Here is where I've found DOLPHINS recorded in Britain 250-500 years ago. 🐬💙 Some surprises here - there are populations recorded around East Anglia and far up the Bristol Channel, where dolphins are rarer today! 🙀 #AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife #OceansPast

A rather angry sea gryphon chases a cheeky dolphin across a 2nd century #Roman mosaic Found at #Cirencester in 1849, the entirety of this decorated floor (featuring hunting dogs) can now be seen in the excellent @coriniummuseum.bsky.social 📷 Aug 2022 Don't play with your food this #MosaicMonday !

A new study has unexpectedly discovered that a common parasite of modern oysters actually started infecting bivalves hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs went extinct. phys.org/news/2025-11... #fossils #paleontology

We have 🐟 herring pre print! Our new study reveals that ancient gene flow between Pacific and Atlantic herring played a key role in helping Atlantic herring adapt to the brackish waters of the Baltic Sea. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Lorenzo de Medici’s pet giraffe used to wander 1480s Florence sticking its head in second story windows to be fed by excited neighbors (or eating their ribeye is herbs) and this is a great visual to help imagine it.

Conference day. Lots of familiar names! 😸

It came! It came!! This is a print of @museum.of.emilyk.art ‘s brilliant "Tzefardea Tzedek" (Frog of Righteousness), a riff on the Jewish reaction to the Portland resistance frog. Emily’s explanation is pasted in the alt text. Love it ❤️

31 Oct 1616: Last missive of Thomas Coryate traveller, #writer, from Agra in Mughal India written #otd (eebo) Great camel!

Quick the books are waiting! 😸💚📚

Excellent resource tracing the arrival of Aboriginal people to Australia around 65,000 years ago, through mega fauna, the ice age & rising seas. It maps their archaeological, art & oral records and stories onto the geographical evolution of Australia, crediting all owners of traditional knowledge.

Had a delightful time on the #WaxcapWatch survey earlier this week! 😁🍄

🐟 New research into fossils from the Cretaceous Period found 3️⃣ previously unknown fish species, including "the oldest salmonid in the fossil record."

This is a really important piece that hugely resonates with me personally. I'm precarious too, and the cognitive dissonance of being invited to keynote because of your research, your profile whilst being chronically uncertain of your survival in the field, is all too familiar #MedievalSky

#Bird #Wildlife Mute swan (Cygnus olor), Cygne tuberculé, Alarc'h roueel. "An Alarc'h" is a traditional Breton folk song with a patriotic theme. It commemorates the return of the exiled Breton prince Jean de Montfort (known as "The Swan of Montfort") to retake his duchy from the French in 1379.

The Heron in ancient Egypt. Respected. 1,2. Papyrii of Book of the Dead (Spell 17) 3. Vignette of Spell 83, BM 4. Golden heart amulet with inlaid polycrome glass depiction of Bennu, Annexe of Burial Chamber of Tut’Ankh’Amen, 1323 BCE, Valley ofthe Kings, Thebes ⚱️ Thx as ever Heroneer Hermes1861

#FossilFriday Not to be outdone by Isaac Newton who is buried beneath a gastropod fossil in Westminster Abbey, the famous geologist Charles Lyell’s gravestone is Carboniferous crinoidal limestone full of columnals of these ‘sea-lilies’.

Here is where the European (sea) bass was recorded 250-500 years ago. 🎣Caught for food, interestingly it seems to have only been common in the south. It has expanded its range up the east coast of Britain with the warming temperatures of the last century. Map / #AtlasOfEarlyModernWildlife

Love this! The poor, maligned frogs here represent heresy made visible, and are associated with Revelations 16:3 where frogs come from the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast and a false prophet. 🐸 But was the image intended as a dig at the Franciscans? 🤭

Did you know? Shakespeare’s England had native dog roses and imported damask roses — the latter was prized as the only repeat-flowering rose before the 18th century. 🌹 www.cassidycash.com/ep391

For #BlackHistoryMonth, here are some thoughts about a source I've read - 'Letters from a Moor at London to his Friend at Tunis' (1736). This is a kind of guide to England, supposedly (uh-oh! 😅) written by a Black traveler from Tunisia, North Africa. 🇹🇳🧑🏽‍✈️ archive.org/details/b330...

Changes in Swiss pasture species diversity for over a century 🧪 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Day 75/100 of Cool Indian Wildlife History Clara was a famous rhinoceros captured from Assam, taken to Holland, and exhibited across Europe in 1741-58. In India, Director of the Dutch factoy, kept her as a pet in Hooghly for 3 yrs. This 1747 illustration shows a ship taking her from Hooghly.

