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...

New paper! Buffa 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭. (2025) redescribe the anatomy of the enigmatic stem-reptile 𝙂𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙮𝙧𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙨 from the Permian of South Africa and the origin of Neodiapsida 🦎 Phylogenetic analysis of the relationships of Permian reptiles. Read the study here: buff.ly/62lJG0W #FossilFriday #PaleoSky

On the off-chance that you are one of the three people left in the world who hasn't heard me talking about stegosaurs, you can catch me here, on The Ancients podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=I9Vk...

🐸 NEW PAPER OUT! This time it’s all about FROGS and their melanosomes! Falk et al., 2025, iScience: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.114220 #palaeontology #frogs #deeptime

You wait ages for a paper, and two come along (almost) at once! This is the first publication from the project we're currently working on, where we're investigating the relationship between different regions of the avian head. 1/n royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Just a quick heads up for those who intended to use the free scale bars handed out at this year's SVP by #PaleoTools: don't...

What cynic would ever say such a thing? 👀

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...

🦎✨ New research delivers the 1st full 3D anatomical atlases of the veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus)! Open-access atlases + lesson plans offer powerful new tools for studying reptile evolution and teaching comparative anatomy. Leavey et al.: anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The geology department at the University of Leicester, where myself and countless others did our palaeontology PhDs, is at serious risk of closure Please show your support by signing the below! c.org/KtYyZB8dHk

We have a proper picture! Thanks @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and the rest that doesn’t have a BlueSky handle

Spiekman and Ezcurra doing totally normal things in my office... @stephanspiekman.bsky.social

‼️‼️Triassic Life just opened @smnstuttgart.bsky.social‼️‼️ For all #Triassic fans, lovers of strange reptiles and the Dawn of the Modern World, this is an absolute MUST! It also couldn't be more timely with our recent publication @nature.com of the wonder reptile #Mirasaura, which is now on display!

Placodonts are amazing! Exhibit A: Cyamodus orientalis. And no, this is NOT a turtle. This is an illustration for my book (in preparation) You can see this one and another Placodont I reconstructed for my book in a new post exclusive for my patrons Patreon.com/serpenillus 🐡 🎨 🧪 #paleontology 🐍

The Triassic was a time of weird reptiles of every description. This is one of the more recent finds: Mirasaura from France. It's one of the drepanosaurs, an odd group of arboreal reptiles with superficially bird-like heads and, in some cases, equally superficially feather-like appendages.

PhD position available at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin on avialan ontogeny (birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives)! jobs.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/jobposting/e...

News @ Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken (UMO) in Bayreuth: new ichthyosaur, Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis, named today after UMO's prime excavation site, the Jurassic clay pit Mistelgau. @olorotitan.bsky.social beautifully reconstructed the to-be fossil on a belemnite battleground typical for the locality.

Check out the provisional programme for #SVP2025 #2025SVP - the Triassic symposium was so popular they are running it for the entire day! vertpaleo.org/wp-content/u...

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

Meet Spiny Norman, the earliest known and definitely the most outrageously spiky ankylosaur ever discovered, as presented by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & @richardjbutler.bsky.social in @nature.com. Q: how did it mate? A: carefully. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Unusual fossil skin appendage is not a feather. Although large, elongated protrusions on a 247-million-year-old reptile fossil have some similarities to feathers, they are not feathers www.nature.com/articles/d41...

As the icing on a very special cake, our work forms the cover of Nature @nature.com this week, in large part thanks to the amazing reconstruction by @serpenillus.bsky.social!

I’m so excited and proud to have my illustration of Mirasaura in the cover of NATURE! Just wow! Especially happy to do that with such an amazing species and such wonderful research! #paleoart #art

Out today, our Nature cover debut! @stephanspiekman.bsky.social @she-paleo.bsky.social @nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com

A paper in Nature describes a Triassic reptile with a crest of appendages on its back, which are neither feathers nor skin. The findings demonstrate that feathers or hair-like protrusions are not unique to birds and mammals. go.nature.com/4nZCySR #Paleosky 🧪

BIG Congratulations to @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and colleagues for a once in a lifetime publication and thank sooo very much for confiding in me to illustrate this magnificent animal. Here is the link to the Nature paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09167-9

Here's a newly uncovered fossil that's an evolutionary puzzle. Its plume is not made of feathers. But it's feather-ish. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/40UUlAP

What a spectacular new specimen - huge congratulations to @stephanspiekman.bsky.social on an excellent paper with great accompanying art!

