This is really interesting. There is evidence for strong natural selection on titin (striated muscle elastic component) in snakes and other Squamata/Toxicofera -- especially in wide-gaped snakes. Which makes sense biomechanically. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A Brandt’s Cormorant rocking that electric blue! #birds #nature #wildlife #photography

#Digitalization: The “Antscan” web platform is the world’s largest digital database of 3D #insect data. It is the result of an international and interdisciplinary cooperation initiated by #KITKarlsruhe and the @oistedu.bsky.social in Japan. www.kit.edu/kit/english/...

"Two charismatic marsupial species that had been thought extinct for 6,000 years are alive in rainforest in remote West Papua." Oh yeah this is super cool as both the pygmy long-fingered possum and ring-tailed glider were previously only known from fossils 🤯🧪🐀 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Even more excited — our paper is featured on the cover of Science Advances! Huge thanks to @alexandrejan.bsky.social who took this incredible photo of a ctenophore (aka comb jelly) and the editors. Here’s the cover 👇 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Result from the Koobi Fora #paleostream! This region on the east side of modern day Lake Turkana in Kenya is a treasure trove for fossils of the early Pleistocene and is most famous for many early human remains, with up to 6 species present throughout the layers...

✨ Starting a new postdoc ✨ I will study decision-making in great tits with @mothprof.bsky.social at the University of Amsterdam, conducting fieldwork with @jmappes.bsky.social in Finland. Very excited about this new adventure! 🤩

I’m excited to share a new project that I hope will be a valuable resource for the paleo community! I'm working on a textbook about plesiosaurs and compiled a comprehensive overview of all currently valid plesiosaur taxa and some nomina dubia. 1/3 www.sachspal.de/plesiosauria/ #FossilFriday

Just saw the incredibly sad news that Hans-Dieter Sues has passed away. Beyond his major contributions to paleontology, in all my interactions with him over the years, he was a stellar human being. He took great joy in life and in being a paleontologist. I learned so much from him.

#Postdoc #Job opportunity in #AnimalBehaviour with Jorg Massen at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social. Check out the position here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

We just don't end papers like this any more. Maybe the world would be better if we did? ⚒️🧪

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!

Here’s a selection of some incredible prehistoric beaked whales you’ve never heard of! #paleoart

1/3 It seems that otters outperform chimpanzees in a well-known anticipation task. This test uses a Y-shaped tube and is renowned for demonstrating the ability to predict an uncertain future with mutually exclusive possibilities (preprint) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... by @sharinade.bsky.social

Cool investigation of hyaluronan - a substance that has led to much discussion in our lab over the years - & skin biomechanics in subterranean & surface dwelling species 👇

Do subterranean mammals have hyper-elastic skin thanks to super-sized hyaluronan (HA) polymers? We challenge this popular idea in a new preprint, presenting the first skin elasticity measurements of burrowing rodents & HA size profiles for Ansell’s mole-rat (1/8) 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🧪🦣 New paper shows that cave lions were widespread in NE Asia during the Upper Pleistocene, and re-identifies large fossil felids in Japan as lion, not tiger 🐅 ➡️ 🦁 www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

How do we know our research results are REAL? We replicate them! Most folks agree but lament on how hard it is to publish these replications. My dearest gentle reader, lament no more! Delighted to unveil: Replication Studies, a new section of Behavioral Ecology 1/ academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

Important new histological data on vibrissae development in a fascinating small cetacean, the Franciscana. 🧪 doi.org/10.1111/1749...

Another #DAWNDINOS paper submitted! A deep dive into locomotor function and biomechanics in the awesome Late Triassic "rauisuchian" Postosuchus.

Prefabricated elephant slide, (1960s), Dresden, German Democratic Republic r/brutalism

FYI if anyone out there is interested, I’m happy to deliver this talk elsewhere via Zoom or in person #birds

This is a beautiful case of how real science happens & serious scientists work. Kudos to both set of authors: “This has been a humbling experience, but one that speaks to the self-correcting nature of the scientific endeavor.” www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Imagination in bonobos! I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko

#ProtistsOnSky no 'swimming' by 𝘝𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘺𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢, definitively no 'staying still'. just a relaxed walk towards the lunch...

