Finally made it to The Etches Collection on the Isle of Purbeck last week. The huge pliosaur skull was the star of the show for sure; a stunning fossil, beautifully prepped. Also gorgeous fossils of other marine reptiles, pterosaurs, fish and dinosaurs (yay!) #FossilFriday

A bit late for #FossilFriday but a heavily dinoturbated area at Hanover Point #IsleofWight. Some fierce weather here at times but this lone ornithopod dinosaur footcast was here when I first visited the island some 30 years ago.

Happy 100th birthday to Sir David Attenborough, whose ability to communicate the deep fascination and love of natural history, palaeontology and science that many of us feel. A lifelong influence and inspiration for myself and countless others.🎂 www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

ANOTHER JOB!! Research Leader in Economic Geology - come work on our minerals collection! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Barnacle Geese on the fringes of the local Canada gaggle. Beautiful. #birding

First frogspawn of the year seen this morning here at the foot of the Cheshire Peak District. prev at same location: 04.03.25; 29.02.24; 03.03.23; 08.03.22; 12.03.21; 09.03.20.

Just got my hot-off-the-press copy of the new edition of Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, written by @tetzoo.bsky.social and yours truly, with gorgeous new cover art from @bobnichollsart.bsky.social: finally, a sauropodomorph on the cover 🦕🦕🦕 On sale soon!

Ouch. Cool new paper. peerj.com/articles/207...

I've decided to revise and update one of my most important and popular blogposts "How do I become a paleontologist?". I still get asked this every few weeks so having a new version of this post to share is so useful to put people on track. archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/h...

I'm really thrilled to see the "Cromhall Croc" finally getting the attention it deserves! Please welcome Galahadosuchus jonesi, named after Ewan's school science teacher, who inspired his love of the natural world ♥️ anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

After a storm last week the sand stripped from the beach to reveal a 40 cm long iguanodontian dinosaur foot cast originally from the shores of a 120 million year old lagoon (Vectis Formation). #IsleofWight #FossilFriday

Got T. rex on my mind for the first time in a while. Here's an isolated T. rex manual ungual in the wild, found by one of the team whilst prospecting in the Hell Creek, Montana in 2010. #FossilFriday

If cutaneous spikes were widespread in ornithischians, it'd make any ankylosaurs sporting them look even more dramatic. I suspect they were more so than we often depict them (see Spicomellus). Speculative doodle of the head and neck of Polacanthus from a 2015 sketchbook. #ankylosaurs #SciArt

My 2020 book 'Tracking the Golden Isles: The Natural and Human Histories of the Georgia Coast' (@ugapress.bsky.social) is coming out in paperback next month (March 15)! If you missed its debut in May 2020, you can get it now. Preorder at: www.ugapress.org/978082037806... 🧪📚 #Booksky

It's the weekend... and relax.

#FossilFriday The ischium bone on the right from #IsleofWight formed part of the iguanodontian dinosaur pelvis. In 1849 the bone was understandably still something of an enigma and here has been misidentified by Gideon Mantell as a clavicle.

This is one of two 60w daylight simulation bulbs purchased when I was an art student 43 years ago. The first popped in 2021 after 39 years of continuous service, near daily usage. The second incandesced for 4 years until it pinged last night. We shall not see their light again. #SciArt

For #FossilFriday a small #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur tibia in the collections @nhm-london.bsk.social. What makes it special is that it is from the Gideon Mantell collection. The fossil takes me back 125 million years but its history casts me back to the 1820s.

Cool new paper from @peterfalkingham.com and Stephen Gatesy: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Cool new paper alert! Some of our rhabdodontids are not what they seem. Great work on European ceratopsians from @tweetisaurus.bsky.social et al.

The foot of the #IsleofWight iguanodontian dinosaur Comptonatus chasei and a 125 million year old foot cast also from the island. The island provided Richard Owen with the first good evidence for the dinosaur origins of the tracks. #FossilFriday.

This is a delightful article about an event we all are familiar with. The world needs more philosophical mirth. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good to see salmon back in the Mersey, Goyt and Bollin. Here at the foot of the Cheshire Peak District close to the Bollin‘s source, we see dippers, kingfishers, wagtails, trout, egrets etc. The river is not treated kindly as it winds its way join the Mersey. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Great piece on this morning's Today program on Radio 4 about the discovery of the weird and very spiky Jurassic ankylosaur Spicomellus from Morocco, featuring @tweetisaurus.bsky.social, @richardjbutler.bsky.social, @ahmedoussou.bsky.social and @simonwills.bsky.social. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

JOB KLAXON! The @nhm-london.bsky.social is recruiting a micro-CT specialist! jobs.nhm.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

For #FossilFriday & in celebration of all teachers ("K to gray") finishing grades this time of the year, here's me performing a similar task, trying to keep a Late Jurassic sandstone bed with its natural cast of a sauropod track from falling off the outcrop; near Morrison CO (west of Denver). 🧪🦕🐾🪨⚒️

