New review paper with Martín Ezcurra just published in @journalsystpal.bsky.social as part of a special issue! Modern reptiles comprise archosaurs 🐊🦉, lepidosaurs🦎🐍, and turtles🐢, but their origins is murky. Where do turtles fit in, really? And most marine reptiles? Choristoderes? Drepanosaurs? ->

Reconstructed skull of Eunotosaurus africanus, an early reptile from the Permian of southern Africa. 🐢 Long hypothesized to be an ancient ancestor of turtles, recent work led by @semifossorial.bsky.social shows this curious creature is instead a 'turtleized' millerettid. (1/🧵) #FossilFriday

I feel like this is going to be a constant narrative for a while now

Dimetrodon's Daydream #berensart2026 #paleoart

🔵🟠KNICKS IN 5!*🟠🔵

A fossil thought to be key to turtle evolution turns out to be something else - which clarifies where our shelly friends came from. Today’s free newsletter is out (short article + my latest writing + upcoming events + ear perks from the week).

Led by the incomparable Sanaa El-Sayed, a study out today in Science Advances throws open an important new window on marine fish diversity during the critical few million years following the K-Pg mass extinction. Below: artistic vision of the new fauna by Ian Baylatry.

New paper. Modern hagfishes (Myxiniformes) have radically reduced eyes. When did these reductions happen, and how? Leveraging the diverse hagfish fauna from Mazon Creek, we show this happened gradually in animals occupying shallow marine environments royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

Our paper on turtle origins is finally out in Current Biology, with two major implications for our understanding of reptile evolution 🐢 #Paleontology #Turtles #Evolution www.cell.com/current-biol...

The Pacific spiny lumpsucker, an inefficient swimmer but a highly efficient suction cup. The pelvic fins have evolved into a strong suction disk on the belly, giving it the ability to anchor itself to substrates. Plate-like structures called "tubercles" provide defense against predators.

New paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article... Guilherme & I investigate dietary selectivity on turtle K/Pg extinction - durophagous turtles have higher survivorship probability. Beautiful art by @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social

A couple years ago, we reported one from even further south, in Namibia. A giant early tetrapod with affinities to species of tetrapod from the earliest Carboniferous, which we named Gaiasia. But is Gaiasia unique only to the far south, or was it part of a Gondwana-wide fauna?

New paper! How weird could Permian animals get? Turns out, pretty weird. Meet the stem tetrapod Tanyka amnicola from the Pedra de Fogo Formation of northeast Brazil royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

New pantylid just dropped 👀 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Rauisuchus, the one who started it all, a friend-sized fella (do not trust any other repurposed past skeletal reconstruction of this animal)

Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...

Very excited to share Scyllacerta creanae, a new Permian stem-reptile from South Africa known from an aggregation of several individuals. This specimen provides unprecedented detail regarding the anatomy of the early reptile skull. 🦎 (1/🧵)

First paper of 2026 is out for #FossilFriday, and the first of probably several ornithischian papers over the next interval. Here my coauthors and I describe some tantalizing bits that suggest that ornithischian diversity in the Morrison Formation is higher than previously recognized.

This #FossilFriday we are pleased to have published the new younginid taxon Scyllacerta from the late Permian of South Africa 🇿🇦 This beautiful aggregation has the holotype and has been in the literature for 30 years as “juvenile Youngina”. Photo taken before scanning at the @esrf.fr

Introducing a new Permian reptile: Scyllacerta creanae With a tympanic fossa on the quadrate and no lower temporal bar, Scyllacerta challenges long-standing ideas about when-and-how hearing evolved in reptiles 🦎👂 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/pala...

The origin of the tympanic fossa in reptiles revealed by a late Permian neodiapsid: new species Scyllacerta creanae onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #FossilFriday @semifossorial.bsky.social @morphobank.bsky.social

Come work with the vertebrate paleontology team at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC this summer! REU Students will have the opportunity to study and reconstruct the skulls of Permian and Triassic reptiles 😃 Reach out to me if you have any questions (: Apply by the 31st!!

peerj.com/articles/204... My first mammal project, which I started as an REU intern at the AMNH is finally published! Huge thanks to my mentors and coauthors on this project for all their help, and to the reviewers for their comments and suggestions!

more wiki comms and stuff

Buffa et al.’s paper on the enigmatic Permian reptile 🦎 Galesphyrus and the origin of Neodiapsida is out in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology! Read the thread 👇 for some important takeaways from our study @valentinbuffa.bsky.social #Paleontology #Reptile #Permian doi.org/10.1080/1477...

