Photograph of a view up a concrete staircase with black metal cannisters, at the top of which is a huge agglomeration of fossil ammonites

A museum display of two mounted Plateosaurus (bipedal long-knecked dinosaurs), with more fossil bones at their feet. In the background are two paintings of the animals in life

A side in view of a big Liopleurodon skeleton in a museum- a skeleton of a marine reptile, with lomg jaws with sharp teeth and big flippers

A face on view of a Gorgonopsid skeleton, with open jaws showing its big teeth

In Tübingen this week, and encountered some fossil agglomerations, and long-necked and toothy beasts, in the university palaeontology collections

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

Asian Rodentia ecological diversity Multivariate analysis of ecological diversity in Asian Rodentia in the context of tectonism and environmental change

Another chapter of my dissertation is out in @palaeo-electronica.bsky.social! We assembled a large ecomorphological dataset of Cenozoic rodents from Asia and compared diversity before and after major tectonic/climate events. Check it out! palaeo-electronica.org/content/2026...

Result from the Pisco Formation, please leave all your angry comments below!
The Miocene of the Pisco basin is an absolute insane hot spot for marine life, over the course of millions of years the sediments recorded dozens of large mammals, especially whales...

That’s ridiculous

Happy #FossilFriday! This is the skull of Nakanonectes (MOR 3072), one of the last plesiosaurs to cruise the Western Interior Seaway in the Cretaceous Period. With a mouth full of needle-like teeth, it ate small fish and cephalopods. #[bit.ly/4sp4wIE

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

A picture of a small concretion (rock) with a white blob in the middle. this blob was described as the worlds oldest octopus and called Pohlsepia. Our research shows that hidden under the rock are teeth that confirm it is a nautiloid (a relative of modern nautiluses).

An artistic rendering of the rotting Pohlsepia on the seafloor 310 million years ago. Sharks, fish and arthropods lurk in the background

I am so unbelievably proud to present 8 years of hard work: the worlds oldest octopus is not an octopus...

Pohlsepia is actually a really rotten Nautiloid (but oldest soft tissue nautiloid ever found!). 🐙❌

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Out today in Antarctic Science: a description of the first vertebrate assemblage from the middle member of the Triassic Fremouw Formation of Antarctica. New occurrences of Procolophoonidae and Prolacerta, as well as updated paleoenvironmental interpretations! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Here the result of the Escuminac Formation #paleostream!
These deposits from the Devonian of Canada offer a glimpse into a coastal fish community with some absolute bangers and historical favorites. But it doesn't come without it challenges.

Palaeolagus: ancestor of the Easter Bunny. A fossil rabbit from the Chadron formation of the White River group of Wyoming, about 35 million years old. #Easter2023 #EasterBunny

A pillar-like brown fossilized left hindlimb of the sauropod Apatosaurus. Families mill about and the head is in the far mid ground.

Hard to beat a Chicago #FossilFriday in Evolving Planet. 🦕
Apatosaurus at the Field Museum. 🦴🦴🦴

Hi folks! Despite outward appearances, the Horner+Epstein debacle and its wider implications are still being discussed and attended to as SVP assesses potential paths forward. I am working on an angle of this. Right now what I really need is data. So if you made a post about this in the past two months, I would super appreciate screenshots of your post, screenshots of comments, shares by others, reaction ratios, and any info from the “insights” section of the post. DM me as much as you have. I’m really looking for an accurate read on reaction volume and audience reach. Feel free to pass this request on to others as well. This is not meant to instigate a fresh round of inflammatory outrage. This is case-building. Appreciate the assistance of anyone and everyone who can contribute. Edit: If you have anecdotes or just occurrence data from DMs, that would be helpful too. I actively don't want names, just info preferably with timestamps if possible.

SVP is a really important organization to me, so understand that this is all in effort to make it a safer community space long-term. I may not do much research, but I know a thing or two about community interface and brand management. So those are the skills I’m bringing to this ongoing problem.

ISPH logo by George Lyras

The ISPH is back in Europe!

