Always remember:

"hot from electric and warm from move make more hot"

The Dermal Skeleton of Stem‐Actinopterygian Moythomasia durgaringa and Its Implications for the Nature of the Ancestral Osteichthyan The figure presents a model of Moythomasia and a schematic histological model illustrating the internal structure and features of the cranial bones. These include bone (brown), osteocyte spaces (red)...

Our latest: Dermoskeletal histology of Moythomasia and the evolution of the vertebrate dermal skeleton, led by Xianren Shan and Edine Pape, with a little help from Martin Rucklin @evopalaeo.bsky.social and Davide Pisani @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social

Jobs | Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart Offene Stellen

Postdoc in Macroevolution - Deadline April 12th -

Join a team of Stuttgart botanists & myself to test drivers of Angiosperm diversification! Fully open process

Submit cover letter, CV, 3 referees & publication list in a single PDF to postdoc-botany@smns-bw.de + 3 key papers (if possible) as PDF

‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨
Two Post Doc Opportunities:

PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.

So excited to have received an #HFSPResearchGrant to study trilobite eyes with Luke Parry @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social and Gil Ju Lee (Pusan National University)!🥳

I'll be recruiting a postdoc @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - if 3D data, optical modelling, and fossils tickle your interest, stay tuned!

A fossil goblin shark from an ~85 million year old Lagerstatte in Lebanon. This gnarly fish is now on display in Paris

You can support the people displaced by the criminal war on Lebanon here: gofund.me/38edcc7c7

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Only (a minimum of) 126 million years. Basically nothing. How long have placentals been around again...?

I’ll start to regularly post photos of Lebanese fossils alongside links to charities supporting the thousands displaced in this war. Even the smallest donations can save lives

Fossils on display at Memory of Time, Jbeil, and you can donate here: gofund.me/24a3cee49

New Research Article published in OPal 🔬

Tip dating supports a Middle Ordovician origin for total-group chondrichthyans and a rapid radiation of acanthodian-grade taxa

By Lorenzo Emanuele Morra 

www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...

Awesome. Would love to see if trends in Nature have changed through time. I'm sure they have for some palaeo specific journals e.g. Palaeontology.

The Palaeontological Association has written to the President of the University of Leicester, requesting that the concerns of the PhD community over the planned redundancy of their supervisors are addressed.
[1/3]

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...

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

PC1 is >90% but I guess we can just ignore it because it puts spinosaurs somewhere boring. Plus I've already written the press release calling them 'hell herons'

for reference, here is PC1 and PC2 (buried in the sup).

Not fussed about Spinosaurs, but I do like PCAs. I do not like this PCA

New Research Article published in OPal 🔬

Respiratory structures in cornute stylophorans (Echinodermata)

By Christophe Dupichaud, Bertrand Lefebvre, Ninon Allaire, Enzo Birolini, Malo Meyruey, and Martina Nohejlová

www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...

Respiratory structures in cornute stylophorans (Echinodermata)
doi.org/10.26034/la....

As always, published free (no page fees or OA costs) and free to read courtesy of @openpalaeo.bsky.social
#DiamondOA

JOB KLAXON! Come work with us @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Come and join us in the world class Life Sciences Building at the University of Bristol! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT! Lecturer in Biological Sciences Interested in our research areas? Click the link in our bio to discover more! Closing date: Sunday 8 March

JOB ALERT!

We are excited to announce that we are recruiting three new academics at lecturer level!

Click the link below for more info on how to apply, and don’t forget to explore our research themes too!

We look forward to receiving your applications!

www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

We’ve finally discovered when sponges appeared on Earth | Natural History Museum New research has revealed the hidden early history of the sponges.

Did you know sponges are among the oldest animals on Earth? They're over half a billion years old!

New research has helped to narrow down when they first evolved - and it could reveal more about the first ever animals!

Find out more about these marine marvels 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

👀

Homology?

Independent origins of spicules reconcile paleontological and molecular evidence of sponge evolutionary history Sponges have a cryptic Ediacaran history because ancestral sponges were soft-bodied and had low fossilization potential.

Sponges are notoriously difficult to understand in evolutionary biology terms. I think this paper is a big step forward : www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Whoops, couldnt find your handle earlier. Go follow @meleonora-rossi.bsky.social

Earth's early sponges were soft: Scientists close fossil record gap Sponges are among Earth's most ancient animals, but exactly when they evolved has long puzzled scientists. Genetic information from living sponges, as well as chemical signals from ancient rocks, sugg...

A nice news summary here as well: phys.org/news/2026-01...
🧽🧽🧽

Early sponges lacked [mineralised] skeletons.
New paper led by M. Eleonora Rossi. Great to have contributed alongside colleagues from @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social , @nhm-london.bsky.social and @mncn-csic.bsky.social.
Read it here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary confirmed by new data from Denmark - Scientific Reports We provide a reassessment of the hypothesis of ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene (Maastrichtian–Danian) boundary, based on new data from the lower Danian Cerithium Limestone Member at ...

Earliest Cenozoic ammonoids:

Machalski, M., Olszewska-Nejbert, D., Landman, N.H. et al. Ammonite survival across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary confirmed by new data from Denmark. Sci Rep 15, 45802 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Errrr...