DR. TSOGTBAATAR FUNDRAISER: gofund.me/c8d8d1ab7

It’s finally out! Our work addressing the origins of reptiles is published in PCJ! peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.... We use novel info gleaned from the scan data of dozens of stem reptiles to substantially revise our understanding of early reptile evolution #paleontology #herpetology

Huge thanks to Michel Laurin for his recommendation of my work on reptile origins in PCI Paleontology! First of many works to come (: Also thanks to Valentin Buffa, David Majanović, and others for their reviews (: paleo.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec...

And I named one of them!!! Meet Aulacephalodon kapoliwacela - the Iron Hog - the first and so far only geikiid known from the Luangwa Basin! I worked on this taxon for my Master's thesis, and it's been lovely

Now introducing Amenoyengi mpunduensis ('many-tooth from Mpundu'), a small moradisaurine captorhinid from the late Permian of Zambia with multiple rows of teeth! #Permian #Paleontology 😄 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Other new species from Permian Zambia described in the JVP memoir include the temnospondyl Rhineceps karibaensis, the gorgonopsid Arctops umulunshi, and the captorhinid Amenoyengi mpunduensis

In what may be one of Earth’s craziest forms of mimicry, researchers in 2023 reported a species of rove beetle that grows a termite puppet on its back to fool real termites into feeding it. Learn more during #InsectWeek: scim.ag/40mj1S8

Happy to announce that this fall I’ll be a Kalbfleisch and Frick Postdoctoral Research fellow at the American Museum of Natural History @amnh.org I’ll work with Dr. Roger Benson on more early reptile evolution, sensory anatomy, and more. Super excited!

Successfully passed my dissertation defense here at ISU! These past five years have been amazing. Fell in love with research, started my family with @thezoiejenkins.bsky.social , and couldn’t have asked for a better advisor in @gondwannabe.bsky.social #Dissertation #PhD

Gemini is using Pterosaur Heresies as one of it's sources now. Extremely concerning...

Extremely detailed paper on the anatomy Thadeosaurus, with increased phylogenetic support for Tangasauridae 🦎 🌊 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site is looking for help with funding and crews to excavate an ~1/2 acre of bone beds in the Early #Jurassic (~200 million). We need big excavation equipment. Check out fossils and how you can help in the images attached.

Postdoc on stegosaurs with Roger Benson at the AMNH careers.amnh.org/postings/4384

Here is my reconstruction of Millereta rubidgei, an early #reptile from Late Permian South Africa. It has osteoderms on its head. I was commissioned to do this recon for a redescription published yesterday! Congrats to @semifossorial.bsky.social and colleagues for such a cool paper! #paleoart

Gabriel is one of the best! 📌

And our amazing artwork of Milleretta, brought to life by @serpenillus.bsky.social 😀 #Permian #Fossil #Reptile #Paleontology

Our description of Milleretta rubidgei, a 252 million-year old reptile, is out! academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a... #Permian #Reptile #South Africa

Hi! I'm a palaeontologist who has just joined Bluesky. My lab recently published a paper on gorgonopsian osteohistology. doi.org/10.1111/joa....

We're looking for help with the excavation of bone beds at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site in SW Utah. We need heavy excavation equipment to move a large fossil-rich rock pile and in place rock above the bone beds. The City will break ground for an electrical substation in early April.

Bill Nye the Science Guy was started with an NSF grant. www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

Important #fossilfriday for me, as one of my new papers has finally been published in PlosOne! Thanks to all my coauthors Pascal Godefroit, Kecheng and Nathan Vallée Gillette 🤩 We described a new skull of the early ornithopod Jeholosaurus shangyuanensis from China…

A detailed thread on a new study of recumbirostran Hapsidopareion. Well done @semifossorial.bsky.social !

Our anatomical description of Hapsidopareion is out in Papers in Palaeontology! Thanks to collaborators and mentors @gondwannabe.bsky.social, Arjan Mann, and @hanssues.bsky.social and ISU undergraduate coauthors for their massive help with segmentation! 😄https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1610

A pretty solid couple of days for publishing some of my dissertation work! 🦎Our description of Milleropsis pricei, a late Permian reptile from South Africa, is out! 🚨Rethink what you know about 'parareptiles'🚨 Link here: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...