RIP to all the 'intended for main text' figures killed by the gods. But this figure is different. It's more beautiful than the gods. Maybe even better than the gods

Somehow, this absolutely incredible figure is Supplementary Information Figure 18 🤩

It may be surprising to some that there are thousands of undescribed species just sitting in museums awaiting description. One of the main reasons this problem exists is that taxonomy is undervalued and underfunded, a trend that coincides with the devaluing of studies on natural history.

New paper from @jakeberv.bsky.social harnesses a massive skeletal measurement dataset for passerines to show nested bursts in phenotypic evolution, many of which appear coincident with intervals of climate instability. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is similar in spirit to the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History's 'Discovery Kits', which are museum quality exhibits (with specimens, casts, etc.) created to be sent directly to classrooms. They're * extremely * popular with students & teachers here in OK! samnoblemuseum.ou.edu/education-2/...

In some ways not the most important thing right now but scientific societies had almost a decade to prepare for this moment, and they didn’t And at some point, that will need to be confronted Lessons need to be learned

An increasingly relevant take

Happy anniversary to the final album by the Ramones, which features dinosaurs wearing sombreros and includes their incredible cover of Tom Waits' "I Don't Want to Grow Up"

My student Corinne Soucy led my labs 1st foray into paleo-community ecology, thanks to the extraordinary @ctrlalttim.com, Emily Beasley, @francisbanville.bsky.social, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez-Marco de la @ucm.es, Bertrand Lefebvre du @cnrs-insu.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Blastoid echinoderms are such beautiful fossils

Scientific fashions, perfectionisms, and the value of traditional morphological taxonomy. #evolbio #philsci 🧪 waynemaddison.wordpress.com/2026/07/16/s...

Super excited that our paper led by @sandinmm.eurosky.social in PNAS is out! We show that crown-group eukaryotes were already taxonomically and ecologically diverse throughout the Mesoproterozoic, revealing complex communities well before the Neoproterozoic radiation. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

google scholar is practically unusable

Anyone else having issues with Google Scholar? Over the last few days it's been inconsistent with its ability to find/export references. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it works and has errors. But most of the time it says the "system can't perform the operation." We had something nice & now it's bad

How it feels when a paleontologist discovers a fossil ⛏️🦕🧪

This paper is so freakin' cool. The authors use a combination of comparative anatomy, the fossil record, phylogenetic methods, and morphometric analysis to figure out how (and when) seals evolved "amphibious hearing" that uniquely enable them to effectively hear in both air & underwater

Very excited to learn about the widespread outbreak of an gastrointestinal parasite that gives you diarrhea from eating basic fruits & vegetables, which can take 1-2 weeks for symptoms to appear, just prior to leaving for fieldwork in a remote part of the world

Seals have a superpower: they are the only mammals with amphibious hearing! They hear well both in-air and underwater. My collagues and I have a new study in Proceedings B on the origins and evolution of amphibious hearing in pinnipeds 🦭🔊🧪 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

I feel bad for Juan Soto. Even as the lone NY Met at the all-star game, he still can't experience what it's like to have teammates who can hit

Gus the T. rex fetched $50.1 million at auction, a new record price for a dinosaur If this is how much dinosaurs cost now, how can museums afford them? Where does that leave science & education? Will the public still have opportunities to be inspired? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

This is absolutely true 💯. The writing has been on the wall for a very long time

"I think it's just as fun to discover something in a [museum] drawer than on a boat." — @echinoblog.bsky.social ⭐🧪

"Sam’s passing has left a hole deep within my being that no amount of goats or lawyers can fill."

Omg Jordan Walker and that home run derby are you kidding me?!! Absolutely incredible stuff

I'm sorry to announce that Dr. David Pawson longtime curator of echinoderms at the USNM has passed away www.facebook.com/SIInvertebra...

It's always nice to have biological collections acknowledged as "irreplaceable evidence bases" and essential records of life on Earth. 🧪🪲 iucn.org/news/202607/...

📣 Attention to U.S. Paleontologists! See you email for links to take action. #paleontology #geoscience #paleo

"They're not monsters, Lex. They're just animals...they just do what they do." -Dr. Alan Grant 🦖

Never forget that Charles Darwin wrote an absolutely incredible book called The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, where he noted that worms "have played a more important part in the history of the world than most persons would at first suppose." 🪱🧪

Looks like a cool study: "...montane dragonfly populations may maintain gene flow through climate cycles by tracking suitable conditions across elevational gradients rather than persisting in long-isolated refugia."

Obviously it came across my dash because of the response Viewpoint which is utter crap and Ecology Letters should be ASHAMED to have published, let alone have *solicited* it

"Evolutionary biologists rarely work on big handsome animals...and tend to muddle around at the coalface — bacteria, fruit flies, test tubes, computer simulations, statistics. But nature is evolution. Biology is evolution."

Zen Arcade may be my favorite Husker Du record but Flip Your Wig is one of the all-time greats. It's difficult to overstate how incredibly influential that album has been and continues to be

wtf are those reviews that supergirl movie was awesome

Making preparations for another year of fieldwork in the early Paleozoic of Anticosti Island. Can't wait to see what we discover this year #FossilFriday

I have officially become the guy who cites Felsenstein (1985) at people in peer reviews but in my defense, I was provoked

The Sam Noble Museum is hiring a Collection Manager for the Fish Collection! Come work with me in Oklahoma! Please share widely! #TeamFish #MuseumJobs jobs.ou.edu/jobs/curator...

Away from Ann Arbor, so no UMMP collections for me. So here are some lovely Early Devonian echinoderms from the Hunsrück Slate of western Germany on display at PRI's Museum of the Earth.

That incredible combination of sweet and savory when your Concur expense report gets approved by the university lol

Realizing I've lived in Oklahoma long enough to have developed feelings for Braum's

There's absolutely nothing politically radical about believing that people should be able to access food, shelter, and safety solely by virtue of existing on this planet. That's not radical that's a minimum

The NY Mets are the absolute worst and yet I still love them so much

New physics oral exam question dropped!

We will have a 23 month research associate role opening to support our work on mammal fossils from the Isle of Skye. Open to candidates with substantial CT-segmentation experience with Masters or PhD qualifications. Advert should be out next week - will post soon but do get in touch if of interest.

Biology peaked in the Ordovician-Silurian and has never reattained the peak of wonder that is pelagic graptolites

"Three roles for background natural history in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: (1) as spark (motivating research questions and hypothesis), (2) as scaffold (supporting the conduct of studies), and (3) as substrate (serving as raw material for new research)." www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

How can one be a scientist in this world and not be an activist?

"Mass extinctions are extra triple bad!"