A dinosaur perk was that worn teeth got replaced. A section of the lower jaw of a big iguanodontian from the #IsleofWight shows the process. Tooth replacement was organised in waves known as Zahnreihen, so that large sections of the jaw weren’t left toothless (enlarge to see numbers). #FossilFriday

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

For #FossilFriday a sacrum from a medium sized iguanodontian in the collections of @nhm-london.bsky.social. Found at Sudmoor Point on the #IsleofWight by Reginald Hooley a wine merchant from Southampton who also discovered the fabulous Mantellisaurus in 1914. Iggy sacra are so aesthetic.

I’m a week late but it would be remiss of me not to mark the @nhm-london.bsky.social birthday of Sophie the Stegosaurus #FossilFriday 🎂🎂🎂

Dorsal view of the skull of Pinacosaurus, the specimen is still in its field jacket. Seen at the Dinosaurs of China exhibition in 2017. #FossilFriday

What fresh hell is this illustrae.co?fbclid=IwY2x...

Watched S5 E1 ("The Crawl") of #StrangerThings last night & was thrilled to see gorgeous examples of drill holes made by a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) in the trunk of what's likely a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda); Will Byers (Noah Schnapps) for scale. 🧪🌲🪵🐦🕳️

OK then, I WILL promote my book! 'Tracking the Golden Isles: The Natural and Human Histories of the Georgia Coast' was first published in hardback May 2020 (gee, was anything else happening then?). But a PAPERBACK edition is coming out in March 2026! Preorder here: www.ugapress.org/978082037806... 📚

Just in case my U.S. followers need to track down a turkey for Thanksgiving, here's a helpful guide in a November 2012 blog post by Yours Truly, with insights on the behavioral ecology of wild turkeys on a Georgia-coast barrier island (Cumberland). 🧪🦃🐾 www.georgialifetraces.com/2012/11/20/t...

Snow on the tops this morning here on the edge of the Peak District in Cheshire. #snow

It's the end of the #2025SVP UK dinos field trip. We finished with a visit to Dewars Farm dinosaur track site (muddy), and the Oxford Uni Museum, where we were lucky enough to get a tour of the Buckland archives and collections. Home for sleep...

incredible! a gorgeously preserved skull from tupandactylus imperator has been described, offering new insights into its dietary ecology and soft tissues 😻 www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/6Hv... (art by maurilio oliveira)

Nothing on the news, but the storm that blew through last night was the worst I’ve ever seen. Trees down all across the village, structural damage (lost a soffit), roofs blown off buildings. I collected conkers from this beautiful horse chestnut a few weeks ago. The pool is new too.

For the 85th SVP Meeting 2025, we've assembled a collection of landmark vertebrate palaeontology papers. Next: The phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history of armoured dinosaurs (Ornithischia). Raven 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭. (2023) buff.ly/aEn5huc @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social @tweetisaurus.bsky.social

For #FossilFriday & in honor of @alinemghilardi.bsky.social & colleagues' fantastic discovery of a new Cretaceous pterosaur in Brazil in a dinosaur regurgitalite ("fossil vomit"), here's a diagram I made for my book 'Dinosaurs Without Bones' (2014) showing the physics of a puking brachiosaur. 🧪🦕🤮🪨

Sadly I can't be at #2025SVP, and thanks to all the tweeters for keeping us informed. Here are some 3D meshes of dinosaur skeletons I have created for research and outreach, based on 3D data from photogrammetry, lidar & first-hand observation. I hope to have prints of this available soon! #SciArt

Great article about excellent palaeontologist and my good friend @valdosaurus.bsky.social. www.port.ac.uk/news-events-...

Scenes from the #SVP2025 #2025SVP #paleoart workshop. We had terrific talks from @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social, @tetzoo.bsky.social, @palaeojules.bsky.social and @bobnichollsart.bsky.social, as well as fantastic discussion from attendees. Thanks to everyone who contributed, I hope you all enjoyed it!

A subject close to my heart! If you're at #2025SVP this looks great.

Ready for our #SVP2025 workshop! 🥳

Although #2025SVP officially starts tomorrow, today we have a Triassic field trip to Warwickshire, tours of @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social, workshops run by @markwitton.bsky.social & @graphicssci.bsky.social & our evening Walking With Dinosaurs event chaired by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social!

This is excellent advice for all first time presenters … also, the quality of your talk will not impact your future career - that comes down to your CV & skills overall, not your ability to perform on the platform. So, if you slip up a bit don’t sweat it - most of the audience won’t realise anyway 🤷🏻‍♂️

My students have set up a petition to persuade the University of Nottingham not to close our Plant Biology BSc course c.org/VPhzVVrHPS Please consider signing