OH WOW! A whole web page DEVOTED to SPONGE SPICULE Imagery ! #porifera #spongeThursday www.spicules.org

These things lived on the deep sea bed. So I tried to make it look like the critter was being viewed by a deep sea rover, while also showing the sediment cross section so we can see the hold fast. #SciArt

On the first day of Christmas (in about 2014), @duckswabber.bsky.social gave to me - a partridge in a pear tree. Happy Christmas everyone!

On the 3rd day of fossils, my true love gave to me... 3 cyclocystoids! I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of a cyclocystoid. They are one of the rarest fossil echinoderms and related to starfish and sea urchins. They are small and fall apart quickly after death. 1/x #12DaysofFossils

Such an amazing set of exciting fossils from Sirius Passet. Excited to read all about them in more detail when published! 🪱

Really enjoyed my first @thepalass.bsky.social annual meeting! Thank you to all the lovely people that I met for making it a great time. I'm delighted to have been awarded a poster prize for my work on annelid locomotion. Congratulations to the other prize winners, including @lej-palaeo.bsky.social!

Thank you @thepalass.bsky.social for a great conference and awarding me a prize for my poster on the results of the first chapter of my PhD! And congrats to @harrysavage.bsky.social and the other three recipients of poster prizes for their amazing work #PalAss25

Will AI replace palaeontologists? Can we use AI to find, classify, and interpret fossils? 🤖🦖🐚 New episode of @thefossilfiles.bsky.social looks at just that for #FossilFriday

Lophophorata is monophyletic! Super excited to see this work out in Current Biology - we sequenced a phoronid genome and used shared chromosome fusions to confirm the monophyly of Lophophorata. A big team effort from the Luo Lab @yjluo.bsky.social! More here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1m3mV3QW8S...

Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Perhaps the best find from Japan so far - sakebambaspis!

🚨 Time for a #FossilFriday round up: our selection of some recent research highlights. THREAD

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

New in Trends in Ecology & Evolution: 'Earth system engineers' and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time 🔓 #ecoevo #openaccess www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... A thread 🧵:

In this week's episode of @thefossilfiles.bsky.social, I complete loose control I think you can even pinpoint the exact moment that @tweetisaurus.bsky.social makes me laugh so hard that I burp. Tune in for 🦕🌔🐝 www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JI4...

Kimmig, J., Nanglu, K., & Jamison, P. G. (2025). A problematic soft-bodied fossil from the Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) of Utah. Geological Magazine, 162, e37. doi.org/10.1017/S001...

Hybridization and introgression are major evolutionary processes. Since the 1940s, the prevailing view has been that they shape plants far more than animals. In our new study (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... ), we find the opposite: animals exchange genes more, and for longer, than plants

Creative use of autocorrelation in analyzing trace fossils in the Ediacaran-Cambrian explosion: "..lack of temporal correlation in the studied Ediacaran trajectories and its presence in...Cambrian trajectories, indicating time-tuned behaviours.." arxiv.org/pdf/2509.02940 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

🚨 Bonus mini-episode released today! Where do Squid come from? Susie and Rob discuss squid origins and the use of digital techniques a new paper from Imegami et al Available on Spotify, YouTube and all the usual places. Links in our bio

A new food supplement, designed to provide essential compounds found in plant pollen, could help tackle the devastating decline in honeybees 🐝 This cost-effective and sustainable solution enhances resilience without depleting natural floral resources w/ @rbgkew.bsky.social & more 👇 bit.ly/3JvRYyh

Delighted to share the peer-reviewed version of our study led by @tomlewin.bsky.social now out in Genome Biology @bmc.springernature.com! We analyzed 64 chromosome-level genomes across 15 animal phyla and found that extensive genome rearrangements are the norm in bilaterians. doi.org/10.1186/s130...

The origin of vertebrates gets a shake up as one of the first fossils of vertebrate skeleton turns out to be an invertebrate. Latest episode of @thefossilfiles.bsky.social out now, where ever you get your podcasts

A #MolluskMonday metaphor for the 21st century, in five shells. 🧪⚒️🐌 The shells are vermetid gastropods, sedentary filter feeders characterized by loosening whorls that become progressively unwound, exploring regions of Raup's theoretical mollusk morphospace no snail explored before.

OH WOW. Never seen this polychaete before- Acrocirrus validus! QUITE the mover and shaker! #wormwednesday youtu.be/HEziSG7EerI?...

Our new is episode out today! In it Susie and Rob discuss the origins of pterosaurs and how environmental changes influenced their evolution. Available now from Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts open.spotify.com/episode/32rP...