2026. Aging populations threaten conservation goals of zoos | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Me: Unsuspectingly scrolling my timeline Some Australian: Wanna see some POWERFUL OWLS?!

Result from the Joggins Formation #paleostream! This Canadian site is an absolute classic and even if you are not familiar with its name you probably know at least one of its major players...

#Cenozoicrewind2025 Last but not least, meet Flandriacetus gijseni! #paleoart #vectorart #beakedwhale

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is amazing, but y'all should know that it employs about 200 people to make those resources happen. Serving detailed biodiversity information takes significant resources, on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year.

Charley Harper, "Darwin's Finches", from "The Giant Golden Book of Biology", 1961

MAJOR NEWS! We just launched an awesome new tool! The illustrated Birds of the World Phylogeny Explorer lets users trace any bird’s lineage, compare species relationships, and explore major evolutionary milestones with a click of a button. SHARE and EXPLORE! birdsoftheworld.org/bow/news/phy...

🚨NEW PAPER 🚨 #Caecilians maintain a functional long-wavelength-sensitive cone opsin gene despite signatures of relaxed selection and more than 200 million years of fossoriality, published in Evolution @sse-evolution.bsky.social academic.oup.com/evolut/artic...

Another bit on eye-sight: I've put together a plot on visual acuity in birds and mammals. Interestingly, corvids seem to have acuity that is a lot better than expected for their eye size/passerines in general. Is anyone aware of structural peculiarities of corvid eyes that might explain that? 🧪🪶

#cenozoicpaleo2025 Meet Itaboraitemnus macrodon! #paleoart #sciart #toxodon

NEW BOOK I’m thrilled to announce the upcoming publication of my first book "Die Welt der Plesiosaurier" (The World of Plesiosaurs), written by Achim Schwermann and myself and beautifully illustrated by @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social. 1/6 #Fossilfriday #palaeontology

wait so birds don't have a blue field entoptic effect at all? we just stare at the sky and see snow for reasons of evolutionary happenstance?

Birds have a thick retina devoid of blood vessels - so how do they ensure sufficient oxygen availability? They don't - neurons rely on glycolysis, metabolizing glucose released from the pecten. Insane new study that includes comparative data on lizards and crocs.🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

New paper presenting rather compelling evidence that the stem-vertebrate Haikouichthys had paired lateral and supranumerary medial eyes (!!!), and proposing that the medial eyes may have deep homology with the pineal and parapineal organs. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Paranthropus in the Afar, pretty neat find! 🏺🧪

Today (Jan 21st) is the day... TWO DECADES of Tetrapod Zoology. We start with a review of what went down in 2025... it was quite a busy year. Huge thanks to everyone who visits, reads and leaves comments at Tet Zoo, and especially those who assist with efforts. tetzoo.com/blog/2026/1/...

Two more amazing Triassic reptiles. In this case from the Late Triassic Keuper Group of Europe. The huge phytosaur Nicrosaurus kapfii and one of the earliest plesiosaurs, Rhaeticosaurus mertensi Part of my book of Triassic Tetrapods (currently in preparation) #paleoart #sciart #reptiles

Might be that learning to use tools individually needs nothing more than shared associative processes. But transmitting tool use socially across a pop requires a correlation between widespread tool availability and social learning opportunities, which is likely rare. m.youtube.com/watch?v=mDnt...

What the study about the Austrian cow (and many other works) nicely illustrates: Spontaneous innovation of tooling likely is taxonomically widespread - such cases will be discovered again and again. But then, why are they still so rare and why is habitual population-level tooling so exceptional?

Bramiscus micros- newly discovered early giraffid from the Pakistan. The whole skull of the animal has not yet been found and there is an opinion that it could have had four ossicones, but I still focused on the two existing frontal horns, slightly indicating the theoretical rear ones.

🧪🦣 Related, I'd love to hear people's opinions on current evidence of significant sex dimorphism or not for H. ergaster/erectus. In my reading it's trending back towards "probably, but not as much as gorillas"? #HumanOrigins #Palaeoanth

Bone histology of phorusrhacids (terror birds) indicates rapid, uninterrupted growth (typical of most modern birds but unlike flightless paleognaths such as ostriches and kiwi): anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... 🪶🧪 (📷Dreyer et al.)