Like Angela Bassett, I did the thing. I am knackered but yesterday morning I heard a group of 10 children screaming with excitement and suddenly everything was worth it.

Shrimps Shrimps 🦐 #gouache

🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨 We’ve just seen this, by creator “Menapian” - a 4,998-piece set of the Great Exhibition (1851) Crystal Palace - complete with a bonus Megalosaurus and Ichthyosaur… beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Really interesting and excellently executed taphonomic study alert! The authours designed neat insect disarticualtion experiments to better understand preservational patterns of insect found in the Crato Formation, Brazil. 🪰🪳🦟 Very very cool work by Storari et al. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

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🎵 Country roads, take me home To the place I belong, West Bavaria, Solnhofen Plattenkalk, Take me home, country roads 🎶

⚠️ We’re excited to announce our invited speakers for the #PalAss Annual Meeting! 🎉 🔗 Registration link ⬇️ palass.org/annual-meeti... #conference #uk #palaeontology #meeting

LOVE papers about gut contents! Vampyromorph coleoid predation by an ichthyosaurian from the Early Jurassic Lagerstätte of Bascharage, #Luxembourg Valentin Fischer et al peerj.com/articles/197... (Seen thanks to @arctomet.bsky.social!)

"How's the online ad coming?" "Pretty much done" "Great. You knew the names of all the relevant dinosaurs?" "...yeah. Definitely." "Cool. Just go ahead an launch it then"

Very excited to announce that I will be joining the staff at @uniofreading.bsky.social in the new year. Especially looking forward to working alongside Kevin the Ichthyostega and the team at the @colezoology.bsky.social as part of my new role.

Hard to concentrate on a symposium when the person sitting next to you keeps snuffling you for scritches.

🌊🦑 For 500+ million years, #cephalopods have shaped ocean ecosystems as active predators. In our study, we trace body #size fluctuations of cephalopods—from ancient shelled cephalopods to today’s squids & octopuses—using maximum body volume for comparability across groups. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Wholeheartedly agree with Emma. The piece is a really mixed bag: very comprehensive, topical, and timely, but with a selection of experts that I find partially questionable. Call me crazy, but I do think that a piece about the legality of the fossil trade should include legal experts. [cont'd]

Great to see an interrogation of the sources of commercial fossils, especially from Morocco 🦖🇲🇦 But utterly disappointing to see the platforming of people who have repeatedly and openly flouted (inter)national laws. Not a legal (or ethics) expert in sight 🤦‍♀️ [1] edition.cnn.com/2025/08/15/s...

Rare as hen's teeth: an Assistant Curator job, with our fantastic team at National Museums Scotland! Closing date 24th August #museums #museumjobs careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553

The Deep Ones - I’ve been always thinking about a deep sea Cephalopod theme and here it is! Tentacles and appendages are so different when it comes to arranging the composition so it took me a good while, and hopefully it ends up well! 🦑🐙They’re just like from another world💙

🐙💕

More uncertainty for ECRs in terms of NERC IRF. Hard not to feel like an already difficult situation is getting worse and worse in the UK. Not much transparency or a clear timeline here, making it difficult for any form of future planning. Anyone know a rough ETA?

you're not gonna believe this but the hardest part of drawing soft boneless animals is avoiding inappropriate shapes, because oh boy, lots of them look very inappropriate

scallop appreciation! 👁️ tidalfarce.com/index.html?p...

Proud supervisor moment! 🥹🤩 So incredible to watch our undergrad students from the lab shine in front of such a knowledgeable audience at @cpeg-cpb25.bsky.social. They absolutely crushed it and I couldn’t be prouder! @fernandalandim.bsky.social, Anna Clara Annes, Jorge Silva and Gabriela Karam.

Beetles are the most speciose animal order: 25% of described animal species are beetles. Everything has to start somewhere, though, and for #FossilFriday, here is the earliest known 'beetle' - the 297 million year old Coleopsis, found in Freisen (Saarland, Germany). ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

New palaeo-PhD opportunity! Will you be the one to figure out the anatomy and function of fossil jawless fish? Come join the team! Application Deadline August 22nd, funding for UK student only (sorry) www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

ITS COMING HOME! Standing in the 'Big Ben British Pub' in Zurich surrounded by Spanish supporters. What a game. What a shootout. Super proud of the Lionesses. Amazing.

can we start a whale fall art train? any other whale fall freaks out there?

