No man hates a thing as I hate a microvertebrate fossil.

This is the best version of Sherlock Holmes

How many kinds of encrusting animal can you spot? Brachiopod from Traverse Group of Michigan, photo by a student of mine.

I am recruiting PhD students for my new lab housed in the Sam Noble Museum at University of Oklahoma! If you are interested in fish macroevolution, geometric morphometrics, specimen-based research & phylogenomics please reach out. More info here: fishdiversitylab.weebly.com Please share widely!!!

Really impressed with this study, a quick read through indicates it will be foundational for our knowledge of teleostean evolution. Good stuff! www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Me: I need more examples of how animals are important for my zoology students *monkey paw curls*

Amazing, can't wait to read.

A stunning fossil site full of fish uncovered in Egypt reveals how oceans began to bounce back after the devastating mass extinction that closed the Cretaceous. I’ll tell you more in my latest for National Geographic! 🐠 🧪

Stromatolites once ruled this world...

Note the signature 'PAT' on this figure from 1881 (!) illustrating the Carboniferous actinopterygian Platysomus superbus. Grateful to Abby Caron et al. for their paper, otherwise I doubt I would have noticed. Amazing illustrations.

Forgot that I had to turn on some moderation settings after some random harassment, let us hope I don't need to revert!

Should be fixed!

Apologies that my settings mean you can’t DM me, will be looking through the people who replied! Thank you for your patience

CT technician position available at the U-M Museum of Zoology/Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology: careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Looking for a paleo artist for paid fish commissions. DM me for details!

Me after a week at my parent’s house.

published now in PEFO's peer-reviewed journal Lithodendron! Postosuchus Supernova #fossilfriday #triassicpark 🦖🧪 petrifiedforestfieldinstitute.org/lithodendron...

I really thought these were cookies

Evolutionary Perspective Two: Societal problems 🧪 youtube.com/live/eaB0SIN...

I’ve now had two different dreams about brachiopods in the last week. Not sure what that means…

Howdy spider people of Bluesky, can anyone confirm for me that 1) this is a cellar spider and 2) if the other spider is a member of the same species?

What spider? I just see leaf…

Having a student interested in brachiopods and their encrusters is excellent because I have a ton of the little guys. My mom is happy they will be leaving her house as well.

Ordered 12 obscure Paleozoic fish prints from the same seller in Texas, might be put on some sort of watchlist now

First lecture from my upcoming course on evolutionary biology. Super high production value to give you the sense that you are actually in one of my lectures. If anyone is good at recording stuff and has advice, I would love to hear it. youtu.be/OCgUyw3ndRM

As I am a Penn grad I think OC Marsh's ghost is looking up with disgust at this post.

Casts *only find fish* curse on another paleontologist

Thinking about important societal problems that we address in evolution: so far I have pathogens, invasive species, extinction, conservation, where humans come from…any other ideas? For a class I’m putting together.

Still have no idea what the function is for Denticeps, amazing how much there is to learn about the ecology and osteology of living fishes…

Student photo showing a brachiopod absolutely covered in encrusting animals. Collected this from the Traverse Group of Michigan

These are amazing

New anatomical data from a fish fossil that’s much smaller than T-Rex here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Tag yourself I’m Quezalcoatlus @skyemcdavid.com that’s how it’s spelled right?

Scales from a large Permian actinopterygian collected from the Phosphoria Formation of Idaho in the Smithsonian collection. Specific locality info is lacking, but shows the ornament really well.

I think a major disconnect in conversations surrounding AI is the amount of information that isn’t digitized. Pro-AI people I’ve spoken to seem to think almost everything is digitized, whereas at least in my field almost all the information is in specimens and books that are not digitally available

Is a river dolphin just a giant Saurichthys? Some people are saying this.

My new paper with @gdarlim.bsky.social and @hoehna.bsky.social is now out in Proceedings B! We set out to compare two different approaches to time-calibrate a molecular phylogeny: traditional node calibrations, and unresolved FBD... @royalsocietypublishing.org doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Talking zoology at the Bowie State Natural Sciences symposium!

Beautiful illustration

They are simply little guys

I don’t feel my lack of using gen AI is some kind of stand, I just haven’t found a good use for it yet. Maybe one day I will, but it fundamentally is not a good writing tool.

Is a spoon a tiny shovel, or is a shovel a giant spoon? Sorry to get political.

Am I…becoming an invertebrate zoologist? Maybe just on the weekends…

Trying my hand at insect photography. Aphids can clone themselves! Wild.

Fantastic, love the detail of encrusting animals too

Student photo of a brachiopod that is almost completely covered with a mat-like colonial organism. Bryozoan? One of my favorite fossils from the Devonian Traverse Group of Michigan.

I really needed to hear this:

Me, at a Blackboard institution, logging into Bluesky today.

Whoa this looks awesome

Postdoc!