I finally have something worth posting here! A new paper on wormsI never expected to see fossilised! Juracanthocephalus is the first body fossil of Acanthocephala and remarkably provides links with rotifers and other gnathiferans. Published in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘻𝘦𝘳𝘪 (Schlotheim, 1823) (Ptychopariida: Conocoryphidae) Miaolingian Jince Formation Ginetz, Bohemia, Czechia 🇨🇿

A couple of Neobisium carcinoides pseudoscorpions sieved from Hornbeam leaf litter on a random road verge in Norfolk today while out cycling with @jeremybartlett.bsky.social #pseudoscorpions #invertebrates

This is one of our coolest horseshoe crab fossils. Tachypleus syriacus- featuring a fishy friend! Cenomanian in age, from the Hjoula Lagerstätte of Lebanon 🇱🇧

Shaky footage but here's a few seconds of a Bristly Millipede (Polyxenus lagurus) gliding across a lichen covered wall at Hethel church today.

𝘉𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘰𝘮𝘢 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴 (Brongniart, 1822) (Phacopida: Encrinuridae) Wenlock Series (upper Silurian) Coalbrookdale Formation Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, England

Can never decide whether it’s cooler that fleas are parasitic scorpionflies or that termites are eusocial cockroaches.

Here is a Selenopeltis from the collection of Joachim Barrande.

Alexa: “70s invert palaeo vibes”

Today I got FOUR lifers, which is the sort of numbers I normally only do on a holiday abroad! Dartford Warbler, Wood Lark, Meadow Pipit and Common Snipe.

Do not mess with Velvet Swimming Crabs.

A cheirurid, a phacopid and a harpetid walk into a bar

More reasons to love the mild and damp British winter! Moss - 𝘓𝘦𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘬𝘺𝘢 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴 Beetle wood borings - 𝘏𝘺𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘴 sp. Golden Shield Lichen - 𝘟𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘢 Tripe Fungus - 𝘈𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢

On this #FossilFriday I am curating an enormous collection of harpetid trilobites from the Devonian of Morocco, as figured in the recent ZooTaxa monograph by Robert Johnson. Some absolutely gorgeous material we are very lucky to have acquired. www.mapress.com/zt/article/v...

They are out!

A new phylogeny of extant Priapulida www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Jackdaws getting right in the feeder this morning. Move aside House Sparrows!

Here’s a dragonfly wing from the Purbeck Group (Tithonian) collected in the 19th century that I curated today. Fantastic preservation of the venation!

We’ve just had our windows replaced and it disturbed this juvenile Noble False Widow (Steatoda nobilis) from hibernation in one of the cracks 😴 A lot of growing to do for her next year!

So much good moss round these parts

Beetle remains from the Middle Jurassic Taynton Limestone of Oxfordshire - bugs from the world of Megalosaurus.

Obsessed with this photo

Hey folks I want to Post More ... I curate fossil (non-cephalopod) molluscs at NHM London - does anyone have any curation or mollusc related questions for me? Any kinds of critters you'd like to see more pics of? I can't guarantee I'll answer everything, but I'll try!

Winter colours in West Berkshire ☺️

Today’s the day! God that was hard work 😂

Had a dream last night a small local museum had this insane stash of scorpion fossils for me. But I only had this middle of Lidl toy camera to image them and the building was flooding because they were tearing the place down to build a theme park. Going to characterise this as an anxiety dream.

I feel like the Triassic and the Devonian (and also the Palaeogene but who cares about that) are the systems on the geological timescale where it is absolutely WIDE OPEN who has the main character energy.

Is there a recent general review of dinosaur systematics/stratigraphy/biogeography etc? Would like to catch up on what has happened since my 2015 undergrad dissertation 😅

A Carboniferous vicissicaudate www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A lovely surprise on Christmas Eve! Over the moon my @palaeontosoc.bsky.social monograph has just been published 🎉🥳🎄 A two year labour of love I began shortly after I started as a curator at the NHM in 2022. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

More palaeoarachnology just in time for Christmas www.app.pan.pl/article/item...

A new addition to the fossil record of Pseudoscorpiones False scorpions (Arachnida, Pseudoscorpiones) from Lower Cretaceous Spanish amber onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Have yourself a merry little Carboniferous. #Art #SciArt #PaleoArt #Inverts

Lovely talk at #PalAss24 from @arthropoda-curator.bsky.social and colleagues on Prearcturus - was this giant arthropod a scorpion with part aquatic mode of life?

What’s the point being in a faraway university town if you don’t check out the botanic garden? ☺️🌿🌵🪴

Can't wait for #PalAss24 to kick off tomorrow! I'll be co-teaching the workshop on fossils and phylogenies in the morning, then speaking in the symposium on extinction in the afternoon 🌳🐚 Fellow attendees, feel free to catch me from the icebreaker onwards, when I will be decidedly more chill 😎😂

My tea at the Weihnachtsmarkt Starter: Chocolate macaroon Second starter: Bockwürst Main: Käsespätzle Afters: Chocolate macaroon Yes. #PalAss24

Well Solnhofen was absolutely cracking - #PalAss24 off to an amazing start!

Love this book 🕷️🕸️🖤

Officially en route! #PalAss24 This will be a conference of firsts for me. First time in Germany, first time presenting not as a student, and strangest of all - I will be taking about a terrestrial animal from the Devonian 😮 Even I didn’t see that coming!

It's Mistletoe season but spare a thought for the insects that rely on it and are found on nothing else. Another insect confined to Mistletoe is Anthocoris visci. This one was found in July on our allotment site in Norwich by @norwichbirder.bsky.social when we met up to look for psyllids.

One of my favourite tasks in my day to day work is tracking down a reference I can’t source a PDF of in our Earth Science library. It just OOZES 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺

For #FossilFriday have you ever considered the scorpion fossil record? This is surprisingly rich, but how we categorize these animals transcends being a hot mess. It's a spicy disaster. My colleague Jason and I wrote a paper on it which came out today: peerj.com/articles/185... ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

Here’s an undescribed Pleistocene isopod preserved in East African gum copal for #FossilFriday!

🦎Threordatoth chasmatos🦎 a new Late Triassic procolophonid in Papers in Palaeontology with @richardjbutler.bsky.social @marcehjones.bsky.social and Nick Fraser showing unique features of the jaw and teeth 🦷🦷https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1605 Reconstruction by @markwitton.bsky.social 1/4 #fossilfriday

Here’s something neat I’ve pondering about recently. Our cast of the holotype of 𝘗𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘢 𝘴𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘪𝘪 (Salter, 1859) - a freshwater stylonurine eurypterid from the Early Devonian on Herefordshire. Can’t seem to find out where the original is though. No mention on the label or in Salter’s paper 🤔

#NatureSpot Photo of the Month November 2024 Our photo of the Month for November is this image of a Symphylid, Scutigerella agg, taken by NatureSpot contributor Peter Smith. Learn more: www.naturespot.org/node/257431 #Myriapoda #Leicester #Leicestershire #Rutland #environment #nature #UKWildlife

Truly astonishing video about our recent paper describing Cambrian trilobites preserved in volcanic ash www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Back in my undergraduate stomping grounds this weekend! Will always love the city of Leicester 🦊

Has anyone else noticed that the grammar and spell checking in MS Word and Outlook is seriously malfunctioning nowadays? I can just intentionally misspell things and it doesn’t even notice and it gives weird random grammar suggestions. Have they implemented some generative AI nonsense by stealth?