Congratulations, Neil! Yeah, it’s a great article, just loaded with lots great findings and interpretations! Well done, team! 🐊

First page of the Livius et al. (2026) article in JVP: https://bit.ly/48oGPZG. Superimposed on the page is a Zoom screen capture of Marissa Livius' master's proposal defense from May 2021 with Jordan Mallon, Witmer, Hillary Maddin, Michael Ryan, and Marissa.

Photograph of a cast of the holotype skull of Panoplosaurus mirus (CMN 2759) in the foreground, with some other ankylosaurs lurking in the background (Gastonia, Ankylosaurus, Pawpawsaurus).

CT-scan-based volume renders of the Panoplosaurus mirus holotype skull (CMN 2759) (top), a referred specimen of P. mirus ROM 1215 (middle), and a referred skull of Edmontonia rugosidens AMNH 5381 along with a slice through the snout (bottom).

Photos from a May 2025 post (while finalizing details for the Livius et al. manuscript) focusing on the Edmontonia rugosidens holotype (USNM 11868). At top right is Witmer studying the old-fashioned x-ray film-based versions of the 1998 CT scan we made of the skull. The middle photo shows lateral views of the skull, and the bottom photo shows stereoscopic photos of the ventral surface of the skull.

#FossilFriday From the depths of the pandemic to a wonderful #OA article out this week in @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social—https://bit.ly/48oGPZG—congratulation to Marissa Livius, Jordan Mallon, & the whole team! A blast to dig back into ankylosaurs to sort out the Panoplosaurus-Edmontonia mess.

Excited to report that Scripps School of Journalism student @eric-boll.bsky.social published his master's thesis research (which I helped supervise) on aspects of news coverage of paleo in the 1990s in @historicalbiology.bsky.social: bit.ly/41VMS4e. It also elicited an editorial: bit.ly/4spzQH9! 🦖

Today is the Ohio University Student Research & Creativity Expo! For the third year in a row OHIO Honors student Grace Vance took first place for her poster on her senior thesis research on vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals! Well done, Grace! 🦭🏆

Today is the Ohio University Student Research & Creativity Expo! For the third year in a row OHIO Honors student Grace Vance took first place for her poster on her senior thesis research on vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals! Well done, Grace! 🦭🏆

Today is the Ohio University Student Research & Creativity Expo! For the third year in a row OHIO Honors student Grace Vance took first place for her poster on her senior thesis research on vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals! Well done, Grace! 🦭🏆

Today is the Ohio University Student Research & Creativity Expo! For the third year in a row OHIO Honors student Grace Vance took first place for her poster on her senior thesis research on vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals! Well done, Grace! 🦭🏆

Today is the Ohio University Student Research & Creativity Expo! For the third year in a row OHIO Honors student Grace Vance took first place for her poster on her senior thesis research on vascular adaptations for deep diving in seals! Well done, Grace! 🦭🏆 @ouhcom.bsky.social

Rabbit skull and brain cast YouTube video by WitmerLab

But wait, did you say that you were wondering what a rabbit's skull and endocast of its brain and inner ear look like as a rotating 3D model? @witmerlab.bsky.social has that too!

A traditional chocolate Easter bunny with a microCT-scan-based rendering of a rabbit skull (OUVC 9527) in place.

#HappyEaster🐰 from your friends at WitmerLab!
A crunchy take on that traditional favorite this #Easter — now with added calcium!

@ohiouniversity.bsky.social @ouhcom.bsky.social #rabbit #easterbunny #oryctolaguscuniculus #OUµCT #microCT #chocolatebunny

The articulated skull of a huge specimen of the sauropod Camarasaurus—the Gunma Museum specimen (GMNH-PV 101)—sits on a table surrounded by the disarticulated cast bones of the same specimen, arranged roughly in position for comparison. Also, nearby at left is the skull of the Carnegie Museum specimen of a juvenile Camarasaurus (CM 11338). OHIO freshman Klazina McKeigan set this up to help her learn dinosaur skulls. A bunch of theropods skulls also share the table space.

A quiet #FossilFriday in the lab, just me & the gang. Here's the Camarasaurus "station" that @ohiouniversity.bsky.social freshman Klazina McKeigan set up to learn dinosaur skulls: huge skull of the Gunma Camarasaurus (GMNH-PV 101)—both articulated & disarticulated—along with "baby Cam" (CM 11338). 🦕

PS: I know it's "La Brea" Tar Pits, not "Las Brea". Slip of the finger and poor proofreading. Don't @ me. 😀

A volume rendering of CT scan data of a sabertooth cat collected from the Las Brea Tar Pits (FMNH P12418) in right oblique view.

A photograph of the original fossil skull of a sabertooth cat collected from the Las Brea Tar Pits (FMNH P12418) in right oblique view.