Only 52% of people polled like Stuttgart's music scene.

#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

*Taps the sign again*

hi

While this octopus is a complete vibe, the idea of them having smiley little faces is kinda freaking me out.

A rare job opportunity for Invertebrate Zoology: fieldmuseum.hrmdirect.com/employment/j...

Met the cutest potato...

NERC: We need to open up environmental science! Why is it not diverse? Also NERC: We're scrapping Independent Research Fellowships, New Investigator Grants, Small Grants, are limiting applications from institutions based on past success rates and will only allow you to submit your proposal once.

Another awful decision that is further pulling the ladder up from ECRs. The cumulative hours of wasted time for all applicants, collaborators, and already struggling university administrators will massively outweigh that of the reviewing team, favouring the privileged. Short-sighted and unfair.

Almost a year ago today, our paper describing the exceptionally well preserved Upper Cretaceous fossils of Lebanon was published. Today we found out it was one of the most read papers in the Journal of the Geological Society in June 2025. Great motivation to do more science!

~just to add~ This approach was reproduced by Dr Phil Wilby in 2009 on a Callovian ink sack. The accompanying photoshoot (📸: Phil Yeomans) is iconic.

Did you know that in 18th century Japan people believed that a giant underground catfish called Namazu (鯰) or Ōnamazu (大鯰) caused earthquakes? Although seen as evil, Namazu were also seen as an avenger of social injustice - redistributing wealth and punishing selfish people. Food for thought. 🤔

Do you ever stop and think about how there used to be pterosaurs? A fun new study shows that pterosaurs used to eat plants (they'd been expected to be carnivores) & like modern birds, they had stones in their gullets called gastroliths that help break down plants 🧪 @science.org

The next installment of my Japanese Woodcut art series is "Aji Fish and Kuruma-ebi" by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). This example is part a series called "Uozukushi" which means 'Every Variety of Fish'. 🐟❤️

This is an awesome taphonomic investigation looking at what happens marine reptiles that died, sank rapidly and ploughed head first into sediment - smashed snouts, squished vertebrae, and crushed skulls galore! Really neat methods - highly recommend a read!

The 9 banded armadillo, the state mammal of Texas, is heavy-bodied but has two methods of crossing water. 1. They can hold their breath for 5-6 minutes at a time, and walk along the bottom. 2. They can gulp air to increase buoyancy and swim (dog paddle) for up to an hour. Armored mermaids!

👀 fossilised raindrops! 🌧️ 👀 You can almost smell the petrichor!

Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research. about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...

In an unconscionable decision, the Smithsonian Institute has decided to no longer support the Biodiversity Heritage Library from 1 Jan 2026. Please someone step up and take it over.

One of my favourite #MaryAnning facts™️ is that she would discover fossil cephalopod 🐙 fossils with preserved ink sacks, concoct a dangerous chemical slime to turn them back into gloopy ink, and then use her Jurassic ink to draw exquisite illustrations of the vertebrate fossils she found. Meta.

So @fossilrob.bsky.social & I have a new podcast: The Fossil Files. Each week, we discuss a recently published paper on fossils. It's kind of like journal club, but with only mine and Rob's opinions. You can listen on our website or on Spotify: fossils.libsyn.com or open.spotify.com/show/2jWWagt...

✨ Excited to share our new paper! ✨ Sustained shift in the morphology of organic-walled microfossils over the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition doi.org/10.1098/rsos... @royalsocietypublishing.org @rosspanderson.bsky.social @kelleypaleolab.bsky.social

Very powerful preprint just went live discussing the different forms of colonialism that act on Mexican palaeo research and how the actions of science can result in political instability and violence. Is our fossil research hurting others? egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...

If anyone eligible is willing to come to Brazil for a postdoc in our lab (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships) feel free to reach out! euraxess.ec.europa.eu/worldwide/la...

Super interesting paper outlining the damaging impact of the 'Gollum effect': researchers who restrict access to resources. Very relevant to palaeo work regarding the gatekeeping of collection material and the harm this causes to science. Worth a read! www.cell.com/one-earth/fu...