You don't need a brain to appreciate a good night of sleep! New research revealed that jellyfish and sea anemones sleep for around 8 hours a day—the same amount as humans—and even get groggy! 🪼 Latest for @science.org with a great edit from @david-grimm.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

In 2012, Patrick Keating and his dog, Kitty, teamed up to make an incredible fossil discovery on a Nova Scotia beach on the Northumberland Strait. What they found in rocks along the shore was the rib cage, backbone and partial sail of a sail-back amphibian – the first ever discovered here.

Celebrating the first #FossilFriday of 2026 by revisiting an old Smithsonian display focusing on a diverse array of rudists, bizarre bivalve mollusks that bit the big one at the end of the Cretaceous. Well, probably. Ammonites might've lingered around for the after-party, so who knows? ⚒️🧪🦪

Starting the new year by looking back at the top ten discoveries of 2025 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History featuring new pterosaurs, manta rays, dog domestication and much more! www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/nation...

A festive #FossilFriday from the Cincinnati airport, one of the few (only?) places where you can eat Skyline chili amongst ice age megafauna!

Thousands of years ago, giant owls chowed down (and threw up) in a Caribbean cave. The bones they left behind were a boon to bees. Scientists recently discovered that one species made nests in the empty tooth sockets of rodent skulls. 🦉🦴🐝 Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/s...

I love hearing about fossils that hold more than meets the eye, especially when they hint at how different species interacted millions of years ago! In this article by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social, scientists found fossil evidence that ancient bees nested in tooth cavities of dead rodents' skulls 🧪🐝💀

A Distinguished Dome: Yesterday the Smithsonian announced the acquisition of one of the most complete Pachycephalosaurus skull ever discovered! Read more about what museum scientists have in store for this spectacular specimen at the link below! #FossilFriday www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/nation...

Say hello to Salwasiren qatarensis, a diminutive dugong relative discovered in Qatar's remarkable Al Maszhabiya that dates back to the Early Miocene! The site's fossils show that sea cows have been doing their thing in the Arabian Gulf for more than 20 million years! www.si.edu/newsdesk/rel...

This past summer, I was lucky enough to see (and hold!) parts of Zuul’s skull in the collection of the @romtoronto.bsky.social One of the most remarkable fossils I’ve ever seen!! Can’t wait to see Zuul in its new digs in the museum’s new dinosaur hall, opening today! #FossilFriday

Few critters would dare eat a northern giant hornet, whose mammoth stinger and potent venom earn the insect the "murder hornet" moniker. But to a Japanese pond frog, these deadly insects are tasty treats! 🐸vs🐝 [videos in link below!] Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/s...

Before we all gather around the turkey tomorrow, another showy landfowl deserves some attention: the golden pheasant. New research reveals that the flashy feathers of these avian showmen come at a cost: they can hardly see! 🦃 👀 Latest for the @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s...

Watch superstretchy bloodworms turn themselves inside out - @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

A mammoth-sized discovery for #FossilFriday! 🦣 Researchers extracted the world's oldest RNA from Yuka, a 39,000-year-old juvenile mammoth mummy from Siberia! Very excited to write this up for @nationalgeographic.bsky.social: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

An early Triassic bone bed excavated at 78°N changes the story about how marine life recovered after the most cataclysmic extinction in Earth history ~252 million years ago. Learn more in this week's issue of Science: https://scim.ag/48bLsGI

110 million years ago, a spinosaur's dinner got the best of it. Turns out the dino's fossilized vomit contained a new species of filter-feeding pterosaur! I came across this paper a few days ago on social media and had a blast covering it for @science.org: www.science.org/content/arti...

Part of the reason why it was so cool to cover the news yesterday (beyond the #Nanotyrannus of it all) was that I saw the Dueling Dinosaurs @ncmns.bsky.social last summer! What a remarkable specimen and I can’t wait to hear about the discoveries to come! #FossilFriday

Dino Debate Solved? A new paper presents compelling evidence of the existence of Nanotyrannus! An analysis of the "Dueling Dinosaurs" fossil reveals that the tyrannosaur skeleton entombed alongside a Triceratops was a full grown predator! My latest for @science.org: www.science.org/content/arti...

Ceratogaulus (or Epigaulus) hatcheri, on display at the Smithsonian sometime after 1910. This is the holotype, collected by JB Hatcher in 1885. While this little dude is sadly no longer on display, it does feature in one of the Julius Csotonyi's murals that are now in the same hall.

Wyoming's famed dinosaur "mummy zone" has yielded two more remarkable Edmontosaurus mummies! In a new paper, scientists describe the microbe-led process that delicately preserved these dinosaurs' scaly hides and hooves in clay. Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/s...

The Chicago Rat Hole, aka "Splatatouille," sparked a social media sensation in 2024. But new research reveals another rodent left the infamous indent! 🐀 🕳 🐿 As a native of the Chicagoland area, my latest @nytimes.com story is very near and dear to my heart! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/s...