Some sabertooth fun for #FossilFriday! A colleague recently asked me what parts of a Smilodon skull that we published on (bit.ly/4dfOInK) were real. CT is the easiest way to detect restoration. Here, the right canine (saber), a carnassial crown, & all lower incisors needed to be restored. ⚔️🦷🐱

Bobcat to Boilermaker! We're thrilled to announce that Grace Vance, Ohio University senior in the OHIO Honors program who is completing her senior thesis in our lab on vascular diving adaptation in seals, will be joining Dylan Wainwright's lab at Purdue University as a PhD student this fall! Grace also was accepted into the internship program at Friday Harbor Laboratories near Seattle and Vancouver for this summer! Congratulations on all your success, Grace!

Bobcat to Boilermaker! Grace Vance, who is doing her @ohiouniversity.bsky.social senior thesis on seals in our lab, will be joining Dylan Wainwright's lab at Purdue as a PhD student! Grace also will be a summer intern at Friday Harbor Labs this summer! Congratulations on all your success, Grace! 🎉

@ohiouniversity.bsky.social undergrad researcher in our lab Klazina McKeigan spent her Spring Break in Chicago & visited the Field Museum. She snapped photos with such luminaries as @suethetrex.bsky.social, the Chicago Archaeopteryx, & a mount Majungasaurus—same one she's been learning in our lab!

Another Ohio University undergraduate joining our lab this semester is Klazina McKeigan, a freshman in Biological Sciences. As a high-school senior, Klazina was accepted into the highly competitive Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine Early Assurance Program, meaning that she's already been accepted to our medical school (where I'm also faculty)! But for now, Klazina is starting research on her other passion, which is dinosaurs! As a kid, she visited dino haunts like the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, and this week (our spring break) she's been in Chicago visiting the Field Museum. This semester she's been digging into skull structure of birds and reptiles...and now starting into dinosaurs, as with the disarticulated Majungasaurus skull she's working on here! Stay tuned for more!

Another @ohiouniversity.bsky.social undergrad joining our lab is bio freshman Klazina McKeigan. She's in the selective @ouhcom.bsky.social Early Assurance Program—she's already accepted into our med school! But for now Klazina is starting research on her other passion—dinosaurs! See ALT for details.

OU sophomore Stella Kurtz joined our lab this semester and has taken on the mountain of Ohio bobcat skeletons that we've been preparing since the pandemic. The carcasses were collected by the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources as part of a censusing project in collaboration with OU biology professors & students (but not WitmerLab folks), who collected age, sex, size, DNA, & precise locality data. The carcasses were to be destroyed but I swooped in before that happened (bones have stories to tell, too!). I held Bobcat Dissection Parties during the pandemic with the OU Wildlife Club and others, and our team also participated...a LOT. We now have dozens and dozens of data-rich skeletons. Right now, Stella is making sense of the collection, doing much needed curation, and becoming acquainted with the whole project. We are indeed the OHIO Bobcats sports-wise—and our team mascot is Rufus, the bobcat's species name: Lynx rufus—so who'd be better than us to have a nice collection of Ohio bobcats!

Joining our lab this semester is @ohiouniversity.bsky.social sophomore Wildlife & Conservation Biology major Stella Kurtz. She’s taking on the mountain of Ohio bobcat skeletons that we've been preparing since the pandemic, making sense of the collection & doing some curation. See ALT for more info.

Oh no, this is a huge loss for the community and of course for his family and folks who knew him well, like you did, John. I'll keep an eye out for his obit so I can learn more about him.

Evan Doles, geology undergrad in our @OhioU Honors Tutorial College, has been digging into extant anatomy this semester to build a foundation for studying dinosaurs. Lately he’s been dissecting a common extant dinosaur, a domestic pigeon, which he finished today. 🦖🕊️

Loren Babcock from Ohio State's Orton Geological Museum (at left) gave a great seminar today on Thomas Jefferson, Megalonyx & paleo history to the @ohiouniversity.bsky.social Earth & Environmental Geosciences Department. We closed the day by bringing everyone to our lab for a fun tour! #FossilFriday

Issue of the journal Nature depicting on its cover Nanotyrannus together with T. rex (art by Anthony Hutchings). Article by Lindsay Zanno & James Napoli here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09801-6

My News & Views commentary. Here's an easier to read version: https://rdcu.be/eNv94

I should check my mail more often. Nice surprise on #FossilFriday to see an actual print version of the @nature.com issue with my News & Views commentary for the Nanotyrannus cover article by Lindsay Zanno & James Napoli @jgn-paleo.bsky.social. Glad to have been involved! Links in ALT🦖

To follow up on our #SundayCTscanning with @ohiouniversity.bsky.social undergrads Grace Vance & Klazina McKeigan, here are the results from the >14K CT slices: two young intact alligators, three Nile croc skulls, adult male & male pup hooded seals, and a bearded seal. Now the work begins! 🦭🐊

A photo taken through the gantry of the CT scanner at OhioHealth O'Bleness Hospital in Athens, Ohio, featuring an alligator carcass surrounded by Witmer and undergraduate researchers Klazina McKeigan and Grace Vance.

