Our paper re-evaluating the notosuchian Eremosuchus elkoholicus is out now! This work formed a chapter of my PhD thesis, and sheds some light on the complex evolutionary history of sebecid crocodyliforms 🐊🌎 @es-ucl.bsky.social

The geology department at the University of Leicester, where myself and countless others did our palaeontology PhDs, is at serious risk of closure Please show your support by signing the below! c.org/KtYyZB8dHk

I reviewed The Tree of Life by @maxjtelford.bsky.social for @natecoevo.nature.com 🌳 You can access my review for free here: rdcu.be/eOcYY

Eurasian Jay posing for the camera this weekend ☺️ #birding #photography

What better way to finish off #FossilFriday than to read about the latest discovery from St Bathans of a possible Miocene bowerbird in Aotearoa #NewZealand theconversation.com/a-tiny-fossi... @lizzysteell.bsky.social

Bowerbirds are Australo-Papuan birds engaging in some of the most flamboyant displays among vertebrates, and they might have been in New Zealand - Aotearoa in the Miocene too! Amazing descriptive research with a tinge of quantitative flair lead by @lizzysteell.bsky.social Check it out! 👇

Check out our @aunz.theconversation.com article covering the St Bathans #bowerbird story! theconversation.com/a-tiny-fossi... @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social @atennyson.bsky.social @plubbe.bsky.social

Welcome to the world Aevipertidus gracilis - the gracile one from a lost age. 14-19 Mya ancient #NewZealand appears to have had a bowerbird. Check out this amazing research mahi led by Elizabeth Steell (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....). Artwork by Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa CC-BY-SA. 1/9 🧵

🦴New fossil alert🦴 Introducing Aeviperditus gracilis, a possible bowerbird from the Miocene of New Zealand. My first fossil description! Artwork by the amazing Sasha Votyakova (Te Papa CC-BY-SA) (🧵1/11)

And here you can find the plain-language summary🙂 fesummaries.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/w...

Now available in Systematic Biology, a new paper (and R package) in which we outline an approach to account for non-independence in comparative analyses of lineage-pair traits academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Flying birds generally exhibit little variation in internal wing bone structure regardless of ecology, but flying vs. flightless species can often be distinguished: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Congrats to @fabioalfieri2.bsky.social! 🪶🧪

Ever wondered how bird flight ecology shapes the internal bone structure of the wing? Wonder no more because we can tell you! 👇🦅🕊️🦜🪽🐧 Congratulations @fabioalfieri2.bsky.social

New possible Miocene bowerbird from New Zealand, Aeviperditus gracilis: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Congratulations, @lizzysteell.bsky.social! 🪶🧪

What did we find? Closely related birds don’t always have particularly similar wing bones—in fact, the avian wing skeleton seems to be exceptionally prone to convergent evolution, perhaps due to repeated adaptations to similar functional requirements (like flight style)! 🪶🧪

It's been online for a month but now in final format: a new paper I'm on is out today! We analyzed over 200 features from the bird wing and shoulder girdle skeleton to see how they're distributed across the bird family tree. academic.oup.com/iob/advance-... 🪶🧪 (📷 @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social)

A happy afternoon practicing some warbler photography in @rspb.bsky.social Fen Drayton 😊

We've just launched AviList! - the new unified global taxonomic checklist for the world's birds, developed through the Working Group on Avian Classification, including BirdLife, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, IOC and others @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.avilist.org

There is no tomorrow for Moa kind. In this result of yesterdays #paleostream we explore the Holocene of New Zealand, a world we largely lost not even 1000 years ago.

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 It’s time to announce our Summer 2025 talk schedule 👀 Looking forward to hearing from @spissatella.bsky.social, @sauropodlets.bsky.social, @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk! Sign up here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-lecture-series-2025

🦏🦣🦌 LARGE paper alert!!! We tracked 60 million years of large herbivore evolution—over 3,000 fossil species—to uncover how ecosystems have changed and reorganized through time. What we found might help us understand the next big tipping point 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fitting the Bill in an Urban World: Hummingbird Beak Shape Responds to Anthropogenic Factors 🔗 buff.ly/vAd0H6v @lizzysteell.bsky.social

Do you know whether a falcon is more closely related to a parrot or to a pigeon? Test your knowledge in this quiz on bird phylogeny, designed by me: uquiz.com/quiz/0oXJxF/... 🪶🧪

For #worldparrotday, here's a gorgeous kea I met at Arthur's Pass, New Zealand, this March. What a stunner! 🦜😍🐦🪶 #birds #birdphotography

Two academic (lecturer) positions available at the University of Otago in Aotearoa/New Zealand! One in Conservation Biology, another in Evolutionary Ecology. Links for positions below: otago.taleo.net/careersectio... otago.taleo.net/careersectio...

Exciting news at Cambridge! We are launching the Darwin-Hamied Centre to promote research at the intersection of biodiversity and economics christs.cam.ac.uk/news/darwin-.... We are advertising two 5-year Senior Research Fellowships—application deadline 22nd June! christs.cam.ac.uk/vacancies-ch...

Super interesting paper outlining the damaging impact of the 'Gollum effect': researchers who restrict access to resources. Very relevant to palaeo work regarding the gatekeeping of collection material and the harm this causes to science. Worth a read! www.cell.com/one-earth/fu...

Excited to share an invited commentary about the fantastic and ambitious work by @nicmalexandre.bsky.social and colleagues in @globalchangebio.bsky.social on Anna's Hummingbird beaks. It was a joy to write about, congratulations on a super cool study! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🚨New paper alert!🚨 We show that hummingbird beaks have changed in shape & size since around WWII, driven by the rise of commercialized feeders! 🧵 📄 Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ornithology #evolution #GlobalChangeBiology

Glad to share a new paper led by @yara_haridy and @NeilShubin Lab on the early evolution of teeth! Modern and fossil data point at an ancestrally sensorial function for the earliest dentine www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Glad to see the formal description of the Chicago specimen of #Archaeopteryx finally out in @nature.com! Troodontid and early bird features in the palate and evidence of tertiary feathers www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations to @lizzysteell.bsky.social for the publication of her PhD magnum opus🥳🥳🥳New index to evaluate homoplasy in morph. datasets & tons of fun read about the effects of levels of homoplasy in macroevolutionary patterns! #homoplasyisnotdusty #superproud #doseefig6

It's finally out! Together with Allison Yi Hsiang and @fieldpalaeo.bsky.social, we explored relative homoplasy in a range of bird matrices and introduce a new parsimony measure, the relative homoplasy index (RHI) (1/n) academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...

Today we honor the flippered citizens of our icy nation. Whether you celebrate whilst eating a democracy sausage in Oz, doomscrolling in America, pulling maple taps in Canada, or elsewhere, we appreciate the support! #worldpenguinday