#Ecology #Biogeography 🌐🌎

Very nice research highlight by Jérémy Froidevaux & Laura Touzot on our recent European bison habitat use paper 👉 "High habitat‐use plasticity in European bison (Bison bonasus) across spatial scales and seasons" besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Taxonomist Appreciation Day post I am in freakin' AWE of people doing primary taxonomic work. To do it well, you need deep scholarship to track past naming (and misnaming) efforts. You may need to hunt down specimens only to discover they are damaged, misindentified, or lost. 1/3

Europas „Urnatur“: Ein Mosaik aus Wiesen, Büschen & Baumgruppen – geprägt von großen Pflanzenfressern. Warum das wichtig ist: Das Leitbild von dichtem Wald könnte Natur schaden statt nützen, warnt @jcsvenning.bsky.social @econovoau.bsky.social oau.bsky.social im @riffreporter.bsky.social-Interview.

Das Verschwinden der Nachtfalter Hohe Verluste in den letzten 50 Jahren. Langzeitdaten zeigen: Selbst Schutzgebiete sind kein sicherer Rückzugsraum. Weitere Informationen, Daten und Hintergründe: • www.nachtfalter-bw.de #Nachtfalter #Biodiversität #Naturschutz #Langzeitdaten #Pufferzonen

Belemnite survival into the Eocene? #paleobio #cephalopods 🧪🦑 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Die Forschungsministerin freut sich auf Insta darüber, dass jetzt "Porträts" von Frauen der Geschichte in ihrem Haus hängen. Nur: Die sind mit KI erstellt. Und schleifen die Gesichter der Frauen gemäß moderner westlicher Schönheitsideale glatt. Was für ein irres Projekt Z.B.

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon - Europe’s landscapes for 23 Myr were mostly tree- & flower-rich mosaics shaped by large herbivores, not dense #forests, see our new synthesis www.eurekalert.org/news-release... #forests #woodlands #paleoecology #nature #trees #refiorestation

I’m excited to share a new project that I hope will be a valuable resource for the paleo community! I'm working on a textbook about plesiosaurs and compiled a comprehensive overview of all currently valid plesiosaur taxa and some nomina dubia. 1/3 www.sachspal.de/plesiosauria/ #FossilFriday

Research from our Biosciences Department and the British Trust for Ornithology shows that hotter European summers are reducing migratory birds’ ability to fuel up for their long journeys. These changes could have serious consequences for bird populations across Europe & Africa. 👉 bit.ly/46eofTf

Skull (cast) of the Carboniferous embolomere Neopteroplax on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

I believe papers about extinct charismatic vertebrates should be held to the same publishing standards and norms as other taxonomic groups. It's objectively bizarre that papers describing a single species gets published in Science/Nature as if that's considered of broad paleobiological significance

Immer weniger Vogelstimmen vor unserer Haustür: In Deutschland wurden bei der „Stunde der Wintervögel“ zuletzt nur noch 32 Vögel pro Garten gezählt – vor 15 Jahren waren es 46. Selbst einst häufige Arten wie Grünfink oder Haussperling verschwinden vielerorts.

One of the earliest pelagic crocodylomorphs.

As the water warms, more tropical species are making their way into the Mediterranean, from Suaz in the east and from Gibraltar in the west. Calcifying phytoplankton and zooplankton are no exception. 🧪🌊 Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Die Formulierung eines vermeintlichen Anspruch des Staates gegenüber Wissenschaft und Forschung ist übrigens ein Wesensmerkmal autoritärer Staaten. Es ist unsäglich, dass ein Bundeskanzler diese Parallelen nicht erkennt.

Keep science accessible 🧪

I just added some information on my new book 'Die Welt der Plesiosaurier' to my website and included a 38-page reading sample that gives you an idea of the content and the illustrations. It's written in German, but maybe still of interest to some of you. #paleontology www.sachspal.de/de/publicati...

If you are also dealing with a sense of betrayal, I think this is a good listen. Scientific societies (plural) have failed us because they are, in the end, still behaving like boys' clubs. Also TW about the incident in SVP24 Minneapolis. pca.st/episode/d8b6...

Meet Galahadosuchus jonesi, a new crocodylomorph from the Late Triassic of the UK, described by @es-ucl.bsky.social & @nhm-london.bsky.social PhD student Ewan Bodenham (with @stephanspiekman.bsky.social, @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & Paul Upchurch): anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

So lang wie ein Kochlöffel: Der Pflanzenfresser Tyrannoroter heberti war für heutige Maßstäbe nicht sehr groß – doch zu seinen Lebzeiten vor 307 Millionen Jahren ein Riese.

New cool high-fibre herbivorous pantylid 'microsaur' from the Carboniferous of Atlantic Canada 🍁. Congrats to Arjan Mann, Hillary Maddin, and coauthors (not on bsky apparently). www.nature.com/articles/s41... A few comments: 1/

The Stuttgart Natural History Museum is offering a postdoc position (m/f/d) in Temnospondyl Geochemistry E 13 TV-L, 100 %, 2 years Application deadline: March 8th, 2026 ➡ Further information: https://t1p.de/nwrfi

Der EU Grassland Butterfly Index wird nun jährlich fortgeschrieben und der Bericht für den Zeitraum 1991-2024 liegt vor (Rückgang von 47%) doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Podcast mit mir über Plesiosaurier open.spotify.com/episode/20ve...

