! This paper was 80% ready when Laura was born a couple weeks in advance.. since then it has been a good bit expanded, thanks to exchanges with colleagues at conferences and during review 😊 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Comic. [2x2 chart. Top left quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of dinosaurs stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, and long-neck dinosaur. Top right quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, and pteranodon. Bottom left quadrant: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of penguin, egret, ostrich, pigeon, falcon. Bottom right: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of squirrel, stapler, plant, person, and bicycle.]

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

xkcd.com/3204/

Haolong dongi, amazing new spiny (yes,really) iguanodontian from early cretaceous china #sciart

Result from the Joggins Formation #paleostream! This Canadian site is an absolute classic and even if you are not familiar with its name you probably know at least one of its major players...

Timeline of taxonomic history of Alwalkeria maleriensis

Alickmeron Sen & Ray, 2025 is an objective junior synonym of Alwalkeria Chatterjee & Creisler, 1994 @slvrhwk.bsky.social @ijreid.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*

Early Arthropods

xkcd.com/3199/

The first page of the paper described in the post.

First paper of 2026 is out for #FossilFriday, and the first of probably several ornithischian papers over the next interval. Here my coauthors and I describe some tantalizing bits that suggest that ornithischian diversity in the Morrison Formation is higher than previously recognized.

And finally, many thanks to @semifossorial.bsky.social and @gondwannabe.bsky.social for their mentorship and for allowing my involvement in this incredible project. Thead by X. Jenkins below.

The origin of the tympanic fossa in reptiles revealed by a late Permian neodiapsid Living reptiles including turtles, crocodilians, birds and squamates are descended from a common ancestor among the Neodiapsida that lived in the late Permian c. 257 million years ago. Their origin w...

Link to paper: doi.org/10.1111/pala...

Needless to say, there is much more to come from the Permian reptiles of South Africa. Stay tuned! 🦎👀 (6/6)

Detailed life restoration of the head of Scyllacerta creanae based on reconstructions of its skull. Dorsal midline osteoderms are inspired by those reported in a specimen of Youngina capensis, a close relative. Artwork by @LiterallyMiguel

@literallymiguel.bsky.social did incredible work bringing Scyllacerta to life. This piece was featured on a poster I presented at last year's @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social conference in Birmingham, UK. (5/6)

Historical terracotta relief of the mythical Greek monster Scylla, characterized as inhabiting a cavern, bearing many heads (variably described as dog- or monster-like), and having multiple rows of teeth in each skull. Many modern interpretations favor a more draconic/reptilian appearance. Couldn't be a better fit. 🐲 Image credit:Paul Hudson from United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_-_Room_15_(16848840959).jpg

We chose the name "Scyllacerta creanae" for SAM-PK-K7710. The generic name is a portmanteau alluding to Scylla, the cavern-dwelling, many-headed, multiple-tooth-rowed monster of Greek myth, and 'lacerta', Latin for 'lizard'. The specific name honors Annelise Crean, the specimen's preparator. (4/6)