Funded PhD claxon!! Bill Sellers at University of Manchester is advertising a fully-funded PhD position on the evolution of quadrupedal gaits. Exact focus is open and *could* include fossils. Deets here: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Mesquite 4.0 released! A major update — many new features, small and large (phylogenomics, visualizations, workflow management, &c). Check out the trailer video: www.mesquiteproject.org. Come discuss in our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-project). @bembidion.bsky.social ‬🧪 #evolbio

Delighted to share our paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social iology.bsky.social‬ with a palaeo-evo-devo perspective on the evolution of symmetry in echinoderms. Led by Steffi Woodgate with Frankie Dunn, @echinerd.bsky.social, @laurentformery.bsky.social & Sam Zamora www.cell.com/current-biol...-5

Hello! We’re a new podcast from @fossilrob.bsky.social & @tweetisaurus.bsky.social for anyone interested in the world of palaeontology! Every episode we have fun discussing & exploring recently published research Listen on the website fossils.libsyn.com, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

A new paper in Nature Ecol & Evol by @rosafernandez.bsky.social et al. shows a #punctuated burst of genome evolution in #annelids as they transitioned from marine to land and freshwater habitats.

Another 🚨Paper alert🚨 Everything you ever wanted to know about colony development in graptolithine pterobranchs 🪸 Still much to uncover, but this sums up what we know so far. Enjoy, it is open access 😜 doi.org/10.1111/ede....

A nice find from the beach this evening - a lovely shell I didn't recognise (common piddock?) with an encrusting bryozoan colony on the external and internal surface.

If you’re looking for something fun to listen to then this is an excellent palaeo podcast to dive in to!

For #FossilFriday meet a fossil worm. Kenostrychus is a bristle worm that lived 425 million years ago, and was preserved in three dimensions in volcanic ash. What you see below is a 3D reconstruction created by grinding it away, photographing it, and creating a 3D computer model. ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

New paper! 🧪 Phylogeny and macroevolution of a “dead clade walking”: a systematic revision of the Paragaricocrinidae (Crinoidea)

Why does this billion year old #acritarch fragment look like an ancient cuneiform scroll!? Object about 150 microns wide #geology #paleontology 🧪⚒️

Mesquite 4 beta released! Many new features, esp. phylogenomic. Check out the trailer and longer video on the home page: www.mesquiteproject.org, and use the download link there to get a copy. Feedback welcome! Ask and discuss on our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p...).

"Your boss may fire you, your dog may bite you, your wife may leave you (and probably will), but the joy and fascination of crinoids will not let you down." - Harrell L. Strimple, 1980

Okay. I've calmed down a bit and can now proof read. Aidan just got the World Record for Megaminx the twelve sided "cube". He's worked so hard for this. Immensely proud. Happy weekend. #SpeedCubing youtu.be/zuHohBhaXZ0?...

Happy International Museum Day! Today we'd like to celebrate by announcing that thanks to the generous support of Biffa Award we will be opening 12 new displays in 2026! Coming soon, so keep watching this space!

A review of the key methods which helped to progress the paleontology. The figure is rather handy, and can be used in introductory lectures. www.researchgate.net/profile/Pasq... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

If you happen to see a friend across the street, odds are you might raise an arm and wiggle your hand to say hello. Cuttlefish apparently do something similar—and that’s not the only arm gesture they use to communicate. Learn more: scim.ag/4j5nmQv

Brilliant #paleoart #paleoanimation!! There is far more to paleontology than charismatic terrestrial vertebrates! youtu.be/rVHPlJZ9Y-E?...

Does technology recapitulate biological evolution? The rise of information technology provides a unique framework to answer this question. Check this @royalsocietypublishing.org paper by @svalver.bsky.social @nilese.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

Latest video is on niche differentiation and waterfowl. Why surface feeding and diving ducks look and fly differently, why pintail look elegant, why gadwall are mean to coot, why shoveler feed together and how pochard and tufted diets differ completely. youtu.be/-Aymrp9mr4E?...

Me teaching CT segmentation: always save your work bc the software crashes all the time!!!!! Me segmenting: doesn’t save and loses two hours of work bc the software crashed 🥴🥴😭

This artwork is a reconstruction of the Burgess Shale concilitergan Helmetia expansa by Marianne Collins 🖌️ 📝Losso et al. describe new insights into the internal anatomy, moulting and phylogeny of Conciliterga in their paper: doi.org/10.1080/1477...

An undescribed but VERY photogenic phrynocrinid stalked crinoid, about 1017 m #Okeanos #saveNOAA #echinoday Valdoor seamount

The last bit of Frankie Dunn's PhD is finally published! @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nobody wants to fund my de-extinction project to bring back the animals that provided color to the world, the dyer wolves