The Peale mastodon at the National Portrait Gallery in 2021. It’s the 1st mounted fossil skeleton displayed in the US (1805), and 2nd worldwide. Its original viewers didn’t know about evolution. Even extinction was a new concept. More fossils interpreted as history and art, please! #FossilFriday

New research reveals that the West Coast is likely susceptible to an Earthquake Double Whammy. Had a blast learning about how the Cascadia and San Andreas fault systems are syncing up. Thanks to @andreatweather.bsky.social for sending this one my way!

Snarge is the gift that keeps on giving!

🚨Research alert! A recent study, led by Museum Macaulay Curator Roger Benson, details a new species of Jurassic reptile that has links to the origins of lizards and snakes: amnh.link/46MCY71

437 million years ago in what is now Wisconsin, the earliest known leeches were terrorizing trilobites. Instead of sucking blood, these critters were likely engulfing invertebrates whole or vacuuming out their insides! Latest for @nytimes.com on a fantastic #fossil: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/s...

TIL that Sicily had not one but TWO dwarf elephants during the Pleistocene! Cool new #paleo paper fresh off the presses: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

How did the ostrich cross the ocean? This fossil holds clues! This is the holotype of Lithornis promiscuus at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. This heron-sized bird lived in a swampy floodplain in Paleocene Wyoming. #FossilFriday thread (1/4)

Due to their bizarre dome-like skulls, pachycephalosaurs are among the most famous groups of #dinosaurs. Yet their fossil record is puzzling. A remarkable new fossil from Mongolia is shedding light on the group's beginnings. Latest for @sciam.bsky.social: www.scientificamerican.com/article/olde...

New dome-headed dino just dropped. 🧪 (Very fun story by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social)

🌊 The aquatic resources of the Hawaiian islands Washington, Govt. print. off.[1905]-06. [Source]

Last week I had my mind blown by the tenaculum, a fleshy club-like appendage growing out of a male ghost shark's forehead. The structure is studded with teeth and used to keep females close during mating. Latest for @nytimes.com explores the structure's evolution: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/s...

Anyway this is the single biggest brontothere skull ever found. It may look like a rhino but this is an elephant-sized animal.

After the Age of Dinosaurs is open this week! Here’s a 🧵 about our weird, trippy show about the weird, trippy recovery period after the end-Cretaceous extinction.

The ‘golden’ rule of the deep-sea: if you want to survive near hydrothermal vents, be prepared to fight poison with poison! My latest for @nytimes.com about an incredible worm that uses biomineralization as a detox strategy! www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/s...

Last #FossilFriday I had the pleasure of visiting the @romtoronto.bsky.social and checking out the Dawn of Life gallery! I’ll dig into my favorite individual fossils soon, but the exhibit was a gorgeous mix of science, art and specimens and I loved that it featured specimens from across Canada! 🇨🇦

It is an extraordinary feeling to hold the sum total of physical evidence that a species ever existed. The last known Rodrigues parakeet was killed #OTD 150 years ago today, and here are the only specimens in existence. I wrote about it in @uk.theconversation.com: theconversation.com/the-rodrigue...

You know its good paleoart when it stops you in your tracks mid-scroll!

🦤 A monograph of the genus Casuarius London: Zoological Society of London, 1900 [Source]

Knew something about this was fishy!

A Sandhill Crane was strolling down the boardwalk, much to the displeasure of the Red-winged Blackbirds. Sandhill Cranes will eat Red-winged Blackbirds eggs and nestlings, so the Red-winged Blackbirds were attacking and doing their best to drive the Crane away.

My favorite subgenre of renaissance/baroque art is extremely talented Italian artists depicting animals they’ve never seen before. My personal favorite is the “swamp creature” take on a crocodile in Rome’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, but lower-tusked elephant and iguana rhinoceros are also fun!

Say hello to Florida's newest established species, Typhlonectes natans - the Rio Cauca Caecilian! You can read about their relative abundance, distribution, & natural history, in our brand new paper: journals.ku.edu/reptilesanda... Here is one individual I CT scanned that had 7 babies inside!

Today’s Exhibit of the Day? The Museum’s giant sequoia. How do you fit a 16-ft- (4.9-m-) tree slice through a 12-ft- (3.7-m-) doorway? In 1912, this sequoia slice was cut to fit through the Museum. Visitors today can still spot the seams where it was put back together!

Incredible fossil reveals what happened when a terror birds strolled too close to water's edge and had it's leg was gnawed on by a giant caiman!

A few weeks ago I checked out the stunning paratype specimen of Ouranosaurus, the sail-backed herbivore from Early Cretaceous Africa. The skeleton, which is housed at the Venice Natural History Museum, is a nice reminder of how giant duckbilled #dinosaurs were! #FossilFriday

Meet Mirasaura, a newly described Triassic reptile that sported a sail of feather-like structures that resembled a well-coiffed pompadour. Congrats to @stephanspiekman.bsky.social, @hanssues.bsky.social and the rest of their team on a fascinating discovery! www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/nation...

People have been wary of cantankerous canines for 2,000 years! 🐕 🐶 It was super cool to write about Pompeii's pups two weeks after visiting the ruins on my Birthday! www.history.com/articles/cav...