A photo in the control room for the CT scanner at OhioHealth O'Bleness Hospital in Athens, Ohio, with Witmer and undergraduate researchers Grace Vance and Klazina McKeigan.

Freshman undergraduate researcher Klazina McKeigan with an alligator carcass to be scanned at OhioHealth O'Bleness Hospital in Athens, Ohio.

Senior undergraduate researcher Grace Vance with an alligator carcass to be scanned at OhioHealth O'Bleness Hospital in Athens, Ohio.

#SundayCTScanning Spent the morning at @ohiohealth.bsky.social O'Bleness Hospital doing some research CT scanning of seals, alligators, and crocodiles with @ohiouniversity.bsky.social undergrad researchers senior Grace Vance & freshman Klazina McKeigan. Stay tuned for results...! 🦭🐊

So happy to finally meet Gary Vecchiarelli today after being friends on social media for years. Glad to welcome him to @ohiouniversity.bsky.social & give him a lab tour. He's working on a geology master's via OU's online program. And we took in a Bobcats hockey game while we were at it—and we won!

From https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.70150. FIGURE 10 Life reconstruction of the head of Triceratops prorsus with nasal soft tissues inferred in the present study shown. Soft tissues include the main narial nerves and blood vessels, nasal gland, nasolacrimal duct, and respiratory turbinate. Note that the nasolacrimal duct and respiratory turbinate were inferred mainly in centrosaurines. Artwork by K. Sakane. n & bv, nerves and blood vessels; ng, nasal gland; nld, nasolacrimal duct; rt, respiratory turbinate.

Excited to see this article led by @seishirotada.bsky.social out in @anatrecord.bsky.social. Triceratops and their ceratopsian kin are more than horns and frills! Check out their narial regions! doi.org/10.1002/ar.7...

Witmer poses with freshman undergrad researcher Klazina McKeigan and her brother Alexander and our T. rex skull (AMNH 5027) as part of a tour for Sib Weekend.

It's Sibs Weekend here at Ohio University, and I was happy to help new freshman undergrad researcher in our lab Klazina McKeigan give her brother Alexander (a current high school junior...and future Bobcat?) a tour of the lab this afternoon. More about Klazina's research another time.

This is fantastic work and super-important for those of us interested in evolution of the hearing apparatus and braincase! Well done!

The Accidental Ichthyornis Field identifications are problematic. In mid October of this year the weather in Kansas was still warm enough to extend our dig season. T...

Ah, @mosasaurologist.bsky.social, I think I found the backstory of "The Accidental Ichthyornis."
rmdrc.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-...

It must have been exciting to dig up! Why weird?

Witmer studies a slab of the Cretaceous bird Ichthyornis at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science.

Skeleton of the the Cretaceous bird Ichthyornis still in its Niobrara slab at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science.

I'm a couple days late for #MuseumSelfieDay but we'll count it for #FossilFriday. Here's one of me studying a lovely specimen of Ichthyornis at the facility in Tsukuba housing the collections of Japan's National Museum of Nature & Science (the public museum is in nearby Tokyo).

Great piece, Andy! Really well done! I also enjoyed working with the Nature editors for my News & Views on the Zanno & Napoli article—altho’ the battles on the title were exhausting! 🤣 And yeah, selecting a hyoid bone for histology was brilliant! Opens up opportunities for other skull-only fossils.

The book The Voices of Nature by Nicolas Mathevon sits on a table surrounded by skulls of the animals depicted on the cover (which were all drawn by the author's dad, Bernard Mathevon!) The skulls are American robin (Turdus migratorius, OUVC 9766), spectacled caiman (Caiman cf. C. crocodilus, OUVC 11550), northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris, OUVC 9581), and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta, OUVC 10571).

Just finished this awesome new-ish book by @nicolasmathevon.bsky.social on animal communication. It covers a lot of ground with a huge diversity of species—& it's a blast to read! Great for those interested in sensory ecology. (I had skulls of all the cover animals, so I snapped a photo! 😃)

The tiny skull of a ruby-throated hummingbird (OUVC 10851) sits on the tip of a finger. The even tinier humerus of this bird sits in front of the skull.

T. rex is more closely related to this little dinosaur (a hummingbird) than T. rex is to Allosaurus. Also, a hummingbird's humerus is way smaller than it's eyeball. Go home, evolution, you're drunk! 🦖

Cover of the Ohio University student newspaper, 30 years today (Jan 8th).

Project Summary page of an NSF grant proposal submitted 30 years...a grant we got.

Covers of some journals with articles that derived from the NSF grant we got 30 years ago.

30 yrs ago today, a blizzard paralyzed the whole East Coast, closing Ohio University & all roads. But I still had an NSF grant deadline, so I trudged the three miles to campus to get it done and submitted. It was my first major proposal in my new job—dubbed "the DinoNose Project." Got the grant!