Pine Marten has returned to Exmoor NP after an absence of more than a century:

Fossil found on Dorset coast is unique 'sword dragon' species www.bbc.com/news/article...

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio. https://scim.ag/4791YqA

Megafauna bones discovered in South America suggest that humans regularly ate giant sloths and armadillos. Archaeologists now think smaller animals only became dietary staples after the megafauna were hunted to extinction. archaeology.org/news/2025/10/06/what-happened-to-south-americas-megafauna/

An 18th-century caracal wildcat an it's keeper at the Tower of London bigcatsofsuffolk.com/an-18th-cent...

Acorrn seasooon 🥳🌰💚🌳

Common toad is becoming uncommon in UK, study shows - Species’ population has almost halved in a generation and urgent action is needed to protect it www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Images of wood #fishweir wicker fence 2 meter tall on the shore #RhosonSea #ConwyCounty Borough, #Wales. Historical sources indicted used for seasonal fisheries for herring and mackerel late 19th century. 1/6 #maritimeheritage #oceandecadeheritage #coastalhistory

I found an interesting study on the potential links between copper mining 4000 years ago and Strawberry trees in Ireland based on DNA sequencing a year or two ago. britishandirishbotany.org/index.php/bi...

Mood. Owl from the 16th century Aztec Codex Bourbonicus

"Scientists targeted by dark PR tactics" Good coverage of the coordinated, anonymous attacks that have hit scientists who have been critical of Colossal Biosciences (me included) www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Scientists find ancient life-size animal rock carvings in the Saudi Arabian desert https://apnews.com/article/rock-art-saudi-arabia-desert-ab914512f46e80d722537f3d5506a616?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

The turtle (靈龜), ancient guardian of time, reigns as the wisest among the Four Spirits of Chinese mythology, alongside the Qilin, Phoenix, and Dragon. Its immense lifespan reflects not just longevity, but the weight of eternal wisdom. Some legends say a divine turtle bears Mount Penglai 1/2

"Oíche Shamhna the púca spits on the sméara dubha. Can't be eaten after that night."

📢 Smooth snakes are successfully reintroduced to part of east Devon. 👉查询蓝天帐号创建日期

🎨 🐕 Meet Buster, the “Coal Saving Dog” as this week's #ArtfulPup. His 1924 pic appears in the Savannah History Museum. Buster was a Central of Georgia Railway foreman’s pet, trained to round up any spilled lumps of coal. Buster’s dedication to fuel economy earned him local publicity and lots of fans

The slow worms'll be happy with that compost heap I reckon 😹🐉

Swan Pit, Norwich Great Hospital.

Horse news! Archaeologists previously thought horses didn't arrive in Sicily until the early first millennium B.C., but new evidence proves they were part of Bronze Age life there at least 1,000 years earlier. archaeology.org/news/2025/09/24/horses-arrived-in-sicily-earlier-than-previously-thought/

I always liked this proverb about 'fake news' (it's Chinese, but every culture seems to have some variation of it): 三人成虎 - 'Three men make a tiger.' The origins of this great saying go back to the Warring States period in Chinese history. (So, roughly contemporary w/Classical Greece) 1/5

Our all new seminar schedule for this academic year. All online, no charge, everyone welcome 💚

Zhao Mengfu, Horse and Groom in Winter, 13th century

In 1894, Tibbles the cat single-pawedly caused the extinction of the Stephens Island wren, a small, flightless bird found only on an untouched island south of New Zealand.

Cyberattack on Paris Natural History Museum in July disabled alarms and monitoring - leading to physical theft. In September, thieves exploited the vulnerability "opened" by the cyberattack. www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers...

I did a little pond upgrade today. I don't think I'll be getting hired as a pingo restorer by Norfolk Wildlife Trust anytime soon but it's bigger than it was 🥳🐸🦎 🌊

‘Just add water’: how to bring back ancient plants in a Norfolk ghost pond An expert team are resurrecting ice age ponds and finding rare species returning from a ‘perfect time capsule’If you glanced into a green field and saw a yellow digger tearing into the turf, you might assume it was...

Surprising new fossil evidence undermines the idea that there was ever a mass extinction on land – and may force us to reframe the current biodiversity crisis

It was great to present about our @projectfishistory.bsky.social research at #ICESASC25 and an honour to be on the shortlist for the best presentation! What a great week! @sosbangor.bsky.social @icesmarine.bsky.social