Huang, J., Wu, W., Mao, L. et al. Cellular-level preservation of cutaneous spikes in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur. Nat Ecol Evol (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Mein erstes Buch "Die Welt der Plesiosaurier" ist gestern erschienen. Gemeinsam mit Achim Schwermann präsentiere ich auf fast 300 Seiten einen allgemeinverständlichen Überblick über die Gruppe der Plesiosaurier, mit der ich mich seit über 20 Jahren wissenschaftlich beschäftige. 1/3 #Buch #Saurier

My first book, "Die Welt der Plesiosaurier," is now officially out! It has nearly 300 pages and features a state-of-the-art overview of plesiosaurs. The book is also filled with numerous photographs and wonderful illustrations by @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social. 1/3 #book #fossils #plesiosaurs #nature

💦 Moore, Sümpfe & Auen sind mächtige Verbündete im Kampf gegen die #Klimakrise. Sie halten Wasser in der Landschaft, sind Lebensräume für viele Arten (wie die Bekassine ⬇️) & Erholungsort für Menschen. Wir setzen uns für diese bedrohten Ökosysteme ein, z.B. für #Moore: www.nabu.de/natur-und-la...

Jack Horner being in the Epstein files is not something I had on my bingo card for 2026.... Horner seemingly visited Epstein's ranch multiple times, including apparently with a student.

Die Tiere können sogar aktiv Salz ausscheiden, wenn sie über den Ozean reisen.

BIRDBASE, a new publicly available dataset, brings together "ecological and life history traits for 11,589 bird species across 254 families." #ornithology

New paper just dropped finally describing a complete specimen of Dakosaurus maximus and what a beauty it is. Some highlights, in addition to this being a long time coming, is the presence of bitemarks on the face and chondrichthyan material in the stomach doi.org/10.26879/1577

Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I wrote a blog post about a tentative megalosaurid vertebra from the Lower Jurassic of northern Germany, described by the late Friedrich von Huene. www.sachspal.de/friedrich-vo... #dinosaurs #jurassic #germany #fossil

I wrote a blog post about the giant Temnodontosaurus from Banz, Germany. The 2.3 m long skull is the first known specimen of its kind, and the original 1854 description includes life-sized illustrations of the fossil. #paleontology #Germany #ichthyosaur #history www.sachspal.de/giant-ichthy...

A few new papers out recently that I'm excited to share with you! First: How well could stem reptiles hear? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Surprise, there's a fourth paper! Just out today, we segmented the skull of the Permian stem reptile Protorothyris, so you don't have to! Work done with Adam Behlke and @hanssues.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... All meshes also available on Morphosource.

Can finally share this #watercolor #paleoart I did a few years back of the “King of the Riverside” I did for the new paper by @melanieduring.com which shows that in Hell Creek there were giant Prognathodon mosasaurs that were living in freshwater (not just visiting)

Fossils are cultural objects - and this is not some woke b*llshit that people come up nowadays to spoil the fun in #palaeontology; this classification actually has a long history. If you're curious how fossils became #culturalproperty under int'l law, check my new paper: doi.org/10.1093/lril...

I'm guilty of that myself sometimes, but this is again a good reminder to become less emotional towards tetrapod taxonomy. They're just labels helping our monkey brains to understand biodiversity.

Me sitting over my thalattosuchian fragments while there is big fuss about some new dinosaur paper.

I'm pretty confident that certain online people are going to be cheering about how they were right all along on Nanotyrannus. Their take will be that they were right all along and their arguments, based on private specimens of uncertain provenance, photos of things without scale bars, and ideas...

Wildbienen, Hummeln und Schmetterlingen fehlt Lebensraum. Auch das Ziel der EU-Biodiversitätsstrategie, den Anteil naturnaher Flächen in der Landwirtschaft auf 10 % zu erhöhen, reicht nicht aus. Das zeigt eine neue Studie in Science mit Beteiligung der #UniFreiburg. ufr.link/bestaeuber-lebensraum

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social has a message for younger scientists: Don't give up. "Be part of this fight for what's right, for science, for reason, for fact-based discourse and policy making."

In late August Renesto et al. published a paper where they described a specimen of Lariosaurus valceresii that preserves the skin, even outlining the body and limbs as well scales. I must say that I am happy that it is very very close to what I had hypothesized 😍 #paleoart #sciart #reptiles

Minus 90 Prozent in nur 15 Jahren - das ist de facto der ökologische Zusammenbruch des kompletten Unterlaufs der #Elbe .Aber egal, #Hamburg lässt weiter baggern, bis auch der letzte Stint krepiert. www.ndr.de/nachrichten/...

Last week the German Meteorological Society warned that "the 3-degree limit could be exceeded as early as 2050". While not possible to fully rule out, the assessed warming scenarios we published in the IPCC AR6 report find this to be extremely unlikely.

Wie sich komplexe Lebensformen entwickelt haben, besagt etwa der Gehalt an gelöstem Kohlenstoff in den Urmeeren. Doch nun tut sich rund eine Milliarde Jahre vor heute eine Lücke auf. #repost