The ISPH returns to Europe for its 8th edition. The symposium will take place at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, in the quiet and charming city of Leiden (the Netherlands) from 6 to 8 July 2027.
isph2027.wordpress.com

Triassic turtles (Testudinata: Proterochersidae and Proganochelyidae) of Greenland Abstract. Turtles (Testudinata) are a common faunal component throughout most of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Particularly, one of their Triassic genera, Pro

Triassic turtles (Testudinata: Proterochersidae and Proganochelyidae) of Greenland url: academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Skeleton of quadrupedal reptile posed in trotting. A 3D digital model with bones in grey.

We're gearing up to start some new #DAWNDINOS spinoff biomechanical models of weird extinct archosaurs!
Next week, a student project begins to reconstruct a musculoskeletal model of early dinosaur-lineage (Avemetatarsalia) aphanosaurian Teleocrater! (shown below)

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

🐌🐢😎
☄️💥🔥
🐌🐢

Durophagous Palatobaena, found to both sides of the extinction horizon, sitting on an extinct Basilemys with the mandatory T. rex skull in the background. Art by Joschua Knüppe

New paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

Guilherme & I investigate dietary selectivity on turtle K/Pg extinction - durophagous turtles have higher survivorship probability. Beautiful art by @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social

This is a great #HotTaxonomyTakeSunday take. In all my years of museum scicomm and university lecturing I have never once thought about “what if Owen had thrown Pterodactylus in”. The time saved 😅

Imaging Assistant:South Kensington

JOB CLAXON: Imaging Assistant @nhm-london.bsky.social . Permanent role. Would be good for someone with CT experience! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Three panel comic. Panel 1: a man in a tie looks miserable, head in hands, while sitting at a bus stop in the city. He’s thinking, “can’t believe I have work today…” Panel 2: he looks up at the city to find it ablaze, actively being destroyed by the Cloverfield monster/kaiju. Panel 3: the man looks off to the side and makes a mildly surprised expression with a cute subtle smile.

first image: the new silesaurid is depicted in a semi-arid environment feeding on ferns, followed by two smaller coeval silesaurids. both animals are depicted with sparse feathers over most of their bodies but scaly legs and tails, and the larger silesaurid has a distinctive purple dewlap second image: another life reconstruction, this time highlighting the difference in femoral proportions between the new silesaurid and its smaller relative

a new triassic silesaurid has been identified in brazil's santa maria formation, described by müller in an #openaccess paper 📃 known from a femur, this unnamed taxon is noted for its large size
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
(art by @mfgadelha.bsky.social)

Result from the Sulphur Mountain Formation #paleostream! This formation made it onto the wheel as it is the last refuge of the last eugeneodonts, the group that gave us Helicoprion. Most prominently we have here Fadenia, a late surviving durophagous member of this group...

Seven years of my life were spent preparing this animal!

Photograph of a fossil fish skull in right lateral view. The bone is dark brown/black against a gray matrix.

Out now in Contributions from me and @gilespalaeo.bsky.social, a deep dive into an early member of the sturgeon and paddlefish lineage. Bear with me, but there’s a long backstory highlighting uncertainty about the anatomy of living species and how well-studied fossils can still yield new insights.

A hand holding a small fossil skull (facing left) still in the rock: grey, brown, with reddish purple hematite. Grassland in the background.

A Diictodon in the hand is worth two in the bush. But we’ll look anyway. #FossilFriday

Cover of the journal Nature, featuring the head of a large fish with its mouth open. A smaller fish is swimming into its mouth. The cover reads "Caught in Time: Early fossils shed light on the origins of bony fish."

Osteichthyans--the bony fishes--are by far the most diverse group of living jawed vertebrates. Two papers out today in @nature.com feature remarkable new Chinese fossils that paint a picture of substantial morphological diversity among stem osteichthyans.

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...

Result from the Koobi Fora #paleostream! This region on the east side of modern day Lake Turkana in Kenya is a treasure trove for fossils of the early Pleistocene and is most famous for many early human remains, with up to 6 species present throughout the layers...