What has a bird-like skull, a lizard-like body and a clawed tail? It's a drepanosaur! New research has revealed another odd thing about these bizarre Triassic reptiles: a feather-like structure that's nothing to do with birds! Find out all about it for #FossilFriday 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Sie und Ihr Team, lb. Herr Spiekmann. Die fesche Mirasaura hat es dann gestern ja sogar in die 20:15-Tagesschau geschafft, heute in die Süddeutsche www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/miras...

The feature of the Smithsonian on Mirasaura is here www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-...

Check out @stephanspiekman.bsky.social's thread to learn more about #Mirasaura!

Also, a further congratulations and thanks to @stephanspiekman.bsky.social for his work on Mirasaura, and for taking the time to chat with me for the NatGeo piece!

This whole thread is so cool… I’m constantly blown away by what evolution has come up with. Also, one more lecture for Vert Biodiversity this fall that I’m going to have to redo!

It is finally out! Welcome the new Triassic weirdo, the drepanosaur Mirasaura! Hunge congrats to all my colleagues here at the SMNS and beyond! 🤩

Mirasaura has met with great interest. We have compiled a few articles and reports here! The German main news program Tagesschau visited @stephanspiekman.bsky.social in the museum: www.tagesschau.de/wissen/forsc...

Meet this marvelous fossil reptile from the Triassic that is challenging our current understanding of skin evolution! @stephanspiekman.bsky.social @orlabe.bsky.social what an amazing journey and discovery!! What a great team! 🥳 @nature.com #softtissues #triassic #reptiles

#Mirasaura brought me home to #Ireland during this work, where I could show my 92-year-old grandad these exceptionally preserved fossils. To which he replied, "It's just wonderful to see something older than me and age so well" He couldn't be more right. ☘️ #FossilPreservation @nature.com

🚨 So excited to finally share an incredible discovery from the #Triassic, Grès à Voltzia! Our international team, led by @stephanspiekman.bsky.social and published today in @nature.com, reveals a new reptile, #Mirasaura grauvogeli, donning an elaborate crest 🦎🔬✨ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Triassic just got *even weirder*... My buddy @stephanspiekman.bsky.social has just unveiled this new Triassic reptile with feather-like structures sticking up from its back.. super-cool, and in Nature 🩷 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Proud to make my National Geographic debut with this incredible discovery! Meet Mirasaura, an extremely weird little guy with independently-evolved "feathers" that solves a longstanding Triassic mystery and makes one of the period's oddest families even stranger. (Now with a fixed link!)

Here it is! Please welcome the AMAZING Mirasaura grauvogeli, a NEW MARVELOUS Drepanosaur published in NATURE today! This astonishing reptile lived during the Middle Triassic in Europe and it possessed an amazing crest made of plume-like structures! I was commissioned to bring it to life #paleoart

It has been an incredible honor to work with you and all the team on such an incredible fossil! It was a dream come true 🤩

I am proud and grateful to present a dream project today in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Meet #Mirasaura grauvogeli, a #wonderreptilewith skin appendages that rival feathers and hairs, challenging our view of reptile #evolution🪶🦎

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OMG I just got the heads up that later this week a really COOL paper will come out about an AMAZING NEW SPECIES I did an illustration for it and I am SUPER excited for you to see it!

Very grateful to have gotten this award for work that I conducted during my time at the NHM working (mostly) on Triassic crocs🐊! Thanks a lot to @richardjbutler.bsky.social and especially @tweetisaurus.bsky.social for their guidance on the project and for making my UK postdoc such a blast!

Having an absolutely wonderful time at #IVPP in Beijing, studying old and new fossil friends alike, including possibly the world's coolest jigsaw puzzle #Dinocephalosaurus #RealChineseDragon🐉🐉🐉🐉 #Tanysauria, together with Wang Wei, Adam Rytel, and Nick Fraser!

Our #Triassic #Reaserch Team* published a review of all terrestrial #tetrapod occurrences from the Triassic period in the Central European Basin (nowadays Germany, Austria, Poland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, NE France, SE England). doi.org/10.1016/j.ea... (1/3) #science #forschungsmuseum

Do museums make your heart sing? Do you love paleontology/palaeontology? Are you an amazing 3D-sculptor? 3x YES to the above? Apply to come work with us on the prototype of a unique installation here in Zurich! The call is open until 31st of March 🌿🦕🐌🪲 #SciArt #3dmodelling #3dmodeling