Museums hold collections for a reason: “Perhaps, he says, the next big breakthrough in charting our solar system’s deepest history won’t come from exploring some distant world but rather from studying samples of space rocks …from a drawer in a museum.” www.scientificamerican.com/article/rare...

Preparing to speak to the Amateur Geological Society in north London this evening. It will be my first talk on this topic. Fingers crossed.

#TrilobiteTuesday Ampyx from the Ordovician of Asker, Norway. On display in the Geologisk Museum, Oslo.

Museum Collections 🌊 #WorldOceansDay Feature: Sclerosponge (Acanthochaetetes wellsi) Sclerosponges, a group of sponges, grow very slowly, so their limestone skeletons hold local climate records that can go back centuries. 🎧 More with Gustav Paulay: www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/100-years/ob...

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

#MolluscMonday Sectioned gyrocone nautiloid displayed in the public galleries of the Oslo Geological Museum. Ordovician, USA.

The team for our artsdatabanken (Norwegian taxonomic initiative) project NorDigBryo visiting NHM Oslo in conjunction with Larwood Oslo #bryozoan this week. Thank you! We are up to 7000+ new digitized observations 300+ barcodes and maybe species nes to science!

#FossilFriday Silurian tabulate corals and crinoids in the stone facing of a building in Oslo. Braksøoya Formation from Brevik Quarry.

#TrilobiteTuesday. Individuals of Asaphellus fezouataensis are packed together in this incredible block from the Moroccan Ordovician which is on display at the Geological Museum in Oslo.

Gearing up for my talk later this morning at the Larwood Symposium in Oslo.

#MolluscMonday Block of Middle Ordovician limestone containing the orthocone nautiloid Endoceras high up in the wall of Akerhus Fortress, Oslo.

Larwood Oslo 2026 begins with its icebreaker in three hours!! The bryozoans are ready! Courtesy of Carolann Schack!! #bryozoa @bryozoology.bsky.social @nhmbryozoa.bsky.social

#FossilFriday Not quite a fossil, this is one of Beringer's iconoliths (Lügensteine) on display at the Marienberg Castle in Würzburg. Suggestions of affinity would be welcomed.

Exciting and rare job opportunity at National Museums Northern Ireland in Belfast for a curator of Earth Science. Permanent post, closing 10 June. £37,694 - £38,990 per annum #museumjobs #geologyjobs ce0568li.webitrent.com/ce0568li_web...

#MolluscMonday If you find yourself in Würzburg enjoy a glass of local wine at the Bürgerspital Weinstube where two ceratite ammonoids are displayed on plinths showing the three divisions of the Triassic: red Buntsandstein, Muschelkalk limestone, and brown Sandsteinkeuper.

#FossilFriday Not quite a fossil but one of Johann Beringer's 'lying stones' on display at the small Lügenstein Museum in Würzburg, Germany. Well worth visiting.

A couple of nice sections of echinoid fossils photographed this morning at the entrance to the Premium Lounge in Heathrow Terminal 2.

Check out the talks for Larwood #bryozoan meeting 1-3 June 2026 www.nhm.uio.no/english/rese... Can’t wait to see old friends, meet new ones, and nerd out about our favourite animals and their evolution! @bryozoology.bsky.social Welcome to the Natural History Museum in Oslo!

We'll be hosting a joint Crossing the Palaeontological–Ecological Gap (CPEG) meeting & Conservation Paleobiology Symposium @ucl.ac.uk in London in August 2027, which aims to bridge spatial and temporal gradients between palaeontology, ecology, and conservation: www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical...

Does it matter if single celled organisms are getting smaller as the world gets hotter? @djmmeeg.bsky.social and colleagues found that size-function relationships have been mis-estimated with worrying consequences for global carbon pumps. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42087558/

#MolluscMonday Two contrasting snails from the streets of Chartres, France. One a Mesozoic fossil in a paving stone, the other a wooden carving on a 500-year old building depicting a weird animal eating grapes.

Join geologists from the Edinburgh Geological Society at Siccar Point to explore the new Deep Time Trail and find out more about James Hutton and Siccar Point, one of the most significant locations in the history of geology.

In the event of a fire, exit the building immediately. Do not stop to look at the MASSIVELY INTERESTING 350 MILLION YEAR OLD CRINOID FOSSILS, LIKE STACKS OF POLO MINTS, SLICED IN EVERY POSSIBLE ORIENTATION, WHICH LINE THE ENTIRE STAIRWELL. #FossilFriday 🌏⚒⭐🔬🧪

#FossilFriday Palaeozoic corals in the polished facing stone of the Loro Piana shop at Hong Kong Airport. A welcome diversion during a long stopover.

Pierrella fendouzhei

Deepest known bryozoan, Pierrella fendouzhei, from Pacific hadal samples. #bryozoan doi.org/10.1126/scie...

I wonder whether Xi Jinping pointed out the Proterozoic stromatolites in the columns of the Great Hall of the People when he met Donald Trump today? (Photo from 'Fossils; The Essential Guide')

New blog post! Fossil toothed whales (dolphins) from the Oligocene and early Miocene of New Zealand, and a bit of a tribute to the work of my Ph.D. adviser, Ewan Fordyce, shown here.

Join us next week on the 20th May at 19:00 (UK time) for a webinar by Professor Phillip Manning. A virtual tour and diary of the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi which opened in November 2025 exploring the museum’s science programmes with a focus on innovation and collaboration.

NOM NOM! Janolus likely feeding on some bryozoan deliciousness! #molluscmonday www.inaturalist.org/observations...

#MolluscMonday The florid chamber-dividing sutures of the ammonoid Phylloceras are here emphasised by painting one of the chambers white. The function of such complex sutures is debated.

A thoroughly deserved award to recognise Jerry’s immense contributions to palaeontology!

For those fascinated by the 300 year-old scientific fraud of Beringer's fake fossils (Lügensteine), this meeting in Würzburg may be of interest.

#FossilFriday Jurassic sponges in the stone cladding of German Treuchtlingen Formation at the Takasaki Art Gallery in Japan.

May the fourth be with you: Death Star specimen of the bryozoan Volviflustrellaria volvox from the Upper Cretaceous of Germany. Photograph and allusion by Leila D’Souza.

#MolluscMonday #UrbanGeology Trio of sectioned belemnites visible in cladding and paving stones of White Jura (Treuchtlingen Formation) at the art gallery in Takasaki, Japan. One preserves the chambered phragmocone, and another is cut very obliquely avoiding the alveolus.

OH NEAT! A Leather star attacking a brachiopod! British Columbia Sea stars attacking and causing brachiopod extinction was a brief topic of contention in the 90s! #seastarsaturday www.inaturalist.org/observations...

#FossilFriday #UrbanGeology Fossil corals in the cladding stone of a branch of Tiffany & Co. near Tokyo railway station. Thanks go to Jill Darrell and Brian Rosen for identifying the corals as a colonial micheliniid and the solitary genus Lophamplexus. Probably Permian.

What specimens could possibly be MISUNDERSTOOD? Let’s find out! With the amazing @spissatella.bsky.social! m.youtube.com/watch?v=lO1h... Please enjoy the real Megalodon! 🦇 🪰 🦟🐚

Often overlooked, frequently under-appreciated, but precisely the correct amount of physiologically weird, cheilostome bryozoans are the perfect addition to your #InverteFest.

Alright as soon as I ask I find a very helpful article from Wooster of course (great paleo program) that answers my question. Still would love good brachiopod papers. woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2013/09/01/w...

If you work on fossil birds and you are willing to review a paper, please give me a thumbs up! Because honestly, the fossil bird community are the *worst* at agreeing to do reviews for each other's work, and there are only so many reviewers we can ask before we have to reject a paper. It's not cool.

One for the igneous rock enthusiasts – orbicular granite photographed at a Buddhist temple in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, Japan.

www.nature.com/articles/s41... New morphological investigations into character evolution of phylactolaemate bryozoans

Stunning fossil butterfly from the Oligocene 🧪 Original publication: www.app.pan.pl/article/item...

#MolluscMonday The Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo contains a marble staircase made from the Jurassic limestone ‘Ammonitico Rosso’. The store very admirably draws attention to the fossils of ammonites and belemnites in the marble, a practise I wish was more widespread in commercial buildings.

#FossilFriday A wealth of fossils can be seen at Hampton Court Palace. The youngest are these late Pleistocene–early Holocene antlers of Megaloceros giganteus – the Irish deer or Irish elk – mounted on a wall among smaller antlers from extant deer.

Happy #EarthDay 🌍 Plus a reminder that most of Earth is Ocean, and that life on land and life in the seas are inextricably linked... www.cell.com/current-biol...

#MolluscMonday Rare example of an Ordovician orthocone nautiloid with a fractured shell. Photographed in the stone floor of the King’s Gallery at Hampton Court Palace last week.

Since @echinoblog.bsky.social has been pushing #bryozoanstoday for #FossilFriday, I figure I need no further encouragement. 🧪⚒️ Here we have some uncoiled Yorktown snail tubes 🐚 immured in (completely overgrown by) cheilostome bryozoans assigned to Schizoporella